Covers Uncovered

     I missed doing my monthly post by one day thanks to having two contracts for new books come in  on the same week and edits for those books at two different presses arriving on the same day. It's a good problem to have, but I've done little but edits for two weeks. Lady Flora's Rescue, an 18th century romp, will be out in January or sooner.  No date set for the latest Sinners book, The Heart of a Sinner. Neither have covers as yet.Which brings me to this month's topic, Covers Uncovered.
     I have a "friend" who constantly corners me at social events and introduces me as Lynn, who writes those dirty books with naked men on the cover. Please note, she has never read even one of my books, but simply judges them by their covers--none of which have a naked man. At a library event, I marched to the stacks, pulled one of my books, the 1920's historical, Queen of the Mardi Gras  Ball, and placed it in her hands. Great story with low sexual content, I told her. The cover has a Flapper wearing a red dress. She told me she only read murder mysteries. I countered that by saying there was a murder in the book. Did she read it? Nope, took it to the desk and returned it. Tired of all this, when she started her dubious introductions again, I told her companion, "Don't listen to her. She's never read one of my books and has no idea what they are about."  Repeated several times, she finally stopped her salacious introductions.
     Currently, I have twenty-three books in print. I decided to count up what kind of covers I've been given--authors have less to say about this than you think unless they are self-published and design their own. The tally came to this: 3 shirtless men, 6 sexy guys with all their clothes on, 3 couples, clothed, 7 women, clothed, 3 with miscellaneous items (flowers, a necklace, etc.), and 1 horse. Though I hate to admit it, the sexy guys covers do sell the best except in my conservative home area where readers always go for the flapper, the necklace, or the horse. I you are writing romance, go for the sexy guy.
     When I received the cover for A Place Apart which takes place in coastal Maine and features a wounded warrior with PTSD, the cover artist presented me with a man in a red hunting cap staring into the woods. I did protest: 1. no man with PTSD is going to call attention to himself by wearing a red cap and 2. the scene is the coast of Maine, not the deep woods. She said she'd checked recent best-sellers' covers and concluded the solitary man worked best.  Yes, in the proper setting. I dove in and found a better stock photo to use which she accepted cheerfully (some don't), and she photo-shopped the wonderful Portuguese water dog who plays a major role in the story to sit by his side. Between the two of us, we got it right. A Place Apart is selling very nicely, though I think it might be because of the dog.
     Another publisher recently sent out a notice that they'd been getting criticized for "old-fashioned" covers. I'm not sure what that means, but we aren't to have as much input is my guess. Personally, I hate dark colors and always go for bright if I get a choice. On the cover of Sister of a Sinner, I did get the dress changed from black to red, much more eye-catching.I prefer to work with cover artists who give me choices and don't get snitty over a requested change. In one case, the artist did a wonderful cover first time out, but her second for me did not hit the mark, not even close. First one, the hero looked evil, second try, way too young, finally compromised on another on the third try, still not my favorite cover by far. I also got a lecture that she was paid with a small percentage of my sales and since I was a nobody that wouldn't come to much. Needless to say, we haven't worked together since.
     So, I await my two new covers. Obviously, one will be new-fashioned. No idea what the other will be like as that publisher seems to switch the cover artists fairly often.  We'll just have to wait and see. I'll post them when I get them.

My Worst Sellers--and Why

     Most authors love to brag about hitting a bestseller's list of any kind at all. I once made it to the top of the free-giveaways in romance on Amazon with Trashy Affair, not exactly a great triumph. Few of us want to talk about our failures though we analyze them endlessly and swear never to do that again! I will say that in every book I write I strive to create wonderful characters and interesting plots. I have never "phoned" one in as some well-know authors do knowing the public will buy anything they put out. I can't afford to disappoint, but sometimes despite my best efforts, I do.
     First, I have learned the hard way that covers with a single women on them don't sell nearly as well as those with studly guys. My books have sex scenes, but aren't particularly steamy so I prefer less explicit covers--but my worst sellers have lone women or discrete flowers on them. This applies to Will of her Own, Always Yellow Roses, A Wild Red Rose, and The Courville Rose. Might as well reveal my worst sellers now.
     Choice of characters also plays a part.  Few like the bad girl turned good because it takes a while for her to become likable, example Wild Red Rose. The kick-ass heroine is very in. Not many want to watch a naive young woman grow up and gain strength as in Will of her Own. Loosely based on my my college years and wanderings after that with a self-centered first husband who was not a rock musician like the one in the book, this is women's fiction, girl growing up if you want to call it that, not romance, and maybe a little too real. There is humor though of a dark variety and a happy ending, but that does not suffice. More than one reader has said they will stick to my Sinners football romances.
      Plot can also cause a crash and burn. Reincarnation doesn't seem to be popular right now.. In Courville Rose, a ghost condemned to haunt her ancestral home forever because she committed suicide when her fiance dies in the Civil War (she wasn't very stable to begin with), notices the souls of people she knew being returned to earth in modern times. She vows to seize a new body and drive the other soul out so that she can search for her lost love in hopes that he has come back, too. However, the only soul she deems weak enough to take over, turns out to be a fighter and refuses to leave. So, she must share the body of the child, grow up again, and try to convince her host to marry the man she wants, not the choice of the girl. Maybe it is the time spent in childhood that harms this book. It's only gotten two reviews, both favorable, so I don't know. Usually if someone hates my books they say straight out why, but few have purchased or read this one.
      My worst failure, ranked at 5,938,618 among Amazon's millions of titles as compared to Trashy Affair at 106,000 (if you don't think that is good, let me tell you it is) is Always Yellow Roses, a family saga that starts in Louisiana in the 1830's, goes up to the Civil War, then in the second half switches to the 1980's when a teenage girl meets a guy she is sure is her reincarnated lover from the past--and proves it, more or less. The book contains lots of strong and persistent women, but perhaps Noreen is too young when she comes into the tale as a teenager. She, too, grows to adulthood and gains her HEA, but I am thinking her youth and the reincarnation theme, and maybe even the Civil War killed this one. I don't know. Personally, I love it. Or it could be when the first of the Roses series came out (The Convent Rose), a short, light-hearted romance, it was immediately within hours of release attacked by a troll who couldn't even get the name of the hero right, garbled, and revealed the plot so that series never thrived. The ugly review is still there, the longest one of course, and despite the several good reviews, readers see this one first as it is the only negative one.
     Then, we come An Ashy Affair,which I talked about in Writing Disasters. It should have been a hit being a companion piece to Trashy Affair, having a sexy guy cover, a good and complex plot with a mystery subplot and well-developed adult characters, plus the HEA, but defective early reviews copies containing only 122 of the 364 page book drew so many ugly reviews about how incomplete and plotless it seemed, I don't know how to stop the flood. Evidently many Net Galley reviewers downloaded it and the ugly continues to flow. I contacted every one and informed they should ask for the complete book.Only one responded and raised the rating from two stars to four. Another said she knew it was defective but was just going to judge the entire book on the first 122 pages because that's what she has. Terrible review followed of course. With that attitude, no wonder. Destroys my faith in Net Galley for sure. Not their fault, but the publishers for sending out the bad copies, but what kind of reviewers do they attract? And to think I had to pay for their opinions!
     Well, enough crying in my wine. I wish I had some right now. The Sinners series still rules in my ratings, seven titles in all with the eighth, Sister of a Sinner, coming out in the spring. Another rule I've learned is just keep writing your most successful series. It is what your readers want no matter how much you want to spread your author's wings and fly in other directions.

Headless Torsos

No, I do not write gruesome suspense novels, only light contemporaries and historicals, rarely gory. Recently, I participated in a discussion on another blog about the tendency for romance covers to feature only the torso of a deliciously muscular male, always shirtless and headless, usually legless, too. In fact, both my sports novels, Goals for a Sinner and Wish for a Sinner, have such in your face, eye-attracting covers. I admit, the first one shocked me as I considered my story to be light and funny, not hot and heavy. A meek protest to the publisher resulted in the standard reply, "Honey, this is what sells." Of course, the second cover was pretty much the same, and I guess when Kicks for a Sinner comes out it will feature a beautiful headless torso,too, or maybe just a pair of really great male legs.

I've learned to live with my covers by joking about them, telling folks that is my much younger husband and such. I do worry that readers seeking a really hot read will be disappointed, though there are certainly some sex scenes when the plot calls for them. I am also concerned that women who might enjoy the story are too embarrassed to pick up the book. A supportive cousin who works at a library, bless her heart, offers readers book covers for my works. I even looked into getting some plain brown wrappers with just the titles and my name embossed on them. Afterall, Goals for a Sinner could be mistaken for a religious tome as well. Still looking into that.