The amount of agonizing an author spends on a cover cannot be underestimated. For DEATHSCAPE, I started with the four numbered options, then ended up with the one that has the all blue background.

Thank God for my wonderful FaceBook friends (and my fabulous cover designer) who steered me in the right direction!!!! Fine, I admit, I’m clueless about what makes a selling cover.

Romance covers went through so many trends over the years. I remember the sexy embrace covers where everyone’s clothes were constantly falling off. Then came the cartoon covers with shoes when chick lit hit. The word of wisdom was, if you had some stilettos on your cover, the book would sell. Then we had the head shot only, people staring off the cover. Followed by the object only covers that came with no people at all. And now the trend seems to be the ‘people with head cut off’ covers.

I’ve been told never to have a green book cover as readers will not pick it off the shelves. I’ve been told never to have cats on the cover (as some readers have cat phobias) or children (as small kids are seen as an interruption to romance).

Is it a wonder that authors can become neurotic about their cover art? I even had dreams about the despair of trying to pick the right font. (Why, oh why, couldn’t it have been a dream about picking cover models??)

So some friends and I just put up a web site to ask readers about covers. Clue us in! Pretty please???

All you have to do is vote for which cover you like. To show our gratitude, we’re raffling off a $25 amazon PLUS $25 B&N gift cert on Valentine’s Day.

Thank you for your help!
Dana