Why Book Covers are So Important – Regan Black

Why Book Covers are So Important

Thanks so much for having me here today. It is with a great deal of pleasure that I get to reveal a new look for the Shadows of Justice series with the help of Orangeberry Book Tours!

Early in my writing career I was taught that the first sentence of your story makes a promise to the reader and the rest of the book needs to fulfill that promise. The same is true for book covers in that they need to create the mood and let the reader know what grand adventure, mystery, or romance (or all of the above) is waiting for them behind that cover.

The new look for the five Shadows of Justice novels: Justice Incarnate, Invasion of Justice, Veil of Justice, Tracking Shadows, and Shadows to Light is all about honoring where I’ve come from as an author as well as celebrating where I’m headed.

Cover art, like anything is subjective, but only to a point. Market trends within genres have an impact on what a reader expects when they are shopping for books. The cover art is the first impression and it needs to be the best it can be.

While I wouldn’t recommend changing up a cover willy-nilly, it’s necessary to learn what readers respond to. Keeping tabs on how comparative titles are presenting themselves can be essential to knowing when it’s time to try something new.

This dynamic redesign has been months in the planning and I couldn’t have done it without a supportive team of friends, artists, and tech experts. And I can safely say all of us are thrilled to share it with the rest of the world.

I remember Sherrilyn Kenyon’s first Dark Hunter novel, Fantasy Lover. The cover featured a painting of a Greek god and was beyond hot and sexy. But on the following reprints the publisher changed up the cover art to better match the covers in the rest of the series. I loved that original cover (and I’m glad I still have my autographed copy) but it was a smart move as it let readers know the books were connected.

While I adored the previous design of the Shadows of Justice novels and those covers stood out among similar books at the time of publication, things have changed a great deal in a few short years. Romance readers are the biggest book buyers – they always have been – and the previous covers didn’t accurately convey the romance at the heart of each of the novels.

If I’ve learned anything about my writing during my journey, it’s that I have been and always will be a “happily ever after” kind of author. Romantic love is an essential part of real life and that treasured joyful relationship will continue to be an essential part of the stories I tell.

Book covers are a little like the fashion industry as the marketing trends come and go and leaders in each genre set the pace. But it happens on an even faster scale with so many options available to readers these days. I’m grateful for those options and the tools that help me respond positively to reader expectations.

Do you have a favorite ‘cover style’ from the past or present?

Live the adventure!

Regan

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Genre – Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author and the book

Connect with  Regan Black on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.reganblack.com

J.L. Myers – Why Choosing Your Setting is Important @BloodBoundJLM

Why Choosing Your Setting is Important

Choosing your setting is important for a number of reasons.

Firstly you want your characters to carry out their actions and plans in a place that is interesting and different in some way, a place that draws the reader’s attention and paints a picture of somewhere unique and full of possibilities.

Secondly you want your setting to provide conflict. Any setting can be pretty, but a setting that gets in your character’s way, trips them up and delivers danger or intrigues curiosity is so much more than pretty, it’s interesting. Interesting settings can provide conflict by obstacle, keeping your character from the place or person they’re trying to reach. It can also provide conflict by interfering with your characters and changing the course of your story…think walking into a dinner and finding a dead body, or drowning in a river only to wake in a new world. Your setting needs to be important, and it needs to be where important things happen.

Another aspect of setting is technology and consistency. Knowing what year, decade, or century you are operating in changes technology, language and custom. If you’re telling a story back in the 1920s you won’t have cell phones, color televisions or transport that can easily take you across the country. You also won’t have people using today’s slang and wearing short shorts and midriff tops while chewing gum.

Consistency is knowing where and when your world is, deciding what is normal for your story, and sticking to it. You can push the boundaries of what is actually correct if you decide to write fiction from sometime in the past if you are consistent and if you establish that although your story is taking place in a past and real time, the customs and technologies in your story are not restricted to actual history.

Lastly, if your world is a completely different plain to our human present or past, then you need to decide what fits into your created landscape. For example if you’re going for a medieval-type world then researching attire, language and custom will make what you’re writing about all the more real and believable.

Amelia Lamont never asked to unleash her inner vampire

Amelia’s normal teen world is shattered when a terrifying nightmare awakens the monster inside her. A newfound, insatiable thirst for blood that leads her to drain the school quarterback is only the beginning; she’s horrified to discover that her family and best friend Kendrick have been harboring the secret all along. And is the strangely alluring boy who seems hell-bent on curbing her murderous, blood-filled desires a friend, or foe?

To escape detection Amelia and her twin brother Dorian are forced to move to a new town, and the challenge of a new, exclusive high school where nearly every classmate smells like prey. Including the irresistible Ty, who seems hauntingly familiar, yet darkly menacing …

Amelia’s disturbing dreams and entanglement in a web of forbidden romance render her increasingly powerless against the chilling lies and secrets of vampire power struggles. And, as she soon discovers, vampire politics mixed with outlawed love can be a lethal cocktail.

Falling in love may just cost Amelia everything: her friends, her family...even her life

Move over Twilight, True Blood and Underworld! J.L. Myers’ first book in the Blood Bound series will have you swooning for more!

Warning - This book contains some language and sexual situations.

YA/ Vampire/ Paranormal Fiction

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Genre – YA Paranormal Romance

Rating – PG-13+

More details about the author

Connect with Jessica Myers on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://bloodboundnovels.com