Yummy Cover Goodness

I couldn't resist showing off my new cover! Bear with me, people, this is an exciting moment for most writers so excuse me while I share. I don't know what it is about cover days. Maybe it's simply because, as an unpublished writer, you dream of the day you'll see a book cover with your own name on it. Or maybe we all just like seeing a photographic depiction of a scene from our very own book. Once I imagined getting a new cover wouldn't be a big deal to me but I've found over the last few years that I was dead wrong about that. It never gets old.

I don't think anyone underestimates the power of a good cover. Back in the day, ebook covers were pretty much puketastic. Computer-generated Barbies and Ken's, bad runny colors...you know the ones I'm talking about. Thank goodness technology has evolved and they now rival anything done by New York publishing houses. We know a cover catches our eye, makes us look further until before we know it, we're checking out the blurb and considering a purchase. It's a powerful selling tool, let's face it.

Normally when making a cover request, I have somewhat of a vision of what I'd like to see. For my High Plains Shifters series (Ellora's Cave) for example, I knew I wanted to evoke the west and Texas. Cowboys. The focus needed to be on my hero. In my menage story, Jaguar Hunger, I realized featuring a woman and two men would be the best route, ensuring that everyone looking would know unequivically this is menage. What about a cover draws your eye? For me it's the look of the man and color. I like sharper lines (no fuzzy stuff) and clarity. Those things please my eye and when I'm book shopping those are the titles I'll, nine times out of ten, give a second glance.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, Drilled, my contribution to the popular Cougar Challenge series releases at Ellora's Cave on April 14.

Blurb:

Lori Donovan accepts the Cougar Challenge and pledges to snag a hot young stud knowing it’ll be tough once she moves back to her Texas hometown. She expects barren plains and rattlesnakes but finds hunky Jackson Blue drilling for oil on her property instead. A driller. Hmm. Lori has a few ideas about that and just about all of them involve her poor, needy, sex-starved body.

Jackson takes one look at the curvy, sexy, older woman and puts his expertise into action. After all, drilling is what he does best. Against the wall, on the floor, or in the middle of her bed, he’s the right man for the job. It’s a hot time in Texas when a tough, sexy drillin’ man meets a sassy cougar and playing it safe just isn’t an option.