Welcome back to Austen Promises and the Writer’s Journal!
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A few weeks ago, I wrote about covers and how they had to fit your genre. I shared a few of my own covers and spoke of what is generally found on the covers of books set in the Regency era. At the time I wrote the post, I had not, out of fear, asked for professional feedback, though I did shortly afterwards.
One of my favorite “old” covers.
When I shared my Regency covers with a Facebook group of cover experts and other writers of varying degrees of expertise, I was told that my covers looked like Contemporary Romance covers. That set me back a bit, if I’m honest. It was totally unexpected. But, I had gone into it knowing they’d be honest, and that my covers needed help.
Taking the feedback I was given, I searched for images that fit the book, and came up with a cover. I took that back to the group, and while some thought it was good, others said they still could not tell what era the story was set in. One kind soul made a mockup for me, to show me what kind of things I should/could have on the cover. I was able to take that model, search for my own images and fonts, and create a mockup of my own. I shared that with a few people and got some feedback, and I think I shared it with the Facebook group, too.
I got sidetracked and didn’t have time to play with all the changes suggested to me that time, but I did make some. I changed the fancy font I had used for the title to something more appropriate to the era but still fancy. I may have changed the font for my name, but I don’t remember now.
My new cover style.
I must give a disclaimer here. My Photoshop skills are limited, and so I ended up hiring someone to cut the background away from my couple, and a friend made a template for me, so that I have it to use in the future. I can swap out things like buildings and people, and change the colors and things without starting from scratch every time. Then, I made the back cover (for the print version) in Canva. The book looks fantastic!
Know what else? Between the new cover, an excellent blurb, and some serious editing, that book is doing very well. VERY well. It’s made all the headache and heartache worth it.
Come back next Wednesday for another peek into my journal! <3
