Monday, April 16, 2012

A Tale of Two Covers

This year I have -- or will soon -- aquired the bulk of my backlist titles. This is good news for me financially, but also a little confusing for readers who sometimes are more familiar with cover art than titles or blurbs (granted the blurbs are not always as helpful as they could be). I try to clearly designate these reissues as exactly that, but not everyone is hanging on my every word.

HUH???!!!

I know, I know! And yet...

Anyway, in the interests of reducing confusion -- and because I LOVE my new cover art, I thought I'd share this month's "new" (re)releases with you.

The Dark Horse. This was the first title I wrote specifically for an m/m audience. It's a little more romantic and a lot sexier (though much of the sex is awkward and troubled) than some of my later stories. Basically I wanted to take a popular romantic trope -- bodyguards and their clients -- and follow what happens after the cameras stop rolling.

Old Cover (which I always liked, by the way -- I think it was a Croco Designs)















New Cover by Lou Harper















Available at Amazon, B&N, and All Romance Ebooks.


The companion piece to this story was actually released late last month. The story was called The White Knight and I wote it because a number of people, including Elisa Rolle, wanted to know the "prequel" to The Dark Horse.

That was a little dilemma because the whole point of DH was to NOT follow the usual story. But it seemed clear to me that readers like the "usual story" for a reason, and there was no valid argument for not giving them the story they wanted.


Old Cover again by Croco Designs

















New Cover by Lou Harper

















And this too available through Amazon Kindle, B&N's Nook, and ARE.

I'm also trying to make all these stories available through Smashwords and its myriad formats, but it does take me awhile to get around to all those uploads.

12 comments:

  1. I already have them both and enjoyed them - probably time for a re-read :)
    I do like the new covers - each time I look at them I notice another detail - very nice :)

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  2. I honestly didn't mind the original covers -- in fact, I really did like Dark Horse. But these new covers are simply gorgeous.

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  3. Doesn't Lou do fantastic covers? And yes, I must go and re-read these! ;)

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    1. Yes, she sure does! I've got a couple of new ones coming up in June. I'm waiting to showcase them. :-)

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  4. I really like the new covers. I just read these two for the first time last week and loved them both :)

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    1. Thank you, Sheri! I'm so glad you enjoyed them.

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  5. I really like the new covers though for once not better than the original ones *g*. Though the White Knight cover threw me a bit at first. In my mind that book is firmly associated with Wales and not with palm trees (yes, I know, the flashbacks).

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    1. That's true!

      I do love those palm trees, though. And, yes, they do make sense with the flashbacks.

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  6. I am loving the new covers for your books, sadly I already have all your titles, although I can still ogle them quite happily at your site. LOL
    Good to see that these titles are coming back under your control too, it is nice to know that an author is getting what they deserve for there works.

    Rosewin

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  7. Thank you, Rosewin. I'm really enjoying the process of choosing new art for these old stories. It's interesting to see how some books totally take off with the new cover art. Even books that are quite old now.

    Having complete control is very alluring. I see why some writers bypass the whole traditional publishing path. Although in general I don't that's a great idea if only because the opportunity to work with real editors is worth its weight in gold.

    Still, I'm grateful I have the opportunity now.

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  8. I am currently in the process of reading my way through your backlist instead of doing useful stuff like- y'know drawing pictures for my art studies or something....and you've got me seriously hooked!

    So while I enjoy my reading-Josh-Lanyon-all-nighters a lot I'm a very visually-orientated person and yes I rather remenber the cover art than the title.

    I'm not quite sure if it was that or my sheer lack of sleep but since the two new covers look very similar to each other in Amazon-thumbnail-size I somehow failed to notice that these are two seperate books and not just the same one listed twice....
    Shame on me for reading The White Knight first. But otherwise there's still one more book left for me now right? ;)

    And the art is georgeous anyways, so thanks for writing this post I think it served it's purpose!

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    1. And the art is georgeous anyways, so thanks for writing this post I think it served it's purpose!


      Good! Every so often I'll see one of those posts about authors trying to "trick" readers with new covers. Definitely not the intention!

      It always amazes me when someone says they've read every single thing I've written. Wow. I don't know if I've read every single thing from all my favorite authors -- though there are a few. And in some cases I'm still hunting books.

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