August 15, 2013

Anatomy of an eBook:  Secrets & Sins

Somewhere along the line while furiously writing (usually while giving my brain a well-needed rest), my thoughts turn to cover art.

I had long abandoned the idea of using people on this cover...while it is essentially the story of a mother and two daughters (a title I briefly considered before deciding it had no oomph), I couldn't find an appropriate picture.  I also thought of using a picture of a body rolled up in a rug wearing Argyle socks and wing-tip shoes (one of the sinful secrets referred to in the title), but then decided that would suggest it was a murder mystery.  I'm no marketing guru, but I do feel that authors have to give readers a clear picture of what type of story they're getting.  So I decided to go for symbolism.

I entered the word secrets on the search page of a stock photo site and got a lot of locked boxes, keys, and dark alleys.  When I entered the word sin I got a lot of apples and pictures of the Las Vegas strip.  I decided to go with a combination of two results, the key and the apple, and when I entered both keywords I got...well, some nice photos, which I forwarded to my cover designer for her thoughts.

Stay tuned...