We’ve all heard the saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” However, a lot of thought goes into a book cover. For my traditionally published books, I have to fill out what is called an art fact sheet. I describe the hero and heroine and the clothing they may be wearing. I also describe a scene and send lots of pictures. Now I often scour the internet for pictures of people who look like my hero and heroine. I used to collect pictures from magazines and catalogs. Here are a couple of pictures I scanned and sent with my art fact sheet. This was my image of Brittany Gorman, the heroine of Montana Match.
The picture below is how I imagined Parker Watson, the hero of Montana Match, would look.
Here is the cover.
Many of my Love Inspired covers have people on them, but I haven’t put people on the covers of my two indie books.
I had the ideas for a cover and title, but my initial thoughts didn’t make a good cover. I don’t know how to make a cover design myself, so I hire someone to do the actual design. Below is the cover of my first indie book.
Now I’m working on a follow up book to A Place to Call Home titled A Love to Call Mine. It is the story of Max Reynolds, who was the boyfriend Brittany Gorman dumped at the beginning of Montana Match.
When I first started thinking about a cover for A Love to Call Mine, I had a different title. I kept playing around with it because I wanted it to have the same feel as the other title. Then I was trying to find a photo of a small New England town, but my cover designer said all the photos I sent her were too busy. So then I decided another front porch might be the answer. I looked at a lot of front porches until I finally found one that my cover designer said would work.
I will show you each successive draft of the cover until you see the final result.
We were getting closer to what I was looking for. We added some flowers similar to those on my first indie cover, and we had the final result.
Do you ever judge a book by its cover?
My first indie book is available at most e-book retailers. You can find links on my website.
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Merrillee Whren is an award-winning author who writes inspirational romance. She is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award for best inspirational romance manuscript presented by Romance Writers of America. She has also been the recipient of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award and the Maggie Award for Excellence. She is married to her own personal hero, her husband of thirty plus years, and has two grown daughters. She has lived in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Florida but now makes her home in the Arizona desert. When she’s not writing, she spends her free time playing tennis or walking while she does the plotting for her novels.
Merrillee, I love those covers! Such simplistic beauty that speaks volumes. I feel like I’m home just looking at them. Of course, I’ve always loved rocking chairs and front porches, so maybe that has something to do with it. Either way, they are quite wonderful.
Blessings,
Andrea
I do sometimes judge a book by its cover! It’s like a little introduction for me! If it’s not appealing to me, then I may pass it up…or like most times, I’ll read the back for the synopsis. Who knows if I would be passing up a great story in spite of what’s on the outside? I’m with Andrea here, simplicity wins hands down! Less is more in my book. You get too much on a book cover, and it can tend to distract instead of attract!
Thanks for sharing how your covers come to be. I would think it would take hours upon hours to find just the “right” pictures to send for your art fact sheet! You may even have one idea on how your hero/heroine looks, but maybe not find the right “fit” in the pictures. I do love your covers for “A Love to Call Mine” and “A Place to Call Home”…the flowers do tie the two together nicely! And I can see myself sitting on those rocking chairs in summer time sipping on ice cold tea with a good book in my hands :-)
I love your final cover. A really nice job. I find covers to be so important for books. Along with the book description, I think it’s the major factor for buyers. I really love the Love Inspired process of doing the AFS sheets. So far I haven’t been disappointed in those covers. They really do follow our suggestions, which makes for happy authors.