Tuesday, March 5, 2013

BEHIND THE STORY OF LANCASTER HOUSE #12


Today's topic: My old book covers for Lancaster House and The Middle Aisle!

If you’d like to read yesterday's post about one my favorite ‘scary’ excerpts from Lancaster House, click here.

First off, below are the current covers for Lancaster House and The Middle Aisle:



Book covers are an extremely hard decision. Everyone judges a book by its cover when it comes to books! In this day and age, most of your book sales will be from online sources. All the average reader will ever see of your cover is a small thumbnail image. It’d better be good . . . eye-catching and visually stimulating.

No pressure! 



I went back and forth when making the decision of which covers to use. In the beginning, I found the perfect images, created the covers, and figured that was that. But then my daughter called and said, “Mom, you need new covers!”

I liked my old covers, but, in my daughter’s words, they were boring.

I knew she was right. While my old covers represented the inside of the books quite well, I seriously doubt that they would’ve garnered a second glance from anyone else.


Ever.

So here they are, my old covers:







Not horribly bad, but certainly not good either. Kinda dreary. (Note: Lancaster House and The Middle Aisle were never published with these covers.)

I also worried people would think I’d misspelled ‘aisle’ on The Middle Aisle cover. After all, it kinda has the appearance of an island, not just a cliff edge. Hence, people would think it should’ve been ‘isle.’ Right? And the proportions between the house and the cliff edge just aren’t right. The house is too big for the cliff! 


As I searched for new images, one of my daughters noticed the hand picture before I did. She said to me, “How about that one for Lancaster House, Mom?”

I said, “It looks so Carrie-like!”

“That’s why it’s perfect, like a hand reaching out of the grave,” she responded.

When I found a similar picture that boasted a tree that resembled a Cypress tree, I was sold. Part of The Middle Aisle takes place in Monterey, California—a place that is famous for its Cypress trees. Perfect!

At any rate, I sent out an email to friends and family asking which covers—for all of my books—they liked the best, the old or the new. To my surprise, the answers were varied. It was almost 50/50. Some liked the new, some liked the old.

Personally, I loved the new animated covers. So did my daughters. I loved the images, they just spoke to me. And I liked the idea of being different. I write clean romance—and I felt the covers conveyed the message: the inside of these books do not contain your average romance novel! I also liked the idea of having all Taylor Dean Books have animated covers for the sake of being consistent.


To be honest, I now look at the old covers and cringe! I'm so thankful for my wonderful daughter. She created my new covers for me.

I have found that readers either LOVE these covers or HATE these covers, no in-between. What do you think? I’d love to hear from you!

COMING NEXT: The prologue to Lancaster House! (Just click and follow!)


This was originally posted as part of a book tour at Christy's Cozy Corner. (Along with a fabulous five-star review!)

2 comments:

  1. I love the new covers. The old ones were okay but these have a common thread to them. If you were to right a third book in this series, I'd recognize the cover art first thing.

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    1. Thanks, Laura. I appreciate your thoughts. I also love when book covers in a series somehow match with each other, making the books feel all the more connected. I'm glad you like my covers! Thanks for visiting my blog! Love your comments!

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