Yesterday was the cover reveal for Resistance. Book 1 in the Village Love series. So today I thought I'd talk about cover art and the problems you face when choosing a design for a book in a series.
Resonance was only ever meant to be a one off story. A way of processing my own fear that I discovered in that magnetic monster of an MRI scanner. And seeing if I could write a story in 1st person POV (Barefoot may have been the first story I had published in that POV but it wasn't the first I had written. That honour falls to t he very first version of Resonance.)
Of course when Garrett and I discussed the cover for Resonance there was no thought of a sequel and the gorgeous dandelion cover only had to stand alone. A year on and a sequel is written and all of a sudden I have a problem. Did I scrap a perfectly good (and in my opinion beautiful) cover and bring in something new for the series or did I try to find a common theme that could be used to tie everything together.
I already knew that I had no intention of getting rid of the existing cover for Resonance. It’s striking and different in a genre of headshots and naked torsos. The cover for Resistance would have to tie in to it somehow. Not only that but going forward the idea chosen for Resistance would have to work for the remainder of the series.
“Rick’s a gardener,” Garrett said. “Let’s use another flower.”
“But how would that work for the rest of the series?” I cried. (I tend to get over-emotional about my covers. Ask Meredith Russell.) “The next book is about the guy that owns the print shop! How would a flower work?”
Garrett, as excellent as she is at reading minds, had no response. Authors and their covers can be a very delicate issue. Best handled with kid gloves, eh?
The ball, as they say, was firmly in my court. I pulled out all the flowers Rick talked about in the book and started googling images. One link took me to a website on Victorian flower meanings. There were hundreds of them.
Surely they wouldn’t have a flower that meant Resistance.
They didn’t.
They had two!
One was a fungi (I know! Imagine getting a gift of fungi) and the other was a Tansy.
I sent both images to Garrett and another gorgeous cover was born*.
*(and yes we went with the tansy.)
I sent both images to Garrett and another gorgeous cover was born*.
*(and yes we went with the tansy.)
Available now for pre-order at Amazon, Resistance will be on sale at Amazon and to borrow on Kindle Unlimited from 5th July. Universal Amazon link: myBook.to/Resistance_LF
At Are it has been free on a semi regular basis since release. It is currently free until 31st July.
At Amazon it is 99p or the equivalent. Here's a universal link to take you to your local Amazon store. myBook.to/ResonanceL_F
I love both covers! I'm glad you figured out a way to do the series without doing a whole brand new cover. These covers are fresh and unlike anything else out there!
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