Cover reveal

The re-release of Lesson Learned is almost here. (Finally! I've had the rights back for well over a year and this cover for about 9 months.) I promise I will have it out before the end of August.

Anyway, I'm sure you all remember the cover that graced the first edition of the book. Nothing wrong with it per se but nothing whatsoever to do with the content inside the cover. They even gave Nathan a massive tattoo for some reason. But it was my first book and my editor told me not to argue with the art dept because they never changed anything. And so I didn't.

Fast forward five years and I've met the lovely Meredith Russell, who has already done several covers for me (Theory Unproven, Lovers Entwined). Just the person to see into my head and pull out the perfect cover for Lesson Learned. (Because she really has that ability, I'm telling you. It's a superpower. The TU cover is exactly as I imagined it.)

Yes, yes, I know I'm blathering when all you want is a glimpse of the cover. Okay then...

Maybe moving forward means staying still, once you’ve finally found someone worth putting down roots for.

Drew Jackson is sick of constantly being on the move, running away from his mistakes, his desires, and a secret-filled past. He's decided his new teaching job in Cardiff is his chance to finally settle down. Perhaps here he can have a home, and even friendships that won't end in disaster. Like his growing rapport with history teacher Nathan Morgan.

Nathan has been careful to keep his sexuality a secret at work. He doesn't want that kind of attention from the student body. There's one body he would like attention from, though—the new science teacher, Drew. But it's much too risky to let Drew know how he feels. He won't gamble their fledgling friendship on an awkward confession of lust. And Drew's probably straight anyway.

Their friendship is derailed when a student's accusation forces a reluctant confession. Drew is tempted to run again until he comes face to face with the inescapable realisation that flight has ruined every relationship he's ever had.

But maybe he's finally found someone worth staying in one place for.



Add to your Goodreads page here

Cover Reveal - Just Hanging Out

Everything is a mad rush for this release. Why?

Because it takes place at midsummer, which is a week away, and I'm determined to align the release to the celebration (provided Amazon plays ball).

About the book

“Come and honour the Oak King.”

The countdown to the company solstice picnic is one of Shawn’s favourite times of the year. The scents of sage, mint, basil, sunflower, and lavender fill the air as the workshop mixes up the final batch of Litha, their solstice soap. It’s celebration time! This year, Shawn has an extra spring in his step, and it’s all for the new buyer, Tim. Shawn’s fine having a crush on the gorgeous new straight guy. Until he isn’t.

As the clock ticks down to Picnic-Day, Shawn’s confidence and Tim’s sexuality become mired in doubt and second guesses. It’s a minefield of embarrassed glances and missed opportunities. Seems like they’ll never get together…

To cap it all, Shawn’s drawn Tim in the secret solstice gifting. What to get for the quiet man who turns Shawn’s legs to jelly and has the best underwear hanging from the washing line in his garden? And will that tempting rainbow of colour be forever seared onto Shawn’s brain?

Add it to your Goodreads shelf here.

Cover reveal - Renaissance

Renaissance, Book 2 in the Village Love series will be hitting the virtual bookshelves early in April. and I have an amazing cover and the blurb for your perusal.
As with the rest of the series the cover art is by the multi-talented Garrett Leigh.

The Book

Smudge really needs to get laid, if only to stop himself wondering about the softness of Raleigh’s curls and why he keeps running away.

After his tumultuous teenage years, Smudge has settled into his quiet life in the sleepy English village of Slopy Bottom. He’s his own boss with the time and space to indulge his artistic creativity. And he has friends. He’s happy. Satisfied. Lonely. And the pool of potential soulmates is almost non-existent. His friends, Rick and Mal, flush with their own happy romance, keep trying to set him up with the most incompatible men, and he's never finding true love on Grindr. Hell, he's not even going to manage a hook up based on the kinky messages he’s been getting recently. He'll just have to slake his desire to find his own HEA in the pages of bosom-heaving romance novels.

Raleigh is the darling of Slopy Bottom’s blue rinse brigade: church organist, mobile librarian, and apparently wedded to his trademark cardigans. He seems to be the polar opposite of the artistic Smudge, whose brightly coloured mohawk and piercings should be a red flag to Raleigh. Yet he’s yearning for company too. It’s just that Raleigh has less expectation and definitely less courage to chase after it, for reasons that he keeps very close to his chest. Reasons that don’t stop him from being drawn irresistibly to Smudge.

Smudge is sure that the way Raleigh runs from him whenever he sees him is cruelly deliberate. A reflection on his bad boy looks and his disdain for Raleigh’s precious church.  So why can’t he stop thinking about the softness of Raleigh’s curls and his delicate body? Then Raleigh offers an olive branch of sugar and caffeine, Smudge’s favourite combination, starting them on a road to an awkward truce. And when they are conned into working together on a community project at the local hospital, the proximity ignites a spark that can’t be ignored. But navigating the murky waters that could take their relationship beyond tentative friendship all depends on whether Raleigh can release his secret fears – and whether Smudge is the man to share and allay them.

Cover Reveal

I'm pleased to announce that Waiting for a Spark will soon be re-released with a brand new cover, a 99p price point, and hopefully a more enticing blurb.

For now let's see that new cover...

Hope you like it. I made it myself. *preens*

Waiting for a Spark

As of a week or so ago Waiting for a Spark is currently out of print.

I intend to re-release under Finally Love Press at some point in the near future. It needs little in the way of work, just a new cover and then some formatting. Maybe a new blurb.

I'm on the look out for something sweet with a London vibe, quite similar to the original cover (which I had quite a heavy hand in designing). Preferably something premade since they are generally cheaper. If anyone finds anything they think is appropriate leave me a link here or give me a poke on GR, FB, or Twitter.

I'm off to scourer my fave cover artists' premade sites.

In the meantime if you really must read WfsS now then it's still available in the Lashings of Sauce anthology.

Cover art quandaries

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.)

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

Resonance is currently available at ARe and Amazon.

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

Cover Reveal - Resistance

Cover Reveal - Lillian Francis - Resistance

Author: Lillian Francis

Release Date: July 5

Goodreads

Cover: Garrett Leigh at Black Jazz Design

Length: 53,600 words


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

Blurb: 

How long can you wait on a promise?

After his first night with Mal, Rick broke the habit of a lifetime and invited the 

sexy radiographer to spend the weekend in the sleepy English village he 

called home. Rick isn’t in denial but he’s afraid to reveal his sexuality in the 

close-knit community that has known him since he was a babe in arms.

The sex is amazing but equally Mal loves lazy days spent in the garden at 

Slopy Bottom, and every precious moment he spends with Rick. For Mal the 

village quickly becomes an oasis of peace, far from the noise and grime of life 

in London, a slice of tranquillity with Rick at the heart. But Mal has defied his 

family and his religion to be true to himself, and there is no way can he join 

Rick in his self-built closet, no matter how comfortable it is...

Rick is afraid revealing the true nature of his relationship with Mal will change 

the way his neighbours see him. He adores these people, this village, and he 

can’t face the thought of losing everything over who he chooses to sleep with. 

When the alternative is giving up a man who has slotted perfectly into his 

life—a man who he might just love—it’s no choice at all. But, knowing what 

has to be done isn’t always as easy as putting it into practice.

About the Series

Resistance is book 1 in my new series, Village Love. Village Love is set in the fictional Sussex village of Slopy Bottom. I'll let Rick tell you how Slopy Bottom got its name.

“It’s one p, Slopy Bottom. The village has been there centuries. Local historians think it started life as Slope Bottom since the oldest houses are on the low slope at the bottom of a hill. The rest of the village spread out into the valley as the years went by but the name stuck. At one point the village was all but owned by a French lord, which could account for the mispronunciation, and it appears to have been Slopy Bottom ever since.”

Rick and Mal? Haven't you written about those characters before?

The simple answer is yes. Rick and Mal appeared in a one-off short story, Resonance. Resonance spawned this story which in turn spawned a whole host of storylines. As Resonance doesn't take place in the village it has been assigned as Village Love 0.5.

Do I need to read Resonance to read Resistance?

No. Several of my beta readers didn't read Resonance before working on Resistance and found it had no impact. However, Resonance is the story of how Rick and Mal meet and will obviously shed further light on their relationship.

Where can I buy Resonance?

Resonance is currently available at ARe and Amazon.

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

Will there be more books in the series?

Definitely. I'm already working on Book 2, and Book 3 has been urging me to write it's opening scene in the last couple of days (I resisted, but I did make

some scrappy notes). I have very brief story lines, if they work out, for at least

a Book 4, and maybe a Book 5. If you read a particular character that you like drop me a line and let me know, I've undoubtedly got a plan to pair him with someone!

Where to find me

http://lillianfrancis.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter @LillianFrancis_

Facebook

Facebook Author Page

Goodreads

Email: lillianfrancis@rocketmail.com

Cover Reveal tour arranged by Signal Boost Promotions.

New title help required

Thanks to the comments on the previous title post I now have a new bunch of suggestions for that title.

New title poll

Title help

As I mentioned the other day I need some help with a title for a historical Pony Express story. I have several suggestions, and ran a similar poll on my Facebook author page, Lillian's Lovefest.

So my question to you is...

Which title would have you one clicking

I think I'm doing things backwards

So, I've been coveting a gorgeous cover that Garrett Leigh made for the longest time. The Heart of a Cowboy. I wanted that cover so badly but I had no story for it. Then Garrett had a sale on her pre-made covers and yes, my cover (what, it was mine regardless that I didn't own it. It owned me!) was in that collection for sale. No! Someone would buy it for sure!
Yes, we know how this story goes. I bought the cover, story or not I couldn't stand the thought of another story coming out with my cover. racking my brains I remembered a long forgotten historical western that I'd written about a pony express rider and the ranch owner who loves him. It's old and rough and needs lots of work (did I even know about POV back then? Head hopping, like, woah!).

However as much as I love the title Garrett gave the cover I don't think it will suit this story. I'd like the focus to the title to be the Pony Express rider, but what if the story doesn't pan out and I'm left a book cover that I can't use.

The working title for the story is The Mail Must Go Through. This is the Pony Express motto. PE riders were called Messengers.

Can anyone help me with a title?

J is for...

Jingle Bells.

A popular Christmas song written by James Lord Pierpont, Jingle Bells was originally published under the title 'One Horse Open Sleigh' in 1857. It was originally written for Thanksgiving and it was said to be a drinking song. It had racy lyrics for the time, certainly unsuited to an audience of children. It implied that during a sleigh ride through the snowy woods an unchaperoned couple could get up to all sorts shenanigans.

Jingle Bells

Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way

Bells on bobtail ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight!

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way.
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

Jingle bells, jingle bells,
Jingle all the way;
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.

(Although less well-known than the opening, the remaining verses depict high-speed youthful fun. In the second verse, the narrator takes a ride with a girl and loses control of the sleigh.)

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon, Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side,
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
He got into a drifted bank
And then we got upsot.*
|: chorus :|

*upset, as in capsized, but also slang for drunk.

(In the next verse he falls out of the sleigh and a rival laughs at him.)

A day or two ago,
The story I must tell
I went out on the snow,
And on my back I fell;
A gent was riding by
In a one-horse open sleigh,
He laughed as there I sprawling lie,
But quickly drove away.
|: chorus :|

(In the last verse, after relating his experience, he gives equestrian advice to a friend to pick up some girls, find a faster horse, and take off at full speed.)

Now the ground is white
Go it while you're young,
Take the girls tonight
and sing this sleighing song;
Just get a bobtailed bay
Two forty as his speed[b]
Hitch him to an open sleigh
And crack! you'll take the lead.
|: chorus :|

So Jingle Bells is a bawdy drinking song**. Who knew?

**This information was taken from wiki, so season to taste.


and judging a book by its cover. 

You know we've all done it. Come on, admit it. There's one publisher where I wait for the new release email, not to see what is coming next, but to see how bad the covers are. I try not let that influence whether I buy that book or not though. In that regard I'm more likely to be swayed by the author and my friend's recommendations.
 

I've been really lucky with my cover art over the last year. I've had one cover from Paul Richmond and one
from Garrett Leigh  

and two covers from Meredith Russell.

These covers are all brilliant in their own ways and I love them all for different reasons.






Don't ask me to pick one, but I can ask you.
Which one is your favourite?

Cover Reveal - New Lease of Life

It was my intention to have a simple cover reveal here to show off my amazing cover for my novel, New Lease of Life, coming soon from Dreamspinner Press.

However, just as this post was having its finishing touches added I received confirmation that the novel had been added to Dreamspinner's 'coming soon' page. So if you're quick and head over there today you could still take advantage of the sale to get 35% off and not only that but it would arrive on your bookshelf on 25th December. Yes, a Christmas Day present to yourself.

So, the cover...

But first the Blurb.

New Lease of Life

Phillip used to laugh a lot, back when his friends called him Pip. However the good deed that left him hospitalized not only marred his body, it stripped him of his good humor too. Ever since, he has pushed his friends away and shut out the world. Donating his vintage clothing to a charity shop should have been the final act in a year-long campaign to sever the links with the man Pip used to be, but the stranger on his doorstep awakens feelings in Pip that he hasn’t experienced since the incident that left him angry at the world and reliant on the cold metal of the hideous hospital-issue crutch.

Colby forces his way into Pip’s life, picking at the scab of his past. Colby isn’t interested in Pip’s money or his expensive address. He has only one goal: to make Pip smile again. With every moment in Pip’s presence, Colby chips away at the walls Pip has built around himself. Pip knows it’s impossible to fight his attraction with Colby’s sunny disposition casting light into the darkness in his soul.

Drum roll please.

Presenting

Cover art by Paul Richmond.

It’s smashing, isn’t it, and fits both the story and my vision for the cover to perfection.

As I said New Lease of Life is now appearing on the Coming Soon page at Dreamspinner Press and is already available to pre-order

Or watch for it to appear on my author pages at

Amazon US

Amazon UK

AllRomance

Now the boring bit…

About the Author

Lillian Francis. Author of gay romance. Happy Endings guaranteed. Eventually.

Lillian Francis is an English writer who likes to dabble in many genres but always seems to return to the here and now.

Her name may imply a grand dame in pink chiffon and lace, but Lillian is more at home in jeans, Converse, and the sort of T-shirts that often need explaining to the populous at large but will get a fist bump at Comic-Con. Lillian is a self-confessed geek who likes nothing more than settling down with a comic or a good book, except maybe writing. Given a notepad, pen, her Kindle, and an infinite supply of chocolate Hob Nobs and she can lose herself for weeks. Romance was never her reading matter of choice, so it came as a great surprise to all concerned, including herself, to discover a romance was exactly what she’d written, and not the rollicking spy adventure or cozy murder mystery she always assumed she’d write. Luckily there is always room for romance no matter what plot bunny chooses to bite her, so never say never to either of those stories appearing.

Lillian lives in an imposing castle on a windswept desolate moor or in an elaborate shack on the edge of a beach somewhere, depending on her mood. And while she’d love for the heroes of her stories to either be chained up in the dungeon or wandering the shack serving drinks in nothing but skimpy barista aprons more often than not they are doing something far less erotic like running charity shops and shoveling elephant shit.

Drawn to the ocean, although not in a Reginald Perrin sort of way, she would love to own a camper van and to live by the sea.

Find her at

Blog: lillianfrancis.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/lillian.francis.100

Twitter: @LillianFrancis_

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/Lillian_Francis

Now to reward you for sitting through the whole post

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Cover Reveal

Here's the cover art for my free short story 'Resonance'.

I think it is gorgeous and I've got Garrett Leigh (yes, the same Garrett Leigh that designed my glorious logo) to thank for it.

Cover Art: Garrett Leigh http://www.blackjazzdesign.com

Photo Credit: Dan Burgess http://www.danburgessphotography.com

Rainbow awards

Theory Unproven is up in the Best Book Cover category at the Rainbow Awards.

Meredith Russell did an amazing job on the artwork and I'd be grateful if you could show her some love by voting for this cover.

Let's try and get my elephants into the next round.

Cover Models – The good, the bad, and the overused

One of the advantages of self publishing is that you have total control over your product and this is never more obvious than in the cover design.

While many publishers will attempt to accommodate your wishes, what happens when your vision and the publisher’s art department don’t mesh. It’s bad enough when the cover has little or nothing to do with the contents on the inside. But when they get the concept you’re trying for but compromise with carelessly picked cover models; that can be heart-breaking. So close and yet so far.

When you are self-publishing you can pick your own cover artist, someone whose style gels with your own and fits the tone of your story and who can create the image you have eagerly conjured up in your mind. That is why I decided to use Meredith Russell again after the stellar work she did on Theory Unproven. In contrast to TU, where I detailed exactly what I wanted on the cover, for Lovers Entwined I just gave Meredith the gentlest of nudges in the right direction and let her do the rest. Until it came to picking the cover models. Then it was great to be working with someone who was happy to cater to my every whim (whilst being far too professional to call me a fussy bitch).

Lovers Entwined is still available at the special pre-order price. 

Amazon US

Amazon UK

ARe 

So how do you turn characters from your imagination into flesh and blood renditions on a book cover?

You could go all Sleepy Hollow and have a pair of headless (or at the very least faceless) torsos.

You could go with something that features no people at all. Some of these covers are really effective. However, as a reader I like figures on my covers.  To me covers with two male figures imply m/m romance, and three figures prepare me for some type of ménage relationship.

If you are lucky enough to have something drawn for you then that will probably get you as close to your character as it is possible to get, just so long as you can communicate the vision in your head to the artist.

I know some people, having learnt from experience, have the cover model in mind before they start writing. I can actually see how that would be advantageous, having the model in front of you at all times as you’re writing.

Or you can trawl through model after model looking for the right combination of features to suit your character.  Hair can be trimmed, lengthened, or dyed. Eye colour can be changed. Clothes (or even bodies) can be swapped. But even when you find some possible examples it’s still not that simple. Do you want your book bearing the same model that graces hundreds of other covers? Do you want to appear on Chris’ Misadventures over at stumblingoverchaos? (Maybe you do, because any publicity is good publicity, isn’t it?) Personally, I would be inclined to reject models that are used too regularly elsewhere or that are already associated with popular characters within the genre.

Taking all that into account you can limit yourself to a small pool of candidates and then it’s just a matter of working out which best fits the character and, occasionally, whether the position/stance of the model fits the cover.

But no matter how much time you spend picking the models (and believe me when I say these guys took many hours and numerous emails, Meredith will back me up on that one) there will always be someone that tells you they don’t look like the characters.

How important are the cover models to you when imagining the characters?

Are there any cover models that you can think of that fit the characters perfectly?

I've been housekeeping

Look what I've done to my Cover Art page.

Looks pretty, yeah?

I couldn't have done this without R J Scott's handy guide.