Cover Magic

The Christmas Bride is up for preorder!

At least it’s up on amazon and pending on some other e-book sites (Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play) and it should be ready on all platforms by launch day, which is the 9th November. (Fingers crossed.)

It’s been a fascinating journey, this self-publishing, and I’m learning so much along the way. For instance, when I was thinking about the cover, I knew I wanted something a bit Christmassy (which is tricky for the Regency-era, as Christmas trees etc weren’t in until the Victoria era) so I knew it would mainly be greenery and red berries. And snow.

I also wanted the image to fit in with the Chance Sisters covers, as the novella is part of the same series. I trawled through a lot of cover image sites and finally I found this image (on the left), which had the simplicity I wanted and a dress that looked like a real Regency-era dress, and I loved the lushness of the red velvet spencer.

And I know some people don’t like headless covers, but I do, because I hardly ever see a face on a cover that is anything like the hero or heroine I’ve imagined. So this way, we can each imagine our own heroine. What do you think? Are you in the headless or full-face camp?

So I bought it, and then sent it to a cover designer — who transformed it from a nice picture of a girl in a red spencer, and a green leafy background (not so likely in winter), to a lovely snowy Christmassy scene with a smatter of red berries. All we fiddled with after the first draft was the lettering of my name — making the edging a bit darker. And as you can no doubt tell, I love it to bits.

I’ll write some more about the self-publishing process and the things I’ve learned next time. And of course, I’ll tell you more about the story.  Feel free to ask me any questions.