A Selfish Bonus Post

I’ve been hoping to keep to a once-a-week posting schedule, but today I have two reasons for sneaking in an additional post.

April 20 – 4/20 – 4:20 – 420 … for some people, that number has a significant meaning. Today is World Cannabis Day. In some parts of the world, smoke and odor will fill the air at 4:20 this afternoon. I know people who only remember that today is my birthday because of this day of smoking pot.

So, today I am sixty-seven years old. I flinch as I add another digit to my age, but as long as my inner child never ages past twelve years old, I’m good with it.

Ok, enough birthday celebration. Onto the next item.

I really love my Stanley Pearl book. I recently re-read it, and I enjoyed it just as much as the last time I read it. 😊 I like some of the absurdness of the story as well as the humor moments. It is a tad racier than anything else I’ve written but would still garner a PG-13 rating at the movie theater.

I haven’t marketed the book at all, and the thing that has been holding me back is the cover. Although the stock photo works just fine, the cover doesn’t really convey anything about the story.

I want to change it, but I’m struggling with ideas. I know my readership here isn’t what it used to be, but for those of you who are here, if anything pops into your head, give a girl a hand. Here are some basic points:

I want the cover to be cohesive with all my other covers, meaning I want that hand-drawn, somewhat cartoonish look.

Color isn’t an issue like it is with my other covers.

The story is more like a romantic comedy than anything – and an adventure for Stanley. He goes from a boring, drab accountant to an attractive, exciting man mixed up with dangerous people.

This is the blurb at Amazon:

When a boring accountant comes out of his shell, romance and danger await him.

Stanley Pearl’s life has been turned upside down. His wife ran off with another man, leaving Stanley to raise his teenage son alone. He takes the summer off from his accounting position to stay home with his son and write the novel he always dreamed of writing.

When a wealthy client demands Stanley help her nephew with his less than legal accounting, he has no choice but to say yes. Before he can deliver the finished work, his client is abducted, and Stanley soon discovers he has something the captors want.

A waitress at the coffee shop where he has been writing offers to help Stanley by introducing him to her ex-CIA brother. There’s no denying the chemistry between Teresa and Stanley, but can he stay alive long enough to explore the possibility of a relationship?

Stanley Pearl is a standalone novel with romance, suspense, and a splash of humor.

There are a whopping three reviews for Stanley so far (all good!). One is an editorial review from Readers’ Favorite (located above the product description). You can see those here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DP4W8QQ/

If you have any suggestions, ideas, other book covers that show a representation of what might work … please let me know. What should be on the cover?

If you want to read Stanley Pearl, here is a code for a free book at Smashwords: PB99T If you want a copy from Amazon, let me know in the comments or drop an email to me, and I’ll send a link to you: maddiecochere@breezybooks.com

Thanks!!

Oh, I forgot to mention, I already have a design company ready to do the new cover, but they are hoping to get some information from me as to what I want. Ack! I don’t know what I want.

What say you?

Free Advice

Not free advice for you. Free advice for me!

We’ve had some fun in the past trying to figure out a book cover or title. Let’s do it again.

In my Two Sisters and a Journalist series, all of the titles begin with the word Murder. The book I’m currently writing will have a lottery theme running throughout as Mama goes overboard buying scratch-off tickets. A murder will be connected to the lottery as well. There won’t be any jackpot drawings; everything revolves around scratch-off tickets. I prefer to keep the word Lottery out of the title.

So far, I’ve come up with these titles:

Murder Is A Numbers Game (However, I don’t really want another title that begins with “Murder Is.”)
Murder Unlucky
Murder Wins the Game
Murder Scratches the Game
Murder by Chance
Murder by Scratch

I’m leaning toward Murder Wins the Game or Murder Scratches the Game. Scratch is a term also used to cancel, eliminate, dismiss, etc., so I think it works physically and figuratively … but I’m not 100% sold on it. Which do you prefer? Or did you think of something else?

As for the cover … There are no people on the covers in this series. The backgrounds are less vibrant colors. I’m leaning toward a dusky green on this one simply because of the money/greed aspect of the story. (You can see all the covers for the series in the right sidebar of my home page.)

I’ve ruled out lottery balls with numbers. Mama has a lucky scratcher with a four-leaf clover in it, so I tried several four-leaf clovers on the cover with a lottery ticket that has blood dripping from the top. Even with the blood, it’s cheesy enough to impart a “lighter mystery” feel, which is what I want. We all know I love cheesy!

However, I think I like the idea of a vault in the morgue, with the body pulled out feet first, and a lottery ticket hanging as the toe tag.

It’s hard to know what works until you see it. If you have any ideas, please share!

My standard disclaimer is to ask that you not be offended if I don’t use your idea(s), and please don’t expect anything other than a free book if I do use your idea(s).

Thanks for brainstorming with me!

P.S. – For all the friendly wisenheimers out there, whom I’ve come to know and love, Hunter will not be part of the title. Nor will any body parts. Thank you very much.

Is Your Book Cover A Stinker?

I know I’ve had a lot of posts lately about my books, but I promise I have a bacon post coming up.

*** BACON ***

If you are a man reading this, please comment as to if that word caused some type of reaction within you. I’d like to know for my research.

Today, I want to talk about book covers. I’m not an expert, and for as many times as I’ve changed my covers, I am definitely not the person to be giving you advice.

The look of a cover is not a deal breaker for me, but some definitely pull me in more than others. I do like when a cover gives me an idea about the book – at least the genre. I saw a lovely cover recently that gave the impression of being a memoir, both via the title and the soft abstract style of the design. I was surprised to read the blurb and discover it was a romantic comedy.

I know my covers don’t follow the rules of the experts. They wouldn’t like the font, the placement of my name, or the fact that they are on the “busy” side. They would be critical of my using a clichéd pink theme for chick lit. I don’t care. I wanted pink covers, and I was going to have them.

It was my idea to have Susan in gym clothes with a racquet in Florida. I thought racquetball would play a strong role in all of the books, but it doesn’t. It isn’t even the main theme of Sunshine Hunter.

After the fifth book was published, I knew it was time to make the first one free. Then it hit me – change the cover again! I sent this note to my niece: “You won’t believe this, but I want to go back to Sunshine Hunter. I think the sports theme is keeping people from giving the book a chance.”

The book is chick lit first. There is a mystery, a little romance, and some humor. Having a racquet on the cover was definitely giving the wrong impression. I think I realized this several months back, but I didn’t act on the nagging feelings.

The book went free at Barnes & Noble on February 20. The cover change showed up the next morning. I saw later that the book was promptly listed by two Nook Facebook sites, and the downloads at Barnes & Noble started right away. I didn’t know it at the time, but sales of the other books in the series started the very next day.

I truly believe that changing the cover on Sunshine Hunter to a cuter, more girly cover representing Chick Lit made a huge difference in people choosing to download the book or not. To all of the over 20,000 people who have downloaded the book so far – thank you! Thank you to everyone who has read their download, and another big thank you if you have chosen to read more of Susan’s (mis)adventures. I’m grateful and appreciative.

Bacon post coming up. I promise!

Have you always loved your book cover? Have you had any nagging feelings about it? Have you changed your cover, and if so, how many times? I know I’m not alone in this.