WRITING CHALLENGE | COVER DESIGN | MOOD BOARDS

30-Day Challenge — Cover

Otherwise known as spending a weekend in bed looking for the perfect man

A good cover can make or break a book.

A bad cover can render a book invisible.

An exceptional cover can send the book to the top of the world.

With the words written and now with my structural editor, my new short romance needed a cover. It also needs to fit within the series. HEAT was published after the Australian bushfires in 2020 with a cover I made on instinct.

This time, I decided to play it smart. What other covers scream sexy firefighter?

I like making mood boards. I search Amazon for the Top 100 XXX romance where XXX is my theme. It could be billionaire or second chance, or firefighter. If there is a category, I go through and pull together the top 100 covers.

Here’s one I did in September 2021 for rockstar romance:

It gives a sense of colors, use of models, text, and fonts.

But my short novel isn’t about rockstars — although my next one might be. It’s about firefighters and there isn’t a category for them.

So, I went through Action and Adventure romance until I found covers that looked like firefighters. I then created a different mood board — based on a couple of series. I compared it to my already published, HEAT, and sat back, impressed with myself.

The colors, were on point. The use of a male chest, on point. Even the fonts which I thought were original, were on point.

Then I went looking for Bailey. What man fit all the qualities of Bailey.

I went looking for Bailey but found Ethan.

Now, you need to know that I already had a cover for IGNITE. I’d already made banners and released the book on preorder — because it was being released on 27 August.