Doing a Little Tweaking to My Books

I’m talking about my current works in progress, and the changes I’m making are minor.

I adjusted the text that I used in the covers in my Love Under Desert Skies Series.

I think I finally got the look that will work. *fingers crossed*

 

I used BookBrush on these. If any author is looking for a cover creator program that will remove a background from a model, let you try out different fonts that are royalty free, and is pretty easy to use, I would recommend checking it out. It doesn’t change a person’s hair color or dress color. But it does enough stuff that makes it worth me having a subscription to it.

Usually, I will buy a pre-made cover on Period Images and use BookBrush to add the text. (I did this for The Earl’s Jilted Bride, Worth the Risk, and Anyone But the Marquess.)

 

Sometimes I go to The Book Cover Designer. Now, in this case, you purchase the cover and tell the cover artist what to use for the text. I did this on Secret Admirer and Midnight Wedding.

 

There are times I do go direct with a cover artist. Unfortunately, some no longer to be in business. I did some searching. One’s LLC is now dissolved. Another doesn’t seem to be active. The website and blog are gone. There are only three that seem to still be around. This is why I try to stick with pre-made covers or do them myself. If I ever want to add to a series, it’s easier to keep the “look” of the series if I did the books myself. Otherwise, I have to get as close to the “look” as possible.

Okay, so this wasn’t supposed to be a post on my covers. Let’s get to the other tweak.

I modified a couple of parts in Anyone But the Marquess. Due out October!

I was going to use a subplot that I thought would play out well for the main plot, but it fell apart 3/4s of the way into this story. I was going to have Lydia experience a falling out with her two friends, Rachel and Carol. Then she was supposed to become friends with the main character, Elizabeth. And somehow, Elizabeth was supposed to help bridge the gap between the friends. But the story never went in that direction, and to make it go there would have felt wrong to the flow of the story. I spent last weekend revising this subplot so that it’s no longer there. Now I’m back on track with where I need to be. The story is better now because of it.

I made changes to the personality of one of the characters in The Hero Least Likely.

I don’t want to say too much about this one since Tagalong Bride isn’t out yet. Let’s just say that I had a couple of people read over Tagalong Bride, and one of them really did not like a particular secondary character. Since I am bringing the full cast of characters into The Hero Least Likely, I need to work on the character that she didn’t like. Thankfully, I wasn’t too far into this one. I just got three chapters in.

Last weekend and partly into the beginning of last week, I rewrote key parts of this one. It took more time than I expected. I figured it would be easier since I wasn’t far into the story, but it took me longer to decide who this character needed to be in order to be more likeable. I know the character now, so this story is where it needs to be. I like this direction much better.

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So anyway, those are the tweaks I’ve made. I’m hoping that everything in these stories will go smoothly now.