YA Fantasy Novel “Shield of the Gods” Gets a Facelift

My book has started on its third month of being available to the world. The sales have way too much room for improvement, so my ePublisher and I decided to change the cover art. He hired a cover artist named Leah (need to provide her contact info because she’s a fantastic cover artist) and she did such a great job that I wanted to cry when I saw the redo. And then I wanted to cry again when I checked my amazon.com ranking and saw that I had sold books while I was sleeping–and having a nightmare thanks to the movie I Am Legend (haha!). Here is my new cover art:

So now that the cover art is in place, a three-day promotion of my eBook is coming soon. We’re just curious to see how changing the cover art helps sales, and then it’ll be time for a healthy dose of exposure. One thing I’ve learned so far about working with independent publishers is that generating exposure is key. From what I’ve seen so far (and I may not be right) is that you have to be willing to give away free copies. Word of mouth is an author’s greatest tool and you can’t do that all by yourself. You need readers to do that. This is not debatable.

One other bit of wisdom when it comes to publishing/marketing: don’t settle for less than great. I’m trying to get this lesson to stick with me. I have this bad habit of thinking “not bad” is as good as it’ll ever get for me, that  ”not bad” is the best that’ll ever come my way. Do NOT listen to that voice. It is NOT speaking in your best interest and is always wrong! You’ve worked so hard on your writing. Give it the glam and zing it needs to sell.

Here is what my book looks like on amazon.com, along with the link if you like fantasy books with a fresh spin on the genre: Shield of the Gods