I Have Something to Show You

Once upon a time, there was a story that a certain writer loved very much. After writing several romantic suspense stories, this one was a straight contemporary small-town romance. The writer had been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls and reading a lot of Robyn Carr and the story fairly flew from her fingers. Oh, she loved the characters, the wounded hero, the plucky heroine. She based the hero on Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the heroine on Lauren Graham.

But she couldn’t find a home for it. New York didn’t want it. The small presses who already published her work didn’t want it. She did a lot of research and finally found a press who would take it. This press was small, and new, but had nice covers and decent distribution.

At the same time, self-publishing was taking off, but the writer was wary, and decided to go with the small press. Her editor was super nice, the publisher, too, and she liked having that buffer between herself and the reader, since she wasn’t quite confident enough in her skills.

But when she got her cover, she almost cried. The publisher had beautiful covers, but this one was two naked people, not at all indicative of the type of story it was. She broached the topic with her publisher, who dismissed the concern, and the book didn’t sell.

The writer didn’t quite learn her lesson, and submitted a romantic suspense to them. This one, at least, got a great cover, but no sales. I mean, over the course of 2 years, less than 50. Probably less than 30.

 

Then after the first of the year, the publisher was bought by Kensington and the authors were given a choice to go over to Kensington (and be in the “Big 5″) or get their rights back. After some consideration, I chose the latter.

I got new covers, and I want to make some changes to Guarded Hearts and get STTA reformatted, but here is my new cover for Something to Talk About.

 

Much more eye-catching, don’t you think?