Serving Up Innocence Cover from Not Quite to Nailed It!

For a self-published author, deciding on a cover, or what I want on it is an arduous task. 

In my newest series -- The Ladies of Westside -- I knew exactly what my main characters (MC) looked like, but finding them? Impossible. When I contacted the lovely Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs, she sent me a very detailed form to fill out, asking about fonts I liked, colours I thought worked and in-depth character descriptions. Then she provided me the name of the site she uses for photos and sent me shopping. 

I spent HOURS pouring through the photos. For Serving Up Innocence the male MC has dreads and is Caucasian. The female MC has darker hair. Finding a photo with these two was nearly impossible, especially characters that are in their early 20s. Unable to find a couples photo, I did find two individual, and sent the stock numbers off to Cassy. 

She sent back this prototype. 

Concept 1
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it's not right. The guy is pretty much a ringer, and the lady... well, it's not too bad. But together? It didn't work. The font was perfect but the colour needed to change - I found it too beach like and the setting was wrong for that. Back to the drawing board. Since we couldn't find the above guy with the right lady, and I wanted them in more of a couple pose, we did manage to find a cute couple. BUT he didn't have dreads. 


Ahh.. the magical art of photoshop. 

concept 2

concept 3

We darkened the green to a more jade colour as the FMC's nickname is Jade. Perfect, that works. She darkened the guy's dreads and it was tolerable. It worked but it wasn't perfect. It didn't have that **WOW** I was looking for, but she had three other covers of mine to work on, so I accepted this (concept 3) and blasted it out with all the pre-order links. I'm not a big pre-seller, but my pre-orders do well enough for me. A month out from the release of Innocence and there was nothing. I asked a few trusted people and they all said it was the cover and the man on the cover looked off, which I agreed with. It just didn't have the zip and the male wasn't a natural dreadlock wearing individual. 

I contacted Cassy and explained, and we went couple hunting again. I tell you - the next series/book I write, I'm picture shopping FIRST, I think that will make things much easier when it comes to cover design. Hahah. So after some more back and forths and a variety of single models, she came up with this (concept 4). Well... we're certainly getting closer. Much closer but it's not quite right. Better than the others though.

Concept 4

I swear, I spent thirty hours over a weekend (three weekends before Innocence was set to release) combing through photos and photos. BTW - I've saved every cute couple I thought I'd possibly need for the next few books too. 
On the final hour, in the middle of the night, I found them. They were perfect. Gorgeous and what I'd been looking for since the start. Only problem - the lady's hair colour was off and she was sporting tattoos. Damn! 
However, I sent the couple photos to Cassy and figured I'd work with it. I could go through my written book and change out Jade's hair colour to match the cover and add in the tattoo. Wouldn't be too hard, and probably much easier than trying to find another couple. 

Cassy emailed me back and when I saw the cover, I screamed. THIS was what I'd wanted since the beginning, it just took many tries and concepts and hours to get it. Through the magic of photoshop, she removed the tattoo and darkened the hair. Cassy Roop knew exactly what I was looking for and made this file perfect. 
I quickly uploaded the new cover to all the sites and blasted out on my social media channels the updated version, and the pre-orders started rolling in. YEAH! A good cover truly does make the difference, and I'm super happy with this. 

Perfection! 
So, if you are looking for a cover designer that works with you, I highly recommend Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs. You can also reach her on her Facebook Page - she'll post her deals (I got my covers done as a custom cover when she had a special birthday pricing) and has a list of available premades ready to go. She's uber nice, easy to work with and keeps going until it's perfect! 

This are the other three covers in the series. Didn't she do a beautiful job? 
I've also blogged about the evolution of Duly Noted's cover, and why I won't use Fiverr again. 


            

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