Tag Archive for: book cover

My Novella Has A Cover

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By Debra Sennefelder

Last month I shared how I came to create Kelly Quinn, the main character in my Resale Boutique Mystery series. At the time I was reading the proof pages of Kelly’s upcoming novella, WHAT TO WEAR TO A GRAVEYARD and this month I have the cover!

How the cover comes to be is team effort between me and my editor. I provide him with my ideas for the cover. For my Food Blogger Mystery series we tend to depict a scene from the book on the cover. For the Resale Boutique Mystery series, we usually select an outfit as the primary focus of the cover and the cover of the novella is a combination of both types of covers. It shows the scene where Kelly finds the pup and the boots that were definitely a hindrance to her walking around the graveyard. 

This Resale Boutique mystery is set at Halloween and Kelly Quinn
finds herself drawn into a dognapping turned murder while she’s scouting
a location for a photo shoot to boost her boutique’s online presence.
There she discovers the missing pup, who has a hefty reward thanks to
his socialite owner.

Kelly’s
looking forward to collecting the check—until she makes a gruesome
discovery in an abandoned farmhouse: The dog’s owner, stabbed through
the heart.

Kelly learns that hidden in the dead woman’s past is a
secret that could be the motive for the murder. And as a Halloween
party gets started, even a menacing clown and a threatening bearded lady
can’t keep Kelly from trick or treating for the truth—even if it means
her last dance . . .

The novella, which will be released only in
ebook format at this time, is available for preorder and will be
released on Sept.8, 2020 (retails sites say 9/15 because they haven’t
been updated with the new date).

Writing this story combined so
many of the things I love – fashion, Halloween, autumn and a pup named
Billy. I decided to base the dog in the story on my beloved Billy, who
passed away last September at 14. But he’ll live forever in our hearts
and in this story. Love how he’s peeking out from behind the gravestone.




I admit, I’m a sucker for a cover and I’ve made many, many purchases based solely on the cover. What about you? Will an amazing cover get you to make an impulse buy?

H’mmm, Does It Matter What the Author Looks Like?

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On another blog I participate on, the question was about the author’s looks and went on to whether or not people judged the book by the author’s photo on the book.

The gals on this blog are not only much younger than I am but definitely much better looking, I hope no one holds that against me.

For one of my first books I had a glamor shot done–no feathers or tiaras–but someone did my make-up and I looked pretty good–not too much like the real me though. That same shot appeared on about three books–it didn’t age, but I did.

I knew I had to quit using it when at a book event, someone would look at me, look at that picture and then back at me and ask, “Is this you?”

Now, when someone takes a casual photo of me that turns out pretty well, that might be the one I use for the book. One of my publishers puts my picture on a page on the inside of the back–do you suppose that’s a message of some sort?

Not even a super photographer and air-brushing is going to change the fact that I’m a plump great-grandma who’s been around for awhile.

Now if only someone could take a shot of my imagination and use that as my author photo, I know that would be far more interesting.

What’s your opinion about authors’ photographs? Would one ever make you change your mind about buying a book?

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com/