Cover Reveal! Body, Ink and Soul by Jude Ouvrard

I recently interviewed the wonderful author, Jude Ouvrard, and today I'm thrilled to be sharing the fantastic cover of her upcoming book Body, Ink and Soul!  

Cover reveal for THE TEXAS COWBOY

Here it is: the cover for my latest romance, THE TEXAS COWBOY, thanks to the very talented Jane Dixon-Smith at JD Smith Design.

Here's what it's about:

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the problems.

When Vicky flies into Texas, she immediately falls for the charms of local cowboy, Jack Cassidy. However, her wealthy Dallas cousin, Laura, has other ideas and will do everything she can to steer Vicky away from Jack and into the arms of a rich oilman.

Jack is resigned to living the life of a lonely cowboy whose only female company is his horses—that is, until he meets Vicky. However, Vicky isn’t the only person with a claim on his heart. Jack wasn’t always alone and his ex is about to make a dramatic comeback.

Every cowboy has a past and this cowboy’s past is about to destroy his future.

Who doesn't love a sexy cowboy?

 THE TEXAS COWBOY is now out on Amazon!

Cover reveal for A BRIDE FOR THE SHEIKH

After a lot of difficult decisions and some very hard choices, I now have an amazing cover for my next romance novel, A Bride For The Sheikh, thanks to the extremely talented designer at J. D. Smith Designs. Here it is:

I hope everyone loves it as much as I do. I can't wait to publish the book - it should be out soon on Amazon.

UPDATE!

A BRIDE FOR THE SHEIKH is now available on Amazon at:

USA: http://amzn.to/1fSJKdI

UK: http://amzn.to/18GdmXe

Do Amazon Rankings Matter?

I was recently on holiday in the USA, during which time I grabbed the chance to do some rather shameless promotion of my books (I also drank quite a few frozen margaritas during the holiday, but that’s another story that probably doesn’t bear telling). As everyone nowadays has some form of portable electronic device, it was fast and easy for them to whip out their iPhone, tablet, BlackBerry etc, look up my romance novels on Amazon.

When they checked out my books, what did they look at? Almost without fail, it was the book cover and then the reviews. No one, absolutely no one, looked at my rankings and when I pointed them out (during a nice spike one weekend), the other people had no idea what they meant and didn’t care! So, do rankings matter?

Her Latin Lover is Now Covered

My new romance novel, Her Latin Lover, now has a great book cover thanks to Judy Bullard at http://www.jaebeecreations.com. I love the cover she did for my first contemporary romance, The Royal Sheikh, so I asked her if she could design one for my next book, Her Latin Lover. It is set in South America so I wanted a slightly different feel to the previous cover, e.g. the font that she used for the title had to change, as did the background image. However, she kept the same font for my name and placed it at the bottom of the cover as before, so that there would be some consistency between the two books. Hopefully this will help people see that they are by the same author, though this time Judy gave my name a slight pinkish hue which I think looks great. Thank you Judy for the gorgeous cover!

Her Latin Lover has been picked over by several editors, which is always a nerve-wracking process, but they said they loved it, just as long as I made the changes they suggested! It is now with a professional proofreader, but as soon as I get it back and change any errors (hopefully there won't be too many of them!) the book will be published on Amazon.  Watch this space!


Stop Press! Her Latin Lover is now available on Amazon! Click here to grab your copy.

Vampires and Romance Part II: An interview with Michelle Hughes

Last December I interviewed Michelle Hughes, author of A Night At Tears of Crimson and since then she has been unbelievably busy, so I asked her if she was willing to do a second interview with me to tell us what she’s been up to and luckily she said yes!

First of all, thank you so much Michelle for taking the time to come back here and chat with me. Since we last spoke you have done heaps of things including publishing another book, Eternal Crimson, which is now out as both an ebook and as a paperback. Could you tell us a bit about it?

Thank you so much for having me back again, Katheryn.  It's been a busy six months, and so much has been put into place that I just had to force myself to keep up.  Some of the projects I've been working on needed to happen immediately, and then of course the last book in the Tears of Crimson Vampire Series has a very specific deadline it has to meet, so that helped push things along.

Meet Catherine Bybee: Amazon, USA Today and WSJ Bestselling Romance Author

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be interviewing Catherine Bybee on this blog!  First of all Catherine, congratulations on the huge success of your number 1, bestselling romance, Wife by Wednesday.  Without giving too much away, could you tell us a little bit about it?

Wife by Wednesday combines a historical romance theme; dashing Duke needs a wife to inherit his father’s wealth, and meshes it with a modern setting of a contemporary romance. A sexy hero and snarky heroine with a ton of honesty and this romance takes off.

How to Create a Great Book Cover

A great book needs a great book cover.  However, for many authors, like me, designing a cover that is even half-decent can be a frustrating challenge. Therefore, when I saw H. S. St.Ours stunning book cover mentioned on my page, Great Book Covers, and found out that he had done it all himself, I asked him if he was willing to share his expertise and luckily he said ‘Yes’!  Below is one of the most useful and inspiring guides I have read on how to design a winning book cover.  I hope you find it helpful too.

Babies, Writing and Travelling: An interview with Sarah Elle Emm

Today I am delighted to welcome Sarah Elle Emm, author of Marrying Missy.  First of all Sarah, can I ask how you became an author, what inspired you? 

New book cover

The Royal Sheikh now has a new book cover, thanks to a great designer and my editor's advice. It should be 'live' on Amazon in the next day or so. What do you think?

Choices, choices!

I now have samples from two book cover designers for my romance novel, 'The Royal Sheikh' and to be honest they are both great!  They are a million times better than the one that I'm currently using and definitely worth the money.  I've sent them off to my editor in Dallas for her opinion.  Let's see what she thinks . . .

Book cover for 'The Royal Sheikh'

My first novel, 'The Royal Sheikh', a contemporary romance, has been available for about a month now as an ebook on Amazon and sales have been great.  However, I can't but wonder if sales would be even better if the book had a good cover.  After many, many hours of trying to redesign one myself, I've finally decided to hire a professional.  Have I given up too early?  Maybe, maybe not.  Maybe I should just realize that there are some things I can do, like writing (I hope!) and some things that I can't do, like picture editing!  I expect I will forever be impressed by those authors who manage to produce excellent covers on their own.  In the meantime, I'll stick to the writing side of publishing.