New Historical Romance Covers!

I’ve just had new covers designed for my first two historical novels.

I’be been involved this publishing thing since I wrote my first novel back in 2004. When we were still doing “snail mail” queries. Then the internet revolution hit, and now about 99% of agents and editors do everything online.

I do know of one agent who accepts both, but he only promises to respond to the snail mail proposals. Steve Laube was my dream agent and the very first agent I queried. He was so kind to a newbie writer, pointing out what I could work on to improve the manuscript, which he rated as a B+(not good enough for publication!) 

Steve is still one of the nicest guys around the publishing world. Check out his agency here.

I self-published that first historical, A Secret Hope, in 2012, and helped design the cover. And now, when I see that old cover on Goodreads, I cringe. (Unlike Amazon, who will replace your old cover with a new one, Goodreads keeps the old one for everyone to see. And cringe at.)

The next book in the series, The Fury of Dragons, was published in 2017. And at that time I had the cover for A Secret Hope redesigned to coordinate with the new book. And I loved those new covers. They encapsulated everything I hoped to show on the cover about the theme of the book.

But slowly, belatedly, something finally occurred to me when I looked at other historical romance covers. They all had at least the heroine on the cover. And many had the hero, as well. It sunk in that I’d approached the concept of book covers all wrong. I needed to think about what readers look for.

So, in January, I bit the bullet.

I found a professional designer, Kristen Ingebretson, who has designed covers for Chip and Joanna Gaines, Frank Peretti, and Rachel Hauck, among others. It wasn’t cheap, but I’m so glad I decided to invest the money.

She did an amazing job! I am so happy with my new historical romance covers.

Third time is the charm, as they say. I wish I had realized this sooner! 

Kristin’s website is HERE. Go check out all the cool fiction and nonfiction covers she has designed!