Why did I change the cover on Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic anyway? In my readings about cover design — especially from Dean Wesley Smith, who has sold a book or two — I’ve come to realize the cover should reflect the genre of the book, and while yes, two golden retrievers of my acquaintance are the main characters of DASITTOM, the book is a fantasy filled with odd and fantastic magical beings, and so it makes more sense to put Seth the dragon up front. Don’t worry, the cute picture of the dogs is still on the back cover of the paperback.
The other big change is my name goes up top, in bigger type, with a line about who the heck I might be. As Smith points out, my name is the brand. If someone likes another one of my books and wonders what else I got, throwing the brand name up there in big letters helps them find it. It’s true — I don’t remember the names of all the Michael Connelly or William Kent Krueger books I’ve read, but I react to the author’s name.
I added “Author of The Man Who Crossed Whimsy Avenue” to remind the casual reader where they might have heard of me before, and also to make a suggestion to the person who enjoyed my Halloween fantasy, in case they liked it enough to sample another one of my wares.
I am pleased enough with the new Time of Magic look that I decided also to tweak my Christmas story, which has my favorite cover among my books. Much as I like the cover, I realized it lacks a key ingredient for drawing potential readers, the subtitle, “A sequel of sorts to ‘A Christmas Carol.’” Ebenezer could be the name of the horse who pulls the wagon in the foreground; by adding the subtitle, you get a better idea of what the dickens this little book is about.
In this case, I left off any little blurb with my name. I’m gambling the chance to peek into what happened with Ebenezer Scrooge after that fateful night is more important than whoever this Bluhm guy might be.
Only the covers are changing, so the ISBN remains the same, in case you want to encourage your favorite bookstore to order these books for you in time for the respective holidays.
I am not a very good marketer — or else sales of my 17 books would go a lot farther toward paying my bills — but I’m learning a thing or two, at long last.
