While this post is loosely about writing, it’s more an expression of gratitude to an invaluable ally in an unfolding world I’m still learning to navigate.
I first stuck my toe into self-publishing 7 years ago with very little success. Since I worked full-time, I played at sending my manuscript to agents and publishing houses while I entered Romance Writers of America contests. When that grew old, my next move was self-publishing on Amazon. It didn’t take long to realize their simplistic cover designer didn’t work for me.
However, I had to find a cover that did, so I entered the world of book cover designers. In 2017, while designers were readily available, the market wasn’t flooded as it is now. It didn’t take long to sift through the legitimate sites and narrow my search to five or six contenders. After comparing quality to price, I chose Melody. It didn’t hurt that she had the perfect premade cover for a price I could afford. I eventually delisted this contemporary romance a few months later as work got more demanding and writing hit the back burner.
Fast forwarding to December 2020, I left the professional world to care for my mom full-time. As she recovered from her strokes and I had more free time, I decided to try writing again. Between February of 2023 and October of 2024, I published five novels under the pen name Tori Lennox and one under Genie St. Claire. Melody has been along for the ride on all of them. Three books have premade covers, and three are custom designs.
The premade covers range from couples to a beach scene for the clean and wholesome. Where Melody excels on the premade covers is in knowing which font to use and how to position the text on the cover. That ability is more than just experience and skill. It takes talent and a good eye. My late mother (not my mom-ex-mother-in-law) ran the publishing department for a university where she designed and created textbooks when I was a kid, so I know a little about that.
The three custom book covers she’s designed for me are where I want to sing Melody’s praises. Yes, the order form asks questions about colors, objects, specific ideas the author wants to include, etc., but nothing that simple ever applied to my orders.
The easiest custom cover I tossed Melody’s way was the contemporary below. All I sent her was the information for a photograph of a couple against a plain dark background for her to purchase, that Davi was blonde, and one line of her dialogue – “Not just no. Hell, no!” – and Melody did the rest. No changes were necessary because she captured the moment very well.
The historical/historical romances weren’t as easy. While I thought she did a fantastic job, I have a history degree, so the fairytale quality applied to a more realistic novel softened it more than I wanted. However, while trying to remain as historically accurate as possible, I acknowledge taking artistic liberties with truths such as building stone castles a century or two before they were common and blurring the lines of historical events by a few months or a year.
When I accepted that, everything worked because Melody captured my characters so well given the photographs she had to work with. Since this is a series, I had to go to a period image site and select the warriors that most matched Thor and Alexandria. In the set of “Viking” photographs I chose, Thor wore animal skins and carried a Danish axe while Alexandria wore a plain black tunic and pants. The idea for the chain mail came from a different image of a different model in early medieval armor.
Melody was instructed to use the Viking photograph to get the pose and produce a cover with both warriors in armor. Alexandria was to be red-haired with blue eyes and Thor was blonde like the model. While Thor is ex-mercenary turned Sheriff of Lothian, Alexandria is a normal aristocratic woman who is no stranger to fighting in battles with her father and brothers. Considering she’s never read my novel and was working solely from the information above, I was slightly amazed that Thor has an intensity about him conveying he is as dangerous as a wolf, and never misses anything going on around him. As for Alexandria, she is beautiful but deadly. Something about her eyes conveys, “I have killed, and will kill again if necessary.” -though, as you learn in the book, only in the heat of battle.
The cover for Book 2 is different because Book 2 is different from Book 1. Several photographs were purchased initially because this is a series, so I had nothing to do with this couple or this pose. I just let Melody know this was The Golden Wolf Series Book 2 and sent her the following paragraph. She did the rest:
“Looking around the familiar chamber, Alexandria recalls the night her new life began. So much has changed since then. Given this latest turn of events, her memories are surreal. More than she believes possible. Both for good and evil. If she doubts this, the Thor she met in the great hall proves it. That man isn’t her husband. He isn’t even the man who claimed her in this room. That man is the Golden Wolf. Not her Golden Wolf. The feared and revered warrior of lore. Heart shattering into a thousand bloody shards, there is no time to despair. Her people and her lands need her. Turning at the whisper of her chamber door opening, ‘Speak of the devil,’ roars through her head…”
Without knowing the story, Melody captured the desperation, fear, uncertainty, disconnect, determination, hesitancy, loss, and hope woven through the book using the title and paragraph given. That’s why she has been my go-to designer for six covers and will remain so for as long as she can fit me into her busy schedule.
I don’t know why I felt the need to write this unless it’s to say it takes more than writing talent to create a book. It takes a gifted graphics designer as well. One who tells you when an idea won’t fly while tweaking the concept to one that will. I feel incredibly blessed to have someone like that. While my cover choices may not be the most cutting-edge compared to others, they fit my stories. They reflect my characters as they appear in my head. In the end, that’s what matters. My novels are like me. What you see is what you get.
I’m beginning to feel better physically, so it will be at least a few days before another post appears. I don’t have a clue what the next tangent will be. Probably something related to whichever incomplete novel has fired my interest. Who knows? I admire those of you with a narrow, clear-cut idea of where you’re going. Right now, I get swept up in the moment.
Thank you for reading. Until next time,
Tori
Tori Lennox Author 