Book Covers Drive Me CRAZY!

Book Covers drive me absolutely Bat-Poop, Around-the-Bend Crazy. I want to tear out my hair.

Because it is entirely possible (and probable) to judge a book by its cover, having a compelling book cover that represents the story is absolutely imperative. You don't want a photo of a pretty pastel-colored house with a flower garden if it's Suspense, nor do you want to have a bloody knife, if your story is Women's Fiction. Those are obvious examples but there are so many grey areas that I drive myself to Chardonnay when trying to decide on a book cover.

I am a person who sees everything from 27 different angles so a final decision never actually happens. I have to give up changing, looking, tweaking. I have to actually get so frustrated, tired and broken in spirit, that I give up, like some wild mustang that has to be shown who's boss in the ole corral. Don't get me started on how long it took to decide on this cover:

Recently, I had the opportunity to change my cover for a non-Indie novel of mine published with a wonderful publishing house. Don't get me wrong. Taking away some of my torture by making me a cover and then not letting me have a say in it, was wonderful in a way.
This book (which I LOVE!) had a cover that did not represent my story very well. At least the hero was wrong. The hero on the cover has skinny, adolescent-girl arms, wears a mint green polo and has a very tall head with a clean-cut look. In the book he is described as someone more, shall we say, ruggedly manly. On Pinterest, he is Sawyer, that hunk from the hit TV show LOST.

Don't ask me how I got the publisher to agree to changing the cover but I did. I then went to all the Stock Photo sites and spent about 3 days trying different things, playing around with ideas. I hardly left my office for hours on end.

The story of Necessary Detour is Rear Window (Hitchcock) meets The Bodyguard. The woman is in turmoil as she finds distraction in spying on the strange family next door.

I finally decided that I wanted to have both characters on the cover and eventually came up with this...

I sent my idea off to the publisher and the cover artist came up with this...

I love it! Although I did like the stars and lake in the first one, the new cover represents the two heroes much better. She's a Rock Star, running away from a life and a stalker and he's trying to not get involved with the woman who's moved next door on their remote, uninhabited lake. It's a Romantic Suspense, so this font works really well. Thank you, cover artist.

One cover down.

Then I decided to change a cover I have control over. I wrote a Fan Fiction novel for Kindle Worlds in the Lei Crime category and it isn't doing as well as I'd hoped. The story is a kick-ass mystery whodunit and with the support of the author of the original series, Toby Neal, I just assumed it would take off like a 747 in a tail wind. It hasn't and I can only think it's the cover with the reference to the Rocky Horror Show (bloody font) or the young woman on the cover who might suggest she's younger than she actually is in the story. Because I'm not sure what the novel's problem is, I'm trying cover first.

I asked my buddy Bob, who is a world famous Hawaiian photographer and has the photo site Photo Images Maui, if I could have a lava photo. For free. 'Cause we're friends. He said yes and I tried a few things with his GORGEOUS photos of lava.

I finally ended up with a design that the group of authors at Lei Crime Kindle Worlds Facebook Secret Group approved. Toby Neal too, which is like saying the boss approved. She's very hands on with her Kindle World group and the way she helps us and cares about our projects I have to think she's an amazing mother. Toby suggested the font be bigger in the title and she was right! (We have to leave space at the bottom left so Kindle Worlds can put their logo on there.) Last night I uploaded the new cover but have yet to see the change on Kindle Worlds. We'll see if the new cover helps.

I actually really like this cover.
Today.
Tomorrow is a different story.
See what I mean about indecision?

As of this moment, my other covers are working for me just fine. I think. What do you think? I might get the artist to change the busy box set 3D cover. Check out my Amazon page and let me know what you think of my covers. Kim Hornsby on Amazon

Kim Hornsby is the Bestselling Author of THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE, available on Amazon books. her stories usually involve a Suspense, a Romance, and a touch of Supernatural.

Kindle Countdown Deals Flops Big Time!

Update is below the post to describe why Kindle Countdown flopped!

December 1st at 8 a.m., my novel THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE goes to .99 from its regular price of $2.99. I'm trying a new thing on Amazon called Kindle Countdown Deals and I'm not sure this will be a good thing for this book but I'll see at the end of the week.
You tell them how many days to run the deal and give them a starting price point. They reduce the price then build back up incrementally over that time period. If I remember correctly, my book goes to .99 tomorrow morning and after two days goes to $1.99 then on the seventh day, back to $2.99. They put a little ticking digital clock beside the price to show how much longer at this price.
The idea behind this is sales for the week it's discounted and to create buzz and good ranking for the book after having it on sale. I'm hoping Amazon puts it on some list that readers can access for cheap books because I'm limited in what I can do promo-wise. I'll be away all week with limited internet availability.
I want to do free days at Christmas and Amazon insists I keep the $2.99 price point for two weeks after the last day on the promotion so that'll put me at about December 20th when I can reduce the price again.
As a first time author, I'm still trying to gain readers and convince people to read my book, take a chance on a new author, write a review.
UPDATE!!! You cannot do a FREE Promo after Kindle Countdown Deals. You must wait until the 90 days are up.

I'll update this blog next week when I have a chance to see if Kindle Countdown Deals works or not. I'm headed to Nicaragua tomorrow for some jungle time and won't be available online. This is me hiking in the jungle in Nicaragua.

Lately my book has not been selling at $2.99. It does far better at free :) or at $1.99 and although I never guessed that I'd be okay with offering my book for so little, I now realize this is the way to build a career.
The second in the series THE DREAM JUMPER'S SECRET will be out the first week of February and that should be a big shot in the arm for the PROMISE book, as well. Anyone out there have experience with Kindle Countdown Deals? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Nominated for BEST INDIE FIRST BOOK by Indie RomCon

Amazon Bestselling Author Kim Hornsby

December 13th UPDATE: I really hoped there'd be some breakthrough sales of this book with Kindle Countdown Deals but I sold very few copies of the book at each price level. It was almost like there was a sign on it saying "don't buy this." My sales plummeted. Maybe they were going to anyhow, seeing it's the Holiday Season and romance readers enjoy reading Christmas Love Stories, (like Christmas by Candlelight) but I've never seen such poor ranking for this book since it was launched! Not just that, but now I can't adjust the price to where it does make sales because I'm locked in at the higher price for 2 weeks after the promo. All round, this did not work for me at all. Good thing I have other books and novellas out there. And I have a husband to support me while I try to make a go of it as an author!

UPDATE!!! You cannot do a FREE Promo after Kindle Countdown Deals. You must wait until the 90 days are up. This has successfully tanked my book sales now for 2 months. I will never do this promo again. Little did I know when I wrote this blog in December.

The Dream Jumper's Promise
Blurb

Tina Greene can't accept the presumed surfing death of her husband, Hank. Months after signing the death certificate, she trades mourning for saving her Maui dive shop from bankruptcy. When Jamey Dunn walks back into her life things take a strange turn. Dreams of Hank have the dive instructor questioning her sanity and leaning heavily on Hank's best friend, Noble. Jamey and Noble clash at every turn, both desperate to help Tina. When Jamey suspects Tina's strange dreams hold clues to Hank's disappearance, he must reveal his unusual ability to visit dreams. Trusting the man who once betrayed her doesn't come easily when the decision to let Jamey enter her subconscious has a price. As Tina, Noble and Jamey decipher the mystery of Hank's disappearance, grave danger sets in to reveal that one person is a traitor, one is flirting with insanity and one is an impostor.

Kim Hornsby is the AMAZON BESTSELLING author of THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE, NECESSARY DETOUR and THE HUSBAND HUNT. Visit her amazon page to find inexpensive downloads and print books.

Kindle Select - FREE BOOKS!

Why would anyone want to give something away that they spent years creating? Aside from blatant benevolence, the answer could be to eventually direct you to something that does cost money. Like your second book. If you are a new author, building a reader base is extremely important. More important than money, unfortunately. Especially if you are in this for the duration and hoping to build a career. Getting in people's faces and heads is everything for a new author. visibility. Exposure.

And that is why Amazon Kindle has a program called SELECT where you can give away downloads of your book 5 days out of the 90 day program--free downloads of a book that you might have spent years writing. It seems like a terrible idea when what you want is to make money from writing books. However, if you can see ahead a year, the free days can help your ranking on Amazon, which helps to sell books. On Amazon, (the biggest book sellers in the world), ranking is everything. If you get yourself in the top 100 on the paid list, you can look forward to some sales that are generated purely by being on that list. No advertising necessary. Unless you want to keep the momentum and propel it farther up the list. Which you should. It's not a great idea to sit back and watch your success. Marketing is an ongoing process.
Unless you're Nicholas Sparks and wrote Safe Haven. Then you can sit back and rake in the money because your book reached #1 and stayed there for a long time.

Kindle Select gives you the opportunity to get exposure, but it's up to you to advertise your free days and get on lists with your generous offering. Over the last few months, I've compiled a secret list of forty publications who will announce your free days and direct traffic to download your novel. The higher your ranking gets, the more likelihood that when free days ends, you will maintain sales for a while if you play your cards right. And it's good to have a marketing plan for after free days like cheap ads, keeping the cost of the book low and good reviews to keep sales coming in.
Should you do all 5 days together or split them up? I've done both and I'm not sure what is best. When my Romantic Suspense did all 5 together it garnered 35,000 downloads and got some kick-ass sales for six weeks after. Then the publisher raised the price and things are not going as well. My Paranormal Romance has only ever split up the free days. Because it's self pubbed, I can choose and it does well enough with 3 days in a row. I would never do one day because you need the momentum to build. And five days feels like too much. I want to save two free days to give the book another shot in the arm next month. The Dream Jumper's Promise was free May 26-28 and after the first 24 hours, had 12,000 downloads, reaching #4 in the Kindle store FREE and  #1 in paranormal romance. The FREE lists are way different than the paid lists but still a good indication of how the public likes your cover and blurb. At the point of writing this, in my free days, I'm just hoping, that with another 40 hours to go, I can maintain my position or even reach #1 in the Free Store (above that dad-burned 160 calorie cookbook!)
Free Days has helped us self pubbed or newbie authors gain a fighting chance in this market. Since ebooks and self pubs have opened to writers who used to spend years trying to get an agent, editor, publisher and readers, there is now a lot of floatsum and jetsam out there and the discerning reader must sift through it to find a good read. But, if they like your cover, your blurb, you reviews, your name, anything, they might 'buy' it for free, read it, review and tell their friends to read it when it costs money.
Granted, many of the readers who buy your free book will never read it and those who do will probably never write a review or refer someone to your book but some might. There are millions of readers out there in the world, buying books, downloads, entertainment, and even if there is a slight chance of a hundred real sales and 2 reviews, it's worth it to do free days.
Even though it's hard to giveaway something that you value greatly, the idea behind free days is that you have to 'spend money to make money'. Give something away for the reward later. Readership. So go ahead and get writing that second book while free days are on because you know they're going to ask for it. And you'll probably have to offer that one free at the beginning too.
Good luck Writers and don't forget to check your SELECT actions on KDP to make decide if you want to re-enroll in SELECT when your 90 days ends. Otherwise it automatically gets re-enrolled for you.

Kim Hornsby is the author of NECESSARY DETOUR, published by The Wild Rose Press and
THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE
as well as a contributing author to SWEET SUMMERTIME LOVE