I would have to say I spend a quarter of my online time looking at covers on books of the same genre I write and looking for photos that I think will work on my book covers.
Over the years, I've heard many authors with big publishers say, I gave them the descriptions of my hero and heroine and my blonde heroine has black hair and my cowboy has on sneakers.
It is hard to find the photos that depict a story or the characters to put on a cover. Especially romance books. You want people who look like the characters, but you don't want to make them so distinguishable that the reader is thrown off by something you describe in the book that doesn't match the people. I've heard many readers say they like to visualize the characters in their mind and sometimes their depiction isn't anywhere close to the models on the cover. I like to use the pose that to me shows the character(s), then make sure they have period or vocation clothing and the same color hair as my hero or heroine. Their features don't have to be distinctive because those small things are what the reader adds to their perception of the couple. Am I right readers?
Lately, for the romance covers, as soon as I get an idea of the hero and heroine, I start scouring the stock photo sites, looking for the perfect hero, heroine or couple in a poise that shows the heat of the story.
I was happy with the couple for
Catch the Rain which you can find in the
Cowboy Six Pack box set:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072LR2WFL
Running from her past, Kitty
Baxter catches a glimpse of her future—if she’s brave enough to believe in
herself and the kind-hearted stranger who claims she deserves love.
Focused on setting up his new
veterinarian practice, Zach MacDonald becomes sidetracked by a karaoke singing
beauty with a secret. He sees what others don’t, and becomes determined to make
Kitty see that anyone can learn to catch the rain.
Period Images sent out an email saying they had some new Victorian images and I found the heroine for Savannah the first Silver Dollar Saloon book.
Savannah Gentry has lost everything due to her mother’s greediness. Her father is dead,
their mansion and everything in it is now owned by a banker twice her age who
wants her for his wife. Knowing her only chance is to find the half-brother she
only learned about at her father’s death, she sets out for Shady Gulch, Dakota
Territory.
After hiding in an outhouse to keep from being killed by his own gang and
the law, Topeka Kid died and Larkin Webster was reborn. When
Savannah Gentry, sister to the owner of the Silver Dollar Saloon, stumbles off
the train and into his arms, he chases the excitement he once knew as an outlaw.
This time, his heart won’t listen to his head. Loving this woman may end
his career as a preacher, but it will make his life a challenge until the day
he is put in the ground.
I'll also have another contemporary western novella,
Eight Seconds to Love, coming out in September. I found the perfect couple and pose for this book also at Period Images.
Jared McIntyre can’t believe his eyes. The bull rider
brought into his ER is none other than his best friend’s tomboy cousin, Lacey
Wallis. The girl he couldn’t get out of his head the last fifteen years. During
his tour in Iraq he lost another thrill-seeking woman and he isn’t about to let
this one destroy her life.
Lacey Wallis is injured during the bull ride that moves her
up in the rankings to go to National Finals Rodeo. Her dream. But the guy
she had a crush on when she was thirteen is back in her life, and trying his
darnedest to make her give up on the bulls and get her adrenaline rush from
him.
