I have come to a sad conclusion...
The Jade Ring Series needs new covers.
It hurts me to say it, because I love the original covers, they are truly special to me. More special than perhaps any cover will ever be to me. They were designed by my good friend, a very talented artist, who knew exactly what I wanted before I even knew it. She knew these stories and gave me covers that I will forever hold dear.
Recently I did my first school visit, where I got the pleasure of sharing why each cover was so special and how it fit the story. The interest from the kids and ahh's from them, only made me love them more. Which only makes this harder.
Then I watched my great friend and author, Devri Walls talk about covers on her YouTube channel. She talked about the importance of having covers that fit your genre and on the importance of having a cover that connects with the majority of people. And here was the real kicker... she said that just because you understand the importance of the cover doesn't mean that your potential readers will. And that's when it really hit me.
The students liked the covers, but it wasn't until I explained what was going on that I got the ooh's and ahh's. And that's when it clicked. My covers don't connect. Not until you've read the story.
It also got me thinking about sales. As much as I don't want to think about money it is an inevitability. I am an author and I do invest money in my books, therefore I would like to actually sell books. An amazing concept I know.
With that in mind I had to ask myself... do my covers help me sell books?
My answer to that would probably be no. I'm going to be honest, I haven't sold a lot of books as a whole. As an avid reader, as much as I don't want to say the cover influences my desire to read something in reality it would be a total crock. Covers totally influence our decisions to take a chance on a book. Whether it is a Free read or not, the cover sells it.
But I went back to my original thought... I love my covers. Really love my covers.
And I do. The good news is, that I get to keep them in some way. I will always have the books printed in their original cover glory to remind me where it all started and who helped get me there. But it is time to breathe new life into the series. This will be done not only through new covers, but by a fresh edit and possible new content in one of the books.
But you will have to stay tuned to find everything out.
I can say this though... I already have the new cover of Guided in my grubby hands and it is beautiful. I am working with Judi Perkins at Concierge Literary Designs to bring these new covers to life and I can't wait to show it to you all. We just all have to be patient. Haha, I'm not sure I know what that means.