Giveaway & Poll: Help choose the the next House of DeDe series cover

Please help me welcome Beautiful Tears author Sharon Mamolo!

When I was fourteen, give or a take a year, I picked up a book at the library because of its cover. It was pretty. I can still vividly remember to this day the bright blue cover and fluffy clouds. It had a woman with flowing blonde hair, her back to the viewer. A valley of some sort was in the background with cute brown horses. That was what had captured my very urban attention. I was under the impression that I was going to be a veterinarian when I grew up so the horses drew me into picking up the book. Plus the book was thick. Inches. I wouldn’t have to come to the library for some time.

Little did I know that I had just picked up what many would come to consider nothing more than prehistoric porn. A Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel was the second novel in her Earth’s Children series but I didn’t know any of this. I was a kid and the only thing that mattered was the pretty cover and the thick book.

I’m an adult now and I know better. I know that a cover is just a marketing tool. It makes a potential reader stop for a precious second and take a second look. It screams what the genre is without having to spell it out. It makes you want to know more. But sometimes, covers don’t always leave you with the sense of wanting to pick them up (guilty). I still judge books by their covers, even though I write and know better.

If I’ve the time, my fingers will lovingly caress the spines and covers of the many books on the shelves of the local brick and mortar. I will not read the blurbs if the cover does not grab my attention first. I’m a Kindle owner, I browse my favorite genre on line looking for a quick fix, one click away from another great escape but again, I cannot bring myself to read the blurb, much less the peek inside feature, if the cover doesn’t grab my attention. Why? Force of habit? Laziness? I honestly don’t know.

As a writer, I find myself in a difficult position. The writer inside of me wants to put something out that will entice others to read the blurb. The writer doesn’t care if the cover has little to do with the subject matter. The cover is just a hook. Get them in, read the blurb. That’s all it has to do. It’s an e-book for Pete’s sake. Get over it!

The reader inside of me shakes her head mournfully. The cover must be pretty. It has to pertain to the story, connect with scenery tell its own tale and mean something. My guilty pleasure when reading is historical romance and I am sick and tired of seeing shirtless men, rippling muscles flexing in exertion as they forcefully embrace a swooning maiden in  deep burgundy gowns. Really. Can they not think of anything else?

I’m currently working on the fourth installment of the house of DeDe series, an urban fantasy tale set in New Orleans. I’ve had a lot of fun flexing my creative mind while avoiding everything that might immediately remind one of urban fantasy. You know the clichés … scantily dressed women in stiletto heels, a blade strapped to their forearms and various guns everywhere. The men, rippling muscles from head to toe dressed in trench coats flanking the women.

I want to make the fourth installment personal. Something that my readers will immediately connect with once they see it. I wanted to focus more on what the book was about, which is the personal history of one of the characters; a half-breed fairy by the name of Lord Malachi, house of Blaine.

As a fun way to help me decide, I am asking you fine folks to vote on which cover would make you stop for that precious second.

Which cover would entice you to read the blurb?

Giveaway

Vote for your favorite cover. Leave a comment letting us know which one you picked and why, then fill out the Rafflecopter below to be entered to win an e-copy of the first book in the DeDe series, A Lady of the Realm.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway