I’ll be the first to admit, I like the wording more than the picturing when it comes to putting a book together. I use the words to make the pictures on the brain (although tonight, I’m apparently In A Mood and the braining is making the wording come out all sideways-y). But my lovely cover artist, Jennette Marie Powell, is good at the pixeling pretty, and she has done a wonderful job of redesigning the frabjabulous new cover for Forever Material.

One of the changes is that my name is at the top instead of the bottom, and it’s bigger. This is where the “career” theme comes into the post. Indie publishing is a long game, which means success vectors happen more as a result of a gradual upward slope than a meteoric rise straight out of the gate. It’s logical to figure that you want recognition for your title because you want your book to grab people’s attention. If you’re shopping for running shoes, you look at the shoes in the Nike ad.

But that’s selling a book, not advancing a career, and a career is so much more than a book. A brand is so much more than a picture of a particular shoe. Nike caught onto this when they started selling a mindset and a lifestyle and oh, by the way, here are some shoes to wear with that powerful new winner’s lifestyle we’re selling you. Now, I’m not selling shoes (although my cartoon Barbara has cute ones, doesn’t she?) or a lifestyle (at least, I don’t think I am). I’m selling you my style of entertainment–fun, quirky, and romantic. And while Forever Material is my first book out (under this name, which is another aspect of brand), the subsequent books that come out are going to have those same elements to them (more or less–I’m kind of all over the map as far as sub-genres go, and I can do that because I’m an indie author), and you’ll know that when you see my name at the top.

So…what do you think of the new cover? One other thing I get to do as an indie author is change my cover whenever I want. I loved the white cover, because I’m a sucker for a good contrast, and it doesn’t get any better than black on white (plus, my eyes are getting lazy in their old age and the lighter it is, the easier it is to read), but what I love and what most people love often don’t vector. This cover presents a brighter, more complete, and eye-catching picture.

But again, careers aren’t built on one book. I have another (few) to be working on today.