BEST ENDEAVOURS

Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.

ENDEAVOURING TO SURPRISE

I was just about to sit down to write this – and to tell you all about my marketing plans for the new year – when I was distracted by my inbox. Hard to ignore an email from my publisher Endeavour Press though. Hard, and probably not a wise choice.

This one was short and to the point: ‘Please find attached the cover that we have designed for Another You – I do hope you like it. Many thanks for returning the manuscript as well, all going well we are hoping to publish it at some point this week.’ Argh… and ARGH!

Seeing the cover for the first time was always going to be one of those make or break moments and I fingered the ‘download attachment’ button nervously. But I could see a thin slice of the title in the preview pane and the vibrant red script drew me in.

First impressions? I loved it. And first impressions are the most important on a crowded page of thumbnails on Amazon. ‘Open me! Read me!’ it screamed. “The past is never dead…” it told me – and instantly I wanted to know why. Well, I would have if I didn’t already, but you get my drift.

The cover works on so many levels. The GIs in sepia in the past, the modern woman with a touch of colour in the present. The sea, the colours, linking them both. Boy oh boy, am I one happy writer.

There is one proviso though, but I am undecided about whether it’s important. Marie would never wear a skirt that short and while she’d love the hat, she probably couldn’t afford it. When she isn’t in her chef’s whites she almost invariably shoves on a pair of jeans – or if she has to dress to impress, a pair of tailored trousers. Now if you’re the sort of reader who likes to imagine their own characters you won’t care a jot, but if you like to refer to the cover to see what they look like then it could be just a little bit irritating… although overall I suspect I am splitting hairs.

More important is the strap line. There were a few different ones flying around. In the original blurb it was ‘What happens when you reach out and touch the past?’ which I replaced with ‘When the present is unbearable, can you be saved by the past?’ (Amazon loves a question). But the line on the cover is snappy and succinct. Job done.

And it’s just as well one job is, because if the book is going to come out this week then I’m way, way behind. My website updates may have gone to the designer, but they’re still in her in tray; my blog tour is only just beginning to come together; Lisa my PR sent me a draft press release a few weeks ago but I haven’t even had time to open it. And this week is pretty well fully booked… even if I believed that just a fraction before Christmas was a good time to promote a summer read.

A new marketing strategy beckons. Sshh – don’t tell anyone it’s out there. Yet.

Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. Another You tells the tale of how two young American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.