Book Relaunch: Second Sight: The Complete Collection by Heather Topham Wood

Check out the new cover and newly revised edition of Second Sight: The Complete Collection! All four books in the series can be purchased for just $6.99!

Thanks to Caitlin from Studio 22 Cover Designs for her awesome work!

The Second Sight series is now available as a boxed set! Read the entire collection featuring quirky psychic Kate Edwards and the devastatingly handsome Detective Jared Corbett.

Second Sight: The Complete Collection includes the four books in the Amazon bestselling series:
First Visions
New Revelations
Dark Premonitions
The Final Omen 

Praise for the Second Sight series:

"The pacing of this book was phenomenal. This is just a fantastic read. I can't wait for more. I honestly can't praise this enough." -Read Between the Lines

"I really loved this story! I've been waiting for a book like this to read, and this was just wonderful." -For the Love of Film and Novels

"A total must read for all suspense and supernatural romance fans." -My Cozie Corner

"This is a great choice if you are looking for a quick fun read that can and will also get your heart pounding with suspense. Wood did another amazing job at writing a novel with the perfect amount of a little bit of everything, including romance, suspense, psychic powers, and great characters." -It's a Book's Life

First Visions:

Two years ago, 21-year-old Kate Edwards became deathly ill and slipped into a coma. While unconscious, she crept into the mind of a missing boy and awoke with the knowledge of his location.

Now another child has been abducted. Police detective Jared Corbett seeks out Kate for her help in solving the case. With visions she can't control and an uncontrollable attraction to the detective, she wonders if she can leave the past behind and finally stop hiding from the world.

New Revelations:

Life should’ve been perfect. Kate Edwards had won the heart of police detective Jared Corbett and was coming to terms with her psychic ability. Things were blissful—until the day she met bad boy psychic extraordinaire Declan Brayden.

Dark Premonitions:

Psychic Kate Edwards had her first premonition—a vision of her own murder by a faceless attacker. With very few clues to go on, she has to use her psychic gifts to uncover who wants her dead. Paranoia sets in and Kate wonders if there’s anybody she can trust.

The Final Omen:

Kate Edwards had seen her death in a premonition. She was given the opportunity to stop her murder from happening and finally reconnect with her love Detective Jared Corbett. However, fate had different ideas…

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

Cover Reveal and Gift Card Giveaway: The Dark Dreamer by Heather Topham Wood

The cover of my March paranormal romance release has arrived! Cover Me, Darling designed the cover and I really love how well the book is represented. Check out the summary below and also enter my giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card.

Summary:

For as long as she can remember, Rebekah Clayton’s life has been dictated by her dreams. As a dream interpreter, she has become privy to her clients’ deepest and darkest secrets. Affairs, financial ruin, even murder—nothing shocks her anymore. But Grant Raskin’s dreams are unlike any she has heard before.

If Rebekah’s interpretation is right, Grant has foreseen the end of the world. A plague is coming and everyone Rebekah cares about will succumb to the illness. And Grant can trace the origin of the disease back to two men: Dr. Mark Holman and his son Drew.

Grant enlists Rebekah to track down the Holmans and determine their connection to the viral outbreak. But uncovering Drew Holman’s secrets will lead her down a dangerous path—unearthing a deadly conspiracy she never could have predicted.

The first book in a two-part series from bestselling romance author Heather Topham Wood.

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Blog Tour Stop and Guest Post: The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing by C.K. Kelly Martin

Book & Author details:

The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing by C.K. Kelly Martin 

Publication date: September 1st 2014

Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Synopsis:

Losing weight over the summer gains Serena some popularity, but it also means discovering first-hand the pains of being a fifteen-year-old girl in a world that both sexualizes and shames young women. After narrowly avoiding exploitation in a shortlived relationship, Serena aligns with a new friend who was the victim of an explicit image that was shared at school. When Serena finds herself in a relationship with a new guy, she is surprised to find a different set of expectations. But have her previous experiences damaged her too much to make it work? As Serena struggles to find who she is as opposed to who she is expected to be, she begins sighting Devin – her older brother who disappeared months earlier.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22135341-the-sweetest-thing-you-can-sing?ac=1

Purchase:

--Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Sweetest-Thing-You-Sing/dp/1770864113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405621934&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Sweetest+Thing+You+Can+Sing

--B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-sweetest-thing-you-can-sing-ck-kelly-martin/1119684532?ean=9781770864115

AUTHOR BIO

C.K. KELLY MARTIN’s bestselling debut novel, I Know It’s Over, was published in 2008. It was followed by One Lonely Degree, The Lighter Side of Life and Death, My Beating Teenage Heart and the sci-fi thriller, Yesterday. A graduate of the Film Studies program at York University, Martin loves good books, movies, music, web design, and Ireland. She currently resides in Oakville, Ontario.

Author Links:

http://www.ckkellymartin.com/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3015727.C_K_Kelly_Martin

https://www.facebook.com/ckkellymartin

https://twitter.com/CKKellyMartin

The Importance of Book Covers

Apparently that old adage about not judging a book by its cover goes back to at least 1867 and while I’m sure most of us would agree with it, and realize a compelling novel can sometimes be found lurking under the drabbest of covers, it’s difficult not to be momentarily awed by an attractive cover. 

Obviously every writer wants a cover they can fall in love with. The trouble is that what an author might love, might not be the same cover the publisher’s sales and marketing departments or Barnes & Nobel rep prefers. The truth is, an author doesn’t always have a lot of choice in what appears on their book’s cover. Sometimes their publisher doesn’t even have much of a choice. For several of my young adult novels, I was told by my publisher that Barnes & Noble wanted a girl on the cover as a condition of their stocking the book. 

Now, of course there’s nothing wrong with having a girl on the cover of your book and Barnes & Noble must have found these sorts of covers sell copies. But having any single image as a default for a YA book doesn’t make sense to me when there are so many different arresting images and designs to consider. In practice, what this girl on the cover (and usually not a large variety of girls – mostly pretty white girls in attractive poses, which makes you wonder where the heck everyone else is!) preference has led to is a flood of novels that are fairly indistinguishable from each other visually. We could aptly call them ‘the pretty girl covers.’ 

But a good cover isn’t just appealing to look at; it should also faithfully represent the distinctness of the story inside. For example, for a novel which is a nuanced exploration of a teenage meth addict’s emotional state, Beneath a Meth Moon (by Jaqueline Woodson) is a stunning cover. On the other hand, the hardback cover of Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (the middle book in a series I absolutely loved by the way!) is pretty, but bland. It doesn’t reveal anything about the fascinating dystopian story within its pages. If I hadn’t already known something about the book, the cover certainly wouldn’t have made me pull the book off the shelf. 

It’s a tall order, isn’t it? That a book cover should ideally look intriguing, appealing AND be a genuine reflection of the novel it represents. But as an author that’s what I’m always hoping for. The last thing a book cover should do is misrepresent itself and look like a frothy romance when it’s really a hard-hitting book about mental illness, for example. 

It doesn’t escape me that the cover for my new young adult book, The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, features one of the things I’m complaining about here—a girl on the cover—but I’m definitely not saying there shouldn’t be any girls on book covers; I’m arguing against being generic, like many of the covers in this photo I snapped of a collection of books on a Coles table back in 2011. 

This is a trend that’s had a fair amount of criticism over the last few years and as a result I hope it’s one that has finally begun to fade and give way to more distinct covers. Taste is incredibly subjective and opinions about individual covers will always vary 

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Why Book Covers Are So Important

Make sure to pop over to one of my blog tour stops to enter the New Revelations Kindle Giveaway. On Friday, my guest post about book covers appeared on Mom With a Kindle.

Think of your book cover like the initial impression given on a first date. On the date, do you want to appear sloppy and wear a haphazardly thrown together ensemble? Not if you want to see your date ever again. Book covers need to be attractive while also conveying what your novel is about.

 

Have you ever avoided a book because of the cover? Many readers will be turned off by amateurish looking covers. I personally have skipped a few books despite rave reviews because of covers. It’s presumptuous, but I figure the writing and plot will be as unappealing as the front image.

If you’re self-publishing and have no idea about cover creation, consider hiring someone. There are graphic artists who will design gorgeous covers for you from scratch. Give them some conceptual information to work from and be an active part of the process. Also, there are book marketing companies that have pre-made book cover designs for sale. Browse through their catalogs to see if you find any suitable to your novel.

 

If you’re comfortable working with photo editing software and want to do your book cover on a budget, then you can make one yourself. Before you go down this road, make sure that the images you use meet the specifications for book retailers. For instance, paperback covers made through Createspace require a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

 

Start out with an image. Stock photography images can be purchased online or you can use your own personal photo library as a starting point. Choose an image that represents your book. Girls in pretty dresses are a popular choice, but don’t always relate to the content inside of the novel. Choose a couple of selections before making your final decision. Play around with fonts and colors when adding title and author name. Show a few mock-ups to friends and fellow writers to receive feedback on which one to settle on.

 

Don’t use a cover for your book unless you love it. With an attractive cover, you’ll gain readers who are interested in the novel based solely on the front image. This will build readership and ideally help increase your fanbase.     

 

Book Covers-DIY Version

Well, one of the responsibilities of self-publishing is submitting your own book cover. To be honest, I'm actually not freaking out over this if I decide to put my book out there myself. Unfortunately, some of the amateurish looking covers from smaller publishers have been bit of a turnoff. Not saying this is the case with all small presses, some of them have fabulous looking cover art.

You have a few choices for submitting your own book cover:

You can go the DIY route. What you can do is take a few photos of whatever you feel could represent your book and upload them through your digital camera software. Upload a few faves into Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. . Play around with the tools in the software to add text onto the photos. There's an endless number of font, color and size possibilities. If you're not overly impressed with your own photos, try a stock photo website. On a side note, I downloaded Illustrator and it's fabulous. Came with a free 30 day trial, not sure if I'm willing to spring for the hundreds of dollars it costs to buy the software

You can also use templates provided through e-book and print publishers. CreateSpace offers up a free template for authors to build their own print covers. All artwork and text you place in their templates are formatted to fit on the book cover. There are also ebook cover building software online that are both free and paid (I have yet to find a good one that I like, so please comment me with any recommendations).

A new recommendation I've received is you can purchase book covers and artwork through DeviantArt. Really amazing images on the site, I was duly impressed.

Here's the cover I did myself that was my second choice for the book (I'll wait until my publishing details have been ironed out to make the big reveal for the actual cover). I used a stock photo and Illustrator.