Cover for Yvette's Haven revealed

I'm so excited. Elaina Lee, my fabulous cover artist, has just sent me the cover for Yvette's Haven, Book 4 in the Scanguards Vampires series. I hope you guys love it as much as I do.

Release Date: End of April 2011

Winner of a Free Tina Folsom e-book

Thanks to all for helping me choose a new cover for A Touch of Greek. The race was neck to neck for a while between cover #3 and cover #1, but in the end #1 won out. The little Greek God in the corner will be carried through all four books in the series.

And now to the winner:

Janice O'Rourke (email entry) has won a Tina Folsom e-book of her choice.

The winner will be contacted by email.

The new cover is already up at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.

Vote on the Cover and enter to win a Tina Folsom e-book of your choice

I need your help again.

The fabulous Elaina Lee has designed a wonderful new cover for my Out of Olympus (Greek God) romance A Touch of Greek. This is book 1 in the series.


However, I had Elaina do three different mock-ups and am torn on which one to choose. So, please have a look at the three covers below, vote for one of them in the comment section and, if you want to be entered into a draw to get a Tina Folsom e-book of your choice, please either leave your email address in the comment section (or email me at tina at tinawritesromance.com to provide me with your email if you don't want to leave it in the comment section). The winner will be drawn on Friday, Feb 11 at 9am PST.

Thanks!

Cover 1 - small God in the corner

 Cover 2 - large God in the corner

 Cover 3 - no God

New cover for Gabriel's Mate

Gabriel's Mate, Book #3 in my Scanguards Vampires series, has received a new cover. It's already up at Barnes & Noble and should be up at Amazon shortly.

Again, I kept the same cover models as on the old cover, but had Elaina Lee bring the layout in line with the other two books in the series.

Hope you like it!

New Cover for Amaury's Hellion

My new cover artist, the very talented Elaina Lee, has designed a new cover for Amaury's Hellion. Hope you like it. I was able to keep the face of the original Amaury since I really liked him.

I'm in the process of uploading the new cover to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Many changes coming

Lots of things have happened in the last two months, most of them good, some of them not so good. Well, the bad news first: my injured hand (ulnar nerve) and my shoulder and neck pain are getting worse. It's no wonder with the number of hours I spend at the computer. That's why I have decided on some changes that will reduce the time I have to spend at the computer.

Cover Artist
First of all, I think my times of designing my own covers are over. With my limited Photoshop experience, I could never get them to be that professional in the first place. Plus, it takes a lot of clicking with the mouse to fiddle around with a cover. And that just aggravates my already sore muscles and nerves. Therefore, I'll be hiring a cover artist to design my covers. Expect that some of my books will receive new covers over the next few weeks to make them more appealing.

Copy Editor
Considering that I'll never really find all the typos that are so cleverly hidden in my manuscripts and that not even my critique partners will find, I've hired a copy editor who'll go through my books and will make sure they are as error-free and grammatically correct as humanly possible. So, my Scanguards Vampires series, my Venice Vampyr series, and my Out of Olympus series, will undergo corrections. If you already have your copies and would like a clean e-copy once the corrections are done, please email me your proof of purchase and I will email you a new copy.

Audio Books
I'm also looking into turning my Scanguards Vampires series into audio books. At present, I'm having auditions prepared with a few paragraphs from Samson's Lovely Mortal to decide on the voice that's suitable for my novels. If the company allows it, I will post my choices on the blog. I'll keep you posted on this.

Foreign Translations
I am also working on finding foreign publishers who would be interested in publishing my Scanguards Vampires series in foreign languages. I expect this search to take many months and to yield many rejections.

For my health
I'm undergoing physical therapy for my hand, shoulders, and neck. I'm also getting regular massages now and have hired a personal trainer to help me strengthen my muscles to help me avoid injuries in the future. After all, I need to be able to continue writing.

Thanks for all your support!

Tina

Cover Dilemma

You all know, of course, that as a writer I'm constantly second guessing myself and wondering what I'm doing right or wrong. And that I'm totally insecure. So, here's my little dilemma right now:

All my three Scanguards Vampires romances are doing well, however, the two that are selling best are Samson's Lovely Mortal and Gabriel's Mate. Both of those novels have a couple on the cover. Amaury's Hellion which only sells about 65% of the copies that the other two sell, has only a man on the cover. So, now I'm thinking, is it the cover? Do I need to put a cover out there that shows a couple?

Here's Amaury's current cover, and next to it is the new proposed cover. What's more appealing? Also, what do you think of the blue background? It can easily be changed to something else. Any color suggestions are welcome too.

Okay, here is what the new cover would look like with a red background:

Book Covers matter

In a recent interview I gave to Beth Barany for her Writers Fun Zone, I told her how important book covers are even for e-books. I'd like to underscore this with a visual example.

Here's the old cover I used when I first started selling STEAL ME on Amazon Kindle:

 And here is the new one I am using now:

No wonder my sales were low when I first started out. The story is still the same, but my sales improved tremendously after I uploaded the new cover. It looks much more professional, classy, and sexy. Since this is an erotic romance, that's exactly what I want to convey to the reader.

Currently, STEAL ME is available for free on Amazon Kindle and ranks 20th in the top 100 Free Kindle Books. If you haven't downloaded your copy yet, please do it soon - I don't know how long Amazon will continue this promotion.