…To be revealed sometime next week?
Guys? This cover is kicking my ass. For one, there are limited black-men-in-their-thirties stock photos. Not, like, extremely limited, but they aren’t the easiest thing to track. The one I like best (the guy I used as a model for Bern when I was writing) doesn’t have a damn thing I can use for this cover. I dig the pic I ended up with, because the pose is kind of perfect, and also, he has a hat.
(Bernie doesn’t wear a hat as a general rule, but he appreciates hats. All of my favorite “Bernies” had hats.)
But Nick? One of my only blonds-with-blue-eyes? I’m shockingly picky about Nick.
He’s gotta have hair long enough to pull (also something I look for in later-SM Will Derrie), no suit, no jackets, and there’s a look about the eyes that I can’t quite get right. My ideal Nick is just a normal looking white guy with blue eyes, so I can’t work out why he’s so damn hard to cast.
Is this Nick:
Or this:
And let’s just set aside that nearly everyone looks too young to be these characters to me. (Characters who are roughly my age, and so are most of these dudes, so I don’t know where the mental breakdown is there, except a lot of the model poses in stock art seems either overly precious or downright porny, and neither vibe works for N & B.)
Let’s be clear: Nick could be a shirtless guy, but he isn’t. Yeah.
Also, he could be smirking, but for the cover? A hint of a smirk at most.
This guy could be Nick, except he’s too smiley and there’s no decent wardrobe to work with:
This guy could also be Nick, though he’s young, except all the pictures are, well, something like this:
All right. I should have this cover done by now (my to do list tells me I should’ve had it done last week), but now that I kind of have a (cheesy) concept, I can’t find a damn model for Nick. Nick! Every time I look for photos (try finding a not-too-smiley interracial couple in the same shot–that Home Free picture is my favorite stock photo find of all time), every time I look for photos I think, Damn, I need to write more blond white people. And here he is. And no. Nothing. Nada. Fuckin’ zilch.
Back to the grindstone. Look for the book page to be up within the week. If I can find a Nick. (I should do all object covers. That could be my thing. My brand. Then I’ll get wildly famous and people will say, “Oh, you were so brave, making object covers in the face of all those half-naked people,” and I’ll say, “Yes, uh, brave. Yeah. That’s…that’s exactly what it was. Bravery. Suuuuuurrrrreeee.”)
The first one, I think… definitely not three or four! Two looks too much like Bros (either one!) and I don't think 80s denim-based UK pop is what you had in mind 🙂
Too pretty boy, I know. I had no idea "pretty boy" was kind of an expected look from young blond men. Poor guys!
I think it'll have to be two. One could be perfect, but that's one of the only shots where he's got a shirt on, and his face is doing a bit too much. Two is…blah. But blah is doable as part of a whole. I think. God.
No pressure, but one of the things I like about your books is the covers (Little Red in particular). Kaje Harper's Life Lessons series is excellent, but the covers… ugh.
What about another non-person cover? Would an unpeeled bulb of ginger work? 😉
God, I just laughed out loud. Thanks, VC! (Great. Now I gotta write a book that would work with that cover. It's gonna happen. I can see it. The Twilight cover, but with ginger…)
I sweat the covers, but working on them myself bends my brain in this fantastic way that totally bleeds through how I think of story. There will be a short story with Nick and Bernie that works with an object cover, but I'm not sure Amazon will allow a cock cage as an object. Then again, they almost certainly won't have spelled out an objection to it.
I need to read more Kaje Harper. I've picked up a few bits here and there, but I really should commit. I did just discover Harper Fox, and she's gorgeous so far.
Ginger was the first thing I thought of too 🙂