Skip to main content

Subscribe to Author Erica Cope's Newsletter

* indicates required

From Photo to Cover

This was my very first experience with a custom photo shoot--usually I tend to just go with premade covers so I'm not really sure if this is the "norm" but I thought I'd share a little bit about the process. :)


But first, just for fun! Here are some behind the scenes photos:





Now, before I continue, I should probably introduce the players:

The Authors: Me and Komal of course

The Models: My sister Karlie and Komal's boyfriend Chase ( Though now he is her fiance! I've actually known Chase since he was like 12. His sister and I were on the same cheerleading squad and I remember Chase showing off his gymnastics skills in the basement for us while we were decorating pillows and making snacks for the MHS Wrestling team)

The Photographer: Tera Lankard

The Cover Designer: Eden Crane

We woke up pretty early the morning of the day Komal and I left for Indie Mash-up (our first author convention! It was a big weekend for us all around). It was a Friday so I had to get Blondie #1 on the school bus at 7:05 and Tera wanted to make sure we started as the sun was rising so the lighting was good.

Of course the bus was late but it was okay because Tera was able to get in a few practice shots first to test the lighting. Like this one:





Look at those colors! It was a beautiful day--freezing but beautiful! I remember Komal asking why my grass was white and having to explain that it was frost! Silly Australian. ;)
I brought out a blanket and made sure we all had coffee. They were shivering but Karlie and Chase were troopers. And even though Karlie was extremely nervous about pretending to kiss Komal's boyfriend, we ended up with a few promising shots:




I don't remember how long we were out there but I want to say it was less than an hour. After we finished, we went back inside to warm up. I started breakfast and Tera uploaded the photos to our computer.
We narrowed it down to our favorites and forwarded them on to Eden. 
Karlie seemed most comfortable in the pictures where she is smiling BUT Eden thought the almost kissing one would work best and since Eden is a Design Goddess, we trusted her.

 Then she produced our first mockups:




We asked her to remove the "Amazon Bestselling Authors" because even though we technically are, we both felt weird about having it on our cover.
We preferred the last one the best but then Komal said it just felt like it was missing something. I suggested making it brighter and Komal suggested bringing in some of the natural colors from the background since it was so pretty and that's when Eden gave us this:


The title is brighter and the background is richer and of course we love it!







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The "C" Word

It's probably the scariest word out there. At least I can't really think of a single word that effects me as much as the "C" word does. Just 6 little harmless letters strung together and it leaves me completely breathless. I guess I should probably start at the very beginning. Last August I went in for my normal yearly exam. My midwife Sue asked me how I was feeling and I was literally just complaining like a little whinebag at the time. I told her I had a super bad cough that wasn't going away no matter how many different kind of over the counter cough medicine I had been taking. Nothing was working and sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air. She felt my throat and said I felt "knotty" so she wanted me to get some labwork done. I asked why and she seemed hesitant to tell me. I told her I was just going to go home and google it and jump to the worse-possible-scenario conclusion. So she told me that it could be just a coup

Today only! 80+ giveaways for paperbacks, ebooks, and more!

    Hello! Welcome to my page! I'm terrible about updating it but my goal is to do better this year so when Lizzy Ford came up with the Spring into Romance Facebook Hop I jumped right on!  What a fantastic idea, right?! Lots of new authors to meet and prizes to win!  For my giveaway, I decided to giveaway one of my books that is particularly close to my heart,   Pieces of Me Aria Watkins’s life was on the perfect path, or so she thought. She and Sean had big plans for their future together. They were going to go off to college, get married, and have 2.5 kids. But when tragedy strikes, it destroys the heart of Aria and she's afraid she'll never be the same.  Heartbroken and confused, Aria starts college a completely different person. She hardly recognizes the broken girl she's become, but she can't seem to find the strength to put back together the pieces either.  Enter Holden Whitmore.  He's charming, considerate, and he's

Sneak Peek: In the Shadows

We are less than  a month away from release day! Eek! So I thought it was about time I started sharing some teasers.... Paperback!       “Grey, do you think it’s too late?” He nods sadly. “I’m sorry, Mia, but if they have her, I’m not sure if there is anything we can really do.” The world distorts itself around me like a Fun House mirror, making me feel dizzy and nauseated. My lungs collapse in on themselves as the furious beating of my broken heart threatens to slam right out of my ripped open chest. “I—can’t—breathe,” I gasp as Grey pulls me into his arms and holds me close to his chest, whispering words that I don’t understand. My tears fall freely, staining his shirt with wet splotches but he doesn’t care, he continues to hold me tight, comforting me just like he has done before. I feel his lips press down on the top of my head and even though this sweet gesture is completely innocent, my stomach flips unexpectedly which in turn elicits a crashing wav