Dear Reader, fear not! I’m not about to start dabbling at marriage counselling. This is about an unloved love story in desperate need of some TLC.

Two years have passed since I published House of Rose – A Scouse Romance. But as I was busy writing my Regency Tales series, I didn’t do much marketing, well, hardly any. Unsurprisingly, sales have not been great.

A while ago a friend’s comment made me look at the cover with fresh eyes. Two years is enough for trends and tastes to change, and the cover I had been so pleased with now felt dated. But what was worse, my friend was right in pointing out that the book could be mistaken for historical fiction. A quite natural assumption at that, as it’s what I normally write.

I had made the basic rookie mistake of focussing on illustrating the contents of the story rather than marketing it.

Illustration and marketing are two very different beasts. Take a shampoo ad. Illustration of the contents shampoo would amount to pictures of molecules or something similar, but marketing shows what the product can do for you – an incitament to wanting the product. Applying that principle to a book would mean conveying something of the experience you’ll have whilst reading.

My fresh eyes told me in no uncertain terms that my old cover spectacularly failed.

The female lead, Rose, is a gardener by day and a jazz singer by night, whose best friend has a vintage clothes store, selling 1930’s original gowns. However, the vintage drawing front and centre on the cover, gives the impression of historical fiction. There is a chopper on the cover too, but it’s tiny and hardly visible at thumbnail size. The blurb isn’t great either.

Hollywood Golden Era film and music is a theme running through this book, and despite doing a complete overhaul of the cover, I wanted to retain at least a nod to that. I think the font I chose and the halftone overlay achieves this whilst the photos says suspense and action.

Well, I hope they do. Still working on the blurb. It’s so much harder to design for yourself than for clients. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Tom is a tactical police officer, and in the beginnning Rose feels as if she’s dating Batman, but soon the worry for his safety begins to wear on her. Check out the new trailer for House of Rose.

Will Tom manage to save the love of his life, and will their love recover?

Happy reading, Dear Readers, and have a lovely Thursday wherever you are!