It’s almost a year since I released Cupid’s Way – my uplifting romantic comedy about Evie Stone’s quest to save her grandparents’ home in a street (Cupid’s Way) that is threatened with demolition. Reviews have been outstanding, and sales were brisk to begin with, but as is the case for so many mid-list or indie authors, ‘discoverability’ by readers is getting harder and harder.
Although I loved the original cover for Cupid’s Way, I decided to see what, if anything, a change of cover would do. That is the beauty of being indie, after all – we can change things, experiment, mix it up and see what happens. In fact, to be indie and to not be changing everything that isn’t working (depending on your personal definition of ‘working’), is actually pretty crazy. There are benefits to not having a publisher, such as access to meta-data and other key factors, so in light of the downside – i.e. you’re all on your own – it seems appropriate to go ahead and keep on trying new things.
So, here is the sparkly new cover for Cupid’s Way, courtesy of my ace designer, Chris Howard:
I really love it! I’ve done a lot of research around cover design, particularly for indie titles, and I knew that for a heart-warming, uplifting rom com like Cupid’s Way I really needed a cover that spoke to the market, with illustrated elements, a quirky feel, and bright fresh colours. This is perfect. You might notice that the blog itself is undergoing a bit of a re-brand, with the elements from the new cover being used as a backdrop to the new banner and a colour-palette that uses more red and green.
Let’s Celebrate!
To celebrate the new cover, and to get the book into as many hands as possible, I’m putting it on Free Promotion until Monday. So that’s a whole weekend for you to grab a copy if you haven’t already 🙂 This time I haven’t listed the book with all the free sites (experimenting again, you see), although I do have a BookBub UK-only promo set for tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how that goes, and for any writers or marketers who are interested I’ll post the results in a couple of weeks.
Here is the link to download your copy: http://smarturl.it/ifgi1x and please, please share and Tweet and tell all your friends. Cupid’s Way has an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Amazon UK, and is a lovely, warm-hearted read for the summer.
Joanne Phillips 
May 7, 2015 at 9:21 am
What a cutie of a cover!
May 7, 2015 at 9:53 am
Thanks Marina 🙂
May 7, 2015 at 9:35 am
Cover’s great, so much more jolly than the other one, which was excellent but more sombre for a romcom! Ideally I’d like to change four of mine, but am not sure I will get around to doing so… I am not as constantly proactive as you, alas! The psychology of cover design is fascinating, isn’t it? There’s a terrific bit about it in Rayne Hall’s book ‘Why does my book not sell?’
And yes, of course I will tweet it (I wondered why you had suddenly started RTing me, ha ha!), but I shouldn’t think you’ll need my help anyway because your books always do staggeringly well on free promos, don’t they? I look forward to the post saying it reached the #1 spot! xx
May 7, 2015 at 9:56 am
Thanks Terry, you’re a star 🙂 Seriously though, I really loved that interview you did the other day, and all your covers together looked fantastic on that post. Which four would you change, and why? Just curious.
Re free promos, sometimes they go really well (those will be the ones you hear about), but not always. And this time I’ve done zero pre-promotion, except for the new Bookbub UK-only listing, which is really cheap – probably because they don’t have many UK list subscribers yet! But, we’ll wait and see. Those days of reaching #1 and getting stacks of sales on the back of a promo are long gone, I think (sigh …) but every bit of extra visibility helps 🙂 xx
May 7, 2015 at 2:20 pm
Love the cover. Good luck with your sale.
May 7, 2015 at 2:21 pm
Forgot to say thanks for the free copy. I’m looking forward to reading it.
May 18, 2015 at 8:43 pm
Thanks Kristina, that’s awesome 🙂
May 14, 2015 at 9:31 pm
I was on holiday last week so missed this. I really liked the previous Cupid’s Way cover but can totally see that perhaps this is more upbeat. I will compare the two!
I’ve been pondering cover changes also, but am thinking perhaps I should just get on and write the next book 😉
May 18, 2015 at 8:41 pm
Thanks Pauline, I love the other one too, but I think this ‘speaks’ to the market more. Well, I hope so anyway 🙂 Your covers are also fab, but you’re right that writing the next book is more important. Could you delegate the cover, leaving you free to write? (And work as hard as you on everything else of course.) x