Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover - The Unicorn Knight

Well, looks like this is a series now!

Writing and publishing your own book is a very involved process. I'm lucky enough that I have some artistic ability so I am able to do all my own covers as well.

I started writing UNCHAINING THE UNICORN KNIGHT before I even knew what the final title would be. I had a premise, and certain scenes visualized in my mind, but the title and the cover were mysteries to me. It went under the working title KNIGHT or UNICORN KNIGHT.

Due to things outside of my control, writing UNCHAINING THE UNICORN KNIGHT stalled for a bit, but I hate stagnation, so I did what I could to keep the project going.

I made a cover.

The original Unicorn Knight cover.

Fun fact: it's surprisingly difficult to find good royalty free, Creative Commons images of unicorns. They're all so cartoony.

The original concept was a sort of knight's flag drawn on parchment or maybe scratched onto leather, but there was an obvious Photoshopped quality to it that always vexed me. Also, it was very brown for being all about a knight who's main colours were white and silver. Still, this had been the cover for months, and I figured I could tweak it when the time came to published.

But then, I was struck by inspiration, so I looked up "chains" and "Lock" and "Key" on Unsplash and Pixabay.

The second cover.

The second cover is once again going for that Sylvia Day/50 Shades/Twilight type style, but with a unique feel. Personally, I loved the cover, for a time, but when I showed it to others, the love wasn't shared. For one thing, it had nothing really to do with the content of the book. Still, I preferred it to the first version, and while I was formatting UNCHAINING THE UNICORN KNIGHT, I was set to use this one, damn the nay-sayers.

And yet...Even I wondered if there was something else out there...something even better.

Perfect. Just perfect.

I found the image of the woman hidden under the fabric on Pixabay, and a chain from a necklace on the stock image section of DeviantArt. Did some creative colouring, and came out with the perfect cover image. Pink is not a motif colour in the story, but I find the pop of colour alluring. All in all I feel that this cover is mysterious, hints at the content of the book, and is sexy.

The first version is not always the best. Be flexible with cover ideas. Sometimes the right image is just a few clicks away.

UNCHAINING THE UNICORN KNIGHT is available for pre-order from Smashwords and Amazon and can be added to Goodreads. It is available on April 12th.