Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover: Sanguinerotica

Welcome to the third Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover post. There will be more to come.

As you probably know, Broken Wings Media is having a sale of our horror themed erotica. Last month we released a vampire-centric novella, SANGUINEROTICA, in which Elizabeth Bathroy meets and falls in love with Vlad the Impaler.

As stated in the previous entry of this series, when I write a story, I usually think of a working title. For example, the working title for ECSTASY IN CHAOS was SCROLLS. SANGUINEROTICA was no exception. Finding an actual title for it was one of the most difficult parts of the entire story. At first the working title was BATHE WITH ME or BLOODBATH, neither which I liked at all, BATHE WITH ME sounded directionless and BLOODBATH sounded too violent. Then it was BETH, BATH & BEYOND because aren't I just the cleverest little shit?!




This was the first cover.

Image source: mjranum-stock

I hated it. It was too bland, her head was too flat. The dress looked frumpy. No. No that's not right at all.

So I went another direction, and once more followed my muse that always directs me to the Sylvia Day/50 Shades type covers.  What about a goblet? A wine glass? With that in mind, the new working title became DRINK ME IN. That didn't feel right either.

Well, That's fucking boring. So boring I didn't finish the mock-up. Although I did feel like I was onto something with the title.

I decided "fuck it" and trawled through my usual free use image haunts and finally found something suitable.

Image source: ann-emerald-stock

I decided to see what I could do with the above image and I produced the now familiar cover:

What's the take-away from this post? I'm not sure. I guess it's just reaffirming the conclusions from the last post. Be flexible, sometimes go in fucking blind, not knowing what you want. You'll get there eventually.

SANGUINEROTICA, as well as other stories are currently on sale all through October.