Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover: Crescendo

Here we are, once more my friends, with "Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover V".

I'm sort of dreading writing this one because publishing Crescendo was a somewhat unique process.

If you've kept up with this series, you know that I begin working on covers before the final draft of the manuscript is even finished. (To that point, I have tentatively finished the cover of the third SILVER CITY STORIES book and I'm only about 8,000 words into the draft...) While it didn't take me terribly long to write what I now call Crescendo, personal issues had delayed the editing process.

During this delay, my mind started concocting other stories related to Crescendo, four of them, to be precise. And so SILVER CITY STORIES was born. Crescendo would be the first book of a series.

Except it wasn't. 

Somewhere along the way I got the idea for Crossfade, which, chronologically would take place before Crescendo. I based the cover for Crossfade off, what was then, the final cover of Crescendo.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let's start with the working title. I didn't have a title nailed down until very late in the process, so the working title was AprilMay, after the two leads. At first it was going to be called Music Box but that made no sense, then One Night Only. 

I was trying for a sort of promo flyer/punk vibe.

But that too, didn't make sense because the heroines don't spend only one night or performance together. They're always together, doing press, or making appearances at parties, and so forth. Somewhere along the way I decided on Crescendo for the title. It stuck. 

Dutch Angles are all the rage.

Ok, I kind of like this! It has the indie label feel.

Then, I found that fluorescent light font

Nothing says high class like neon!

Behold! A cover for a novella. Isn't it beautiful? It would have to wait to see the world,however because by now, I was in the middle of writing Crossfade. I modeled the aesthetic of Crossfade's cover to this one. 

And then I published Crossfade and once more looked at this cover. I realized it looked like some sort of Young Adult runaway-from-home-and-became-super-heroes-or-something cover. It had to go.

Once more into the trenches of free images. Then, I found an image of a girl in a gown at a piano and it looked like it was ripped directly from a scene in Crescendo. The exact scene I used as a teaser in the back of Crossfade, to interest people into buying the book and continuing on with the series.

So, this became the final cover. 

Original image by Ashley Byrd

So, what have we learned from this dive into book cover creation for fun and profit? Same thing as always: be flexible. Sometimes going to square one is for the best.

In an era of Britneys and Christinas, 17 year old April Lee hit it big with her debut album "This Girl Punx", and the hit singles "Skid Sister" and "Confusion".
She was top of the charts and took the pop-punk world by storm. Now, at 22, she's hit rock-bottom.

May Hart is a Victorian goth fae princess. She’s all tortured wailing and flowy skirts. Snow white skin, jet black hair, ice blue-grey eyes. She’s part Ice queen, part murder of crows. As front-woman for the band Ethereal, her haunting vocals made hits out of the songs “Plastic Garden”, “The Eternal” and “Take me from Death”. Now is the time to go solo. Can she succeed? Of course she can.

When both women are tapped to record the theme-song to a new super hero movie, they begin to grow close. But the business is very two faced and both April and May carry with them dark secrets. Can they look past each other's hurt and find love and stellar careers?

CRESCENDO is part of SILVER CITY STORIES and is a first-time lesbian erotic romance intended for adults only. It deals with dark subject matter, abuse, violence and celebrates sexual expression between consenting adults.

CRESCENDO (SILVER CITY STORIES #2) is available for preorder for 2.99 USD or FREE with Kindle Unlimited

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Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover: Crossfade

The fourth Anatomy of an Erotic Romance Cover! How exciting. I'm here today to talk about the new series SILVER CITY STORIES.

So, a little history lesson. Back in the middle of 2019, I had an idea for a story. I finished writing it in January 2020. Then Covid hit, and we here at Broken Wings Media just mentally checked out. No more writing. No more editing. 

Even though we were lost in a void of existential dread, I was still plotting. This one story inspired a whole series I now call SILVER CITY STORIES. I have several stories planned. Somewhere along the middle of 2020, one such story grew in my mind. The only problem was that, chronologically, it took place before the story I had written in 2020.

Oh well, I guess story 2020 is book 2 now.

I thought it was going to be something like 7,500 words. It really wasn't. It was far bigger than that.

From July 2020 to January 2021, I had written this 25k word book. I named it CROSSFADE.
As always happens with me, the cover was made before the manuscript was finished.

It all started with a visualization of sound.

You know how it is, you're looking for a free sound-byte for some reason you can no longer remember, because what is time, anymore? While poking around royalty free music collections, you find one sound that looks exceptionally yonic.

And then you get fucking inspired.

I recreated the visualization in Photoshop and gave it extra colours. Some more glow. Some more pink. More suggestive.

After perfecting the sound, finding a suitable image was simple. 

Courtesy of Roman Khripkov on Unsplash.

The colour scheme was fun, because I had decided the SILVER CITY STORIES would be vaguely neon and bright, with lots of purples and blues and pinks. I had already made the cover for that 2019-2020 book, so I just sort of snatched some of the filters and overlays from it.

I ended up with this first version.

But it was too eye-searingly extreme so I had to tone it down.

I also played around with positioning 

Finally I ended up with this...

One half of the loving couple lives across from a bar and the neon light illuminates her loft with reds and I tried to evoke that idea. I also like the contrast between the dull red and the neon pinks and blues. 

Since this is the first book in a series, I'm going to try keep a theme going and have all the covers look cohesive. Let's see how that turns out.

Maxine Cross is young, ambitious and full of desires. Working as the personal assistant of one of the most powerful men in the Silver City music scene, Max knows it's her only way to get her foot in the door. When she meets singer/songwriter Fade, Max sees in her the key to take her career to the next level. As they work together, passions grow between the two women.

But, the entertainment business is teeming with snakes and when Max's abusive boss crosses a line, the women begin to drift apart. Can they find it within themselves to fight for their dreams in a world that sees them as expendable objects? Or will Fade just become another star that burns out?

CROSSFADE is a first time lesbian romance that features explicit sexual content and disturbing topics. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18. Reader discretion is advised.

CROSSFADE is available for pre-order now. 

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