I decided to change the name Mitch to Clayton. Clayton is Isaac Larson’s friend, and when I wrote Isaac’s Decision, I made a hint that Clayton was interested in someone but he didn’t say who. Remember that scene where Emily is dressed like a man and hunting with the guys and she’s trying to find out if Isaac liked the teacher or not? During that time, she found out Wiley liked her (and I do have a story planned for him), but Clayton said he wasn’t interested in anyone and Emily suspected he did but didn’t want to say.
Well, I’m going to modify Mitch’s Win, and Clayton, so it’ll be Clayton’s Win. The story will take place a few years after Isaac’s Decision. So the set up will be the same: Clayton will go in to the saloon to get his younger brother, Boaz, out of trouble, and while he’s there, he realizes a young woman is part of the bet. He gets married to her and there’s still the trouble with Boaz who is having trouble cleaning up his life after his wife died in childbirth. There’s more to the book than that, but Boaz is a part of it because I want to give Boaz his own story.
I had decided early on that Boaz would move to Nebraska to start a new life and end up with one of Dave and Mary’s daughters. Well, this will make Boaz’s story much easier to do since he’s already in Nebraska. I plan to match him up with Rachel Larson (Dave and Mary’s oldest daughter) who is also friends with Emily Craftsman. So they can meet through Emily, the matchmaker. I’m thinking Emily will continue to have a trick or two up her sleeve when it comes to the future Nebraska books.
Okay. So all of that background aside, I am trying to decide which cover might go best with the Nebraska books. I still have the title as Mitch’s Win at the moment, but I would switch it to Clayton’s Win. So any thoughts on which cover you’d rather see for Clayton’s book? Which cover says, “Read me!”
Option 1
Option 2
Edited to add: I can put a bride in the background for cover 2 as long as I find one that works with the lighting and colors. I find the colors to be the hardest part when putting one picture into another one. I like them to blend well together. 😀
Please Vote!
Ruth Ann Nordin's Author Blog 
Hey, Ruth! Have you thought about putting the lady in the back in a wedding dress since Clayton is going to marry her? That is if you go with the second cover. 😉
I can put a bride behind him if I can find one that will go well with the background. I’ll have to look at some pictures. 🙂
Since I was already on fotolia.com I found these two pics. Not sure if you could use them or not. http://us.fotolia.com/id/1091826 and this one http://us.fotolia.com/id/24666389. Jimmy has some good western pics on his site but you would probably have to change the whole cover to use them 😉 Anyway, good luck!
Thanks for the links! I made an account over at fotolia.com and saved them in the lightbox. I’m always searching ahead of time for future pictures to minimize the time spent searching later on. 😀 I’ve seen some of Jimmy’s pictures, and so far, nothing is quite right for what I have in mind, but I do keep going back and checking from time to time to see what’s over there. Thanks for the links!
Glad I could help. Sometimes it helps to have an extra pair of eyes on the lookout for that perfect image. 😉 I love the lightbox feature. Makes it easier to find the images later. I have so many lightboxes for the different books I’m working on. I also have a general lightbox for those images I run across that might be usable for a future book.
A new pair of eyes is definitely a huge help. And yes, I love lightbox. I’m so glad those sites use them. I made the mistake in the past where I thought, “Eh, I’ll never use that picture” and moved on to only decide that would be the perfect image later on. LOL I won’t be doing that horrible mistake again. If an image catches my eye, I’ll save it, just in case. 😀
Hi Ruth….sorry it’s been so long since I’ve talked to you…Ive been super busy with my college courses…. Never again will I take 2 classes in a Summer I session…. they cram a whole Semesters worth of learning into 1 month… that means, quizzes everyday on a new chapter…and Exams every week… (btw that’s just for one class) not to mention I have labs everyday for that same class…with quizzes just about every day in that too… it’s crazy…. Anyways…I’ve just caught up on reading all your posts… Wow… I’ve missed so much. I”m liking the idea of Mitch’s win being a Nebraska book. It would have work stand alone I think but being a Nebraska book you can add more characters and background info that we already know about. As far as changing Patty’s Gamble to Lizzie’s Gamble…I kinda like the sound of that better… hmmmm… It was hard to choose between the covers….I chose the first just cause most of your Nebraska books have a bride in them and well to correlate into the series I think it would work. Okay enough rambling…. I hope you’re doing great. Take care and Hope to hear more from you soon. Bye 🙂 Kesia ❤
Hi Kesia!
It’s great hearing from you! I haven’t been online much at all this summer. I’ve managed a few posts but not as much as usual. Major ice on the two classes. I only took one class once, and that was bad enough. I don’t envy all the work you went through. BTW, I HATE labs. They made me want to pull my hair out. LOL You have my sympathies.
I’ve been having a hard time with Mitch’s Win, and I think it’s because the secondary characters weren’t real to me. As soon as I thought of making Mitch’s Win a Nebraska book and giving it to Clayton (for Clayton’s Win), something clicked into place for me. Emily would be a lot of fun to bring into the book, and her younger sister Lizzie could be the heroine (Heather’s) friend. From there Lizzie could like a certain guy but the guy doesn’t notice her. I can see Emily scheming to help Lizzie down the road and talking their father (Neil) into their scheme. So maybe the reason I kept stalling out on Mitch’s Win is because it was supposed to be a part of the Nebraska world. Anyway, I’m excited about this book all over again. 😀
I also think Lizzie’s Gamble sounds better for the title. I’m not sure why.
it looks like most people like cover 2, so I’ll be doing that, but it was hard to say no to that first one. LOL I liked both, but I’m partial to brides.
I really liked both covers but I think the first one gives out to much where the second one is a bit more mysterious. Both great covers though.
I hadn’t thought about the first one giving too much away, but you’re right. It’s more intriguing to know what he wins if the woman isn’t wearing a bride’s dress. 😀
how do you get your covers do you do it yourself? If so how?
I do most of my covers myself. It took a year, but I now do them on GIMP (a free software program you can get off the Internet). There’s a huge learning curve (a lot of hours of frustration) involved with it, but it’s a good program. I also use a program called BookCoverPro for simpler covers where I get a stock photo (from http://www.dreamstime.com) and insert into the software to add a title and my name to it and export it as an ebook. I do make paperbacks using BookCoverPro and made this post on how to do it: http://selfpubauthors.com/2012/06/22/book-cover-pro-making-a-paperback-book-cover-you-can-upload-to-createspace-via-their-easy-cover-maker/. (In that post is a link to a couple tutorials Joleene Naylor did on making covers, too.) I should do a post on how I make a cover with GIMP for the Self-Published Author’s Lounge. That will take about a month since it requires a lot of screen shots and time to do, and I’m now going into editing mode (which I hate–LOL).
I have used Joleene Naylor (http://coverart.joleenenaylor.com/), Stephannie Beman (http://stephanniebemansdesigns.com/), and Dara England (http://mycoverart.wordpress.com/) to make some covers in the past. You can also buy a pre-made cover or stock photos for a decent price at http://romancenovelcovers.com/.
thanks very much
It’s a huge pain in the butt when you’re starting out. I’m going to try to do a GIMP post in August on the Self-Published Author’s Lounge blog. I’ll aim to do one working with one picture and another post working with two or more images.