Introduction: I realized that I need to introduce this blog a little. I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. The working title was Daemon, and this was my 21st novel. Over the last year, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel.
I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way. At this moment, I'm showing you the marketing material I put together for a novel.
Today's Blog: I already told you one great use for a cover proposal--the moment your publisher asks for it, you have it to send.
More importantly, you have a picture of your novel for your marketing website. That's the real point. I thought about this one for a while before I jumped, but it became very obvious to me, that a picture is indeed worth very much in marketing. It doesn't do much good if you don't have some illustration or picture to represent your novel. And what better picture or illustration than a cover proposal.
It can't hurt--it's only a proposal. What will hurt is nothing at all. So go ahead and make a cover proposal and use it immediately to populate your novel's website.
I inserted my proposed cover for Aksinya. You also can see it at http://www.aksinyanovel.com/. The cover proposal is a part of the marketing website. I'll repeat this, you can see many of my proposed covers at http://www.ldalford.com/ under the unpublished novels. You can also see the cover proposals I sent to my publishers under the secrets pages for each published novel.
