It has been a crazy summer for me. June started off with a bang when my publisher and I parted ways and I had to scramble to rerelease both books. This happened fairly seamlessly, all things considered, but I did have to rush my cover art a bit and had to use an image on the cover of Highland Solution that I didn’t love. The girl was pretty and blond, but didn’t look as sweet as I imagined Katherine and the man had dark hair–Niall is described as having sandy colored hair.

Readers may not know this but often authors have no input into their cover art if they are published by a traditional publisher. The man on the original cover of Highland Solution was dark haired, so the artist cut his head off. I actually used the same man on the rereleased cover in June–for the sake of consistency, but then I was stuck with his dark hair. The cover artist tried to lighten it a bit, but there is only so much that can be done.

Even once an author is self-published he or she may have little choice. Most people must search stock image sites where they can buy royalty-free art, to try to find something close to what they want. The choices for historical images are often slim, particularly medieval and Scottish historical images. That is why you see the same model again and again.

I decided that I would bite the bullet and pay for a professional photo shoot to get just the images I wanted for my next novel (Highland Intrigue), the upcoming novella with the Guardians of Cridhe (Highland Revenge) and while I was at it, I had photos taken to replace the image on Highland Solution.

I love the new cover!