Updated Covers

***It’s another BEFORE & AFTER with the re-branded CRAVING IT ALL!***

Sometimes I know readers wonder: why in the heck do authors put new covers on old books? Well, gather ’round, because I’m about to tell you one of the reasons.

When Ella, Ruby, and I started up the Motorcycle Club series (Alexa came in a little bit later) we wanted the entire line to have a cohesive look — so although we all had different colors and emblems on our covers so that we had some individual branding, overall you only had to look at our books to know they were part of the Motorcycle Clubs.

And that was fine for a long time! But eventually, the “Motorcycle Clubs” line that we started — which was a series of MC novella romances, each with a happy ending (even if the couple’s story continued) — kind of drifted to a natural end. Instead of a novella, my BREAKING IT ALL was a huge novel, and Ruby’s next story (DOUBLE DARE YOU) was a full length story, too. And that was very near the end of the Motorcycle Clubs line, because Ruby and Ella didn’t write any more after that, and I had a break where I couldn’t write Stone’s book (due to contract obligations about the length of stories that I could publish, followed by a whole lotta stuff that we won’t get into now).

In that break, I wrote CRAVING IT ALL, and although it was longer than a novella (and although we’d kind of been moving away from the Motorcycle Clubs at that point) I branded it just like a Motorcycle Clubs book.

The next story I wrote, FAKING IT ALL … at that point, I knew that the Motorcycle Clubs line was pretty much done and this would just be a Hellfire Riders book instead, so I switched up the look of the covers — so they’d still have some “feel” of the originals, using the same fonts and colors, but would be distinct from the Motorcycle Clubs series line.

When I made Stone’s cover, I used the same layout and style…but his book isn’t even out yet (it’s coming at the end of the month).

So fast-forward three years. I’ve already taken the Motorcycle Clubs individual novellas offline and collected them in new editions (Saxon & Jenny, Jack & Lily) but the old branding is still there. As Stone’s release date approaches, I’m trying to make it easier for readers to figure out how to read my MC series without being too confused about the old Motorcycle Clubs numbering and reading order … and this is not easy. Between Goodreads, Amazon, and a bunch of other sites, everything is just a mess (and a lot of those sites list all of us as the same author using different pen names, too).

And last year, I already re-covered Saxon & Jenny’s book (I did it in this reading group, but now I can’t find the old post! does Facebook dump old posts?) and although the style isn’t with the same layout as my new books, I was okay with that because the photo was so good.

So recently, I did Lily & Jack’s in the same general style as Saxon & Jenny’s. Then I updated my holiday novella (also not in the new layout, but keeping the old photo, so it wasn’t a huge change.)

What was left to update? Gunner & Anna’s story (BREAKING IT ALL) and Bull & Sara’s story (CRAVING IT ALL).

So here’s where I tell you … I really don’t like their original covers. The originals for Jenny & Saxon, for Lily & Jack, I was okay with! But I can never (and probably will never) find a Gunner that I’ll be happy with. So instead I slapped on an image that cut off his head. But for the new cover, I found an image that I really liked, regardless, and put that on (and it matched more closely the style from Saxon & Jenny’s rather than this new layout.)

But Bull and Sara, ah! I wanted to use the new Hellfire Riders layout for them, because there’s a progression in the series from “original three couples” then “holiday novella” then “new look for the later books.”

Models still aren’t perfect (they never are) because Bull should be even bigger and tattooed — and I had to add chest hair! — but overall, I just liked the look of them better than on the original cover. This was actually a quicky cover for me. I usually spend a lot more time Photoshopping when I have a composition like this with so many elements making a completely new image, so I’m cringing a tiny bit over some of the things I didn’t do. But overall, I’m happier with it than I was with the original cover, plus it’s very clearly a Hellfire Riders book rather than a Motorcycle Clubs book.

And that’s the very long story of why some books get new covers!