Thursday, July 4, 2013

I Made Some Changes to the Kindle Version

So after discussing some marketing ideas with some of the fine folk at the Kboards writer's cafe, I decided to make some changes to the kindle version of Extreme Unction, The first change was a significant price cut, which has already started to pay off. I'm now charging $2.99 and made two sales just today. I also rewrote the blurb and changed the cover.
Possible Cover for Book 2
New Kindle Version Cover
The new blurb and cover changing was a process. I made a change, got some feedback, made another change, got more feedback. The new blurb is spectacular if I do say so myself. It concisely says everything in two brief paragraphs that my older blurb said in three. The new cover has me thinking that I might roll out the follow up novels in the same theme. So here are the new Kindle cover and a mock up of what the second book in the series may look like.

Several people have said the cover doesn't say mystery or thriller so much as young adult. But that's okay. I'm not marketing to book cover experts, and if Carl Hiaasen could sell thrillers with cartoon cats and alligators on the cover, I think I can make this work. The blurb though, that's gold

When an autopsy finds traces of the banned insecticide Chlordane in the anointing oil on the corpse of a local big-wig, Pittsburgh police bring Lupa Schwartz, an outspoken non-believer, into an investigation focused on a well-liked local clergyman.  Worried that the police are planning to use him as a political fall-guy, Schwartz coerces Cattleya Hoskin, a magazine reporter with a connection to his family’s past, to chronicle his process and squelch any misgiving that his world-view influenced the outcome.
     Suspicion in the case is focused on Fr. Coneely, an outspoken euthanasia advocate who had earlier made the mistake of telling the family of the now-dead man that, hypothetically, he could safely apply poison-laden oil to their suffering father during last rites, and nobody need be the wiser. Was Mr. Hanson the willing victim of a mercy killing, or was a lapsing insurance policy the real motive for one of Hanson’s five children to taint the oil? 
 
UPDATE: It suddenly dawned on me how I can make my covers have that noir feel and still keep to my brand theme, which is why I wanted to keep the characters in the first place. The answer to making a noir cover look noir is noir, that is to say, black -or more specifically black and white. I just need that good ol' fashioned blown out B&W look and feel. With that in mind, here are a few mock ups.

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