Re-vamping cover art, new biz cards, and writing!

Since my free weekend this month, I've been going over what I learned from that experience coupled with my sales after the freebie weekend, and one of the goals I made for myself was to re-vamp the cover of STOLEN SPRING as well as the book's description.

While the freebie weekend went great and I gave away around 2500 copies of this novel, the sales following the freebie weekend told me I was not hitting my target audience. I believe the cover implies a dark story, when there is plenty of humor and a wonderful town full of crazy, colorful characters. That is not coming through. The book's description also doesn't reflect this. So basically (because I drafted a business plan which forced me to consider the books from all angles), my excellent reviewers seem to be talking about a different story. Woops! LOL

So... back to the drawing board...
This is the original (current) cover:

This is the one I drafted this morning:

I will be working with this and bugging my friends on Facebook about what they think, and then make a final decision soon. I have always wanted the four books in the series to "match," so I will have to give some thought to the other three books before publishing this cover. But this is the beautiful thing about self-publishing... I can change anything -- and keep changiong it until it's right.

In other biz news, I have a new biz bank account, and my biz has a debit card, AND I am waiting for my biz cards to come:

So all in all, it's been a  great two weeks.

I am deep into DROWNING SUMMER, and am nearly at the half-way mark. Elliot Lake CRACKS ME UP, so it will be nice to get this book out the door so I can get on to books 3: FALL OF THE COVE.

I'm sending love to those affected by Sandy. We watched in horror as the photos and videos came across our news over the past 24 hours. I hope everyone stays safe and warm until help can arrive.
Peace,
Cynthia