Naima's Published Titles

Thursday, March 22, 2012

bloodroomthenovel.com

Bloodroom, my vampire novel of romantic suspense, has its own website: bloodroomthenovel.com. You can also access it on my website, naimahaviland.com. Learn more about Bloodroom's characters (the good, the bad, and the hot). Download the first four chapters, free. Naturally, you can buy the Kindle-exclusive e-book there, but come back soon for a chance to win an autographed copy of Bloodroom in paperback!

Bloodroomthenovel.com was designed by Clever Ogre, a Pensacola-based creativity shop with talent and style.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Getting a Professional Book Cover Design

In his book How Come That Idiot's Rich and I'm Not?, Robert Shemin emphasizes the importance of a Dream Team to help you achieve your business goals. I enlisted professional cover designers into my Dream Team when I first made the decision to self publish my Dark Fantasy anthologies and vampire novels. I hired Derek Murphy of Creativeindie Covers to design the cover for Bloodroom. I learned about Derek when Joanna Penn interviewed him in her blog, The Creative Penn. He designed the cover for her thriller, Prophecy. I saw from his online gallery that he was capable of creating for a diverse range of genres, and I liked his designs for paranormal novels.
We began with my sending Derek images of book covers on the market in my genre. I told him why I liked these covers and I gave him a thorough description of my book. I also selected composite photos from 123rf and iStockphoto. Derek created about 8 rough, preliminary designs within 2 weeks. For "rough", they looked pretty polished to me. Here you see two of my favorites. However, the third shown here was my ultimate favorite.
I liked the strong image of the book's central character, Julian (the story is told from his point of view). But I asked Derek to tone down the shine on his face; he looked too scary for the leading man in a vampire romance. I wanted him to look like a bad boy who might ravish you, but not rape you. The blood-drippy title was my idea, but it was unreadable at thumbnail size. Derek produced several different text treatments and ornamental flourishes. He was very patient with me. I think I had a crush on this cover. I wanted to marry it. It had to look just right. And so it does! Here's the finished cover for Bloodroom.
I have found most book cover designs run from about $400 to $800. For those of you writing and self-publishing, consider Shelley Hitz, the self-publishing coach, whose blog, newsletter, and Facebook page offer great tips for free or inexpensive resources -- including book cover design! She has been tremendously helpful to me. Also, use OPM (Other People's Money, to borrow Robert Shemin's phrase) and try Kickstarter, a crowdfunding source that focuses on creative projects. In his blog, David Gaughan described his successful experience using Kickstarter to fund production of his novel A Storm Hits Valparaiso. I intend to try it myself next time.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bloodroom - an Amazon Kindle Exclusive


Bloodroom, a vampire novel of romantic suspense, quietly debuted this week as an Amazon Kindle exclusive and has since broken the Top 100 Bestsellers list in the category of Horror/Dark Fantasy. I am thrilled! I could write reams about my experience writing, working with a professional editor and book cover designer, or the influences that affected character development and setting for the novel. But for now, I'll let Bloodroom speak for itself, with its "back jacket blurb":


Turn to me, Natalie.

His mental call to her was dangerous, of course. Dangerous for him. Dangerous for her too, but she was in danger, anyway.

Look at me now.

Her gaze traveled slowly upward. With every moment, physical awareness stretched tauter between them. Her eyes wandered over Julian's face, over his slashing dark brows, down the ridge of his aquiline nose to his chiseled mouth.

“You're our angel!” The ballerina smiled.

The vampire smiled back.

She explained, “An angel is someone who makes an extremely generous donation to demonstrate his or her love for the ballet.”

“I do love the ballet,” Julian told Natalie fervently, his shadowed eyes fixed on her breasts. Their firm swells strained against the sweat-soaked fabric; buttons were undone to the moist hollow between them. God.

He didn’t have to kill her right away, did he?