Ah, Young Love!

Whether it's the main story-line or just a sub-plot, romance is one of my favorite parts of any novel or movie. I love that moment where the heroine first sees the hero of the story. Sometimes she hates him. Other times, she looks into his piercing green eyes and feels that first spark of something special. Either way, it's an electric moment for me as a reader. Especially in teen novels.

But why? Why do I love reading about teen romance? I guess it's the same reason I love reading young adult fiction in general. It's all about firsts. We all remember that first time we really fell for a guy, don't we? The boy we grew up sitting next to in math class. The one who never noticed us. Or maybe it was the guy who caught up to us in the parking lot after school to ask us to the Prom. Those first moments where we thought our hearts would practically beat out of our chests. Our hands were clammy and our mouths went dry. Those were terrifying moments, but at the same time, they were exhilarating and fun and beautiful and life-changing.

Every time I read a new teen novel, I find myself looking for those romantic moments. I want to relive the heart-stopping beauty of it all. I want to experience the heroine's hope and uncertainty. I want to know her happiness when she finally does realize that the hero cares about her just as much as she cares about him.

The truth is, a novel doesn't even have to be all-romance all-the-time for me to feel this way. Just look at The Hunger Games. (*Somewhat Spoiler Alert if you haven't read the books) The initial story-line has more to do with how much Katniss loves her sister than any boy in the story. Still, from the moment we see her with Gale out in the woods, we wonder if he's the one. Will they fall in love and manage to stay together somehow? Or will her decision to volunteer for Prim change their fate? Then when Peeta confesses his crush on her during his interview at the Capital, we feel our hearts go out to him. Does he mean it? Is he really going to be forced into a competition to the death with the girl he's always had a thing for? Even though the romance isn't the main focus of the series, it's a huge part of what kept me turning pages.

It's the same with Harry Potter. At the beginning, it's all about friendship. These kids are too young to know love. But we watch them all grow up and we keep turning pages to see who will end up with who? Will Ron ever tell Hermione how he really feels? Will Harry live to find true love? These are questions that carry us forward even when they aren't the main story questions.

Then, of course, there's Twilight. Romance is the focus here. Love is the point of it, really. Love is

the reason we read it. (and maybe even re-read it) It's human nature to root for love. To long for it and to take great satisfaction in it. To even mourn it when it doesn't work out the way we'd hoped. We do it in our own lives, of course, but those are stories that take months - sometimes years - to figure out and to experience. With a novel, we can watch two people meet, fall in love, argue or face death and danger, and eventually come together in one successful and satisfying ending all in a matter of hours. There's something so rewarding about that, isn't there?

So tell me, do you love reading teen romance? What are some of your favorite romantic couples in YA fiction?

Creating Your Own Cover

The first thing you need to decide when making your own book cover is the size. The average size for a digital novel is 6 x 9 (inches). The pixel count is 1800 x 2700 at 300dpi. Be sure you get the highest quality photos available. You'll want your cover to ROCK! It's the first thing potential readers will see and it could mean the difference between a sell, or them moving on to the millions of other e-books available to them.

I had an idea of what I wanted my cover to look like. That's good in some ways, bad in others. Because I had the picture in my head, it made it very difficult to find the right photo. I scanned hundreds of stock photos on three different sites before finding it. And it's PERFECT.

This is Kira, the main character in my YA Paranormal Romance, BOUND. Don't you just love her eyes?  Okay, so I love the photo, but right away I see problems. For one, it has an ugly blue background and it's taken in landscape, not portrait, which will limit how much of the photo I can actually use. But I still love it, so I played with the "watermarked" version until I knew it would work, then ordered the high quality version from DREAMSTIME. Here it is:

As you can see, I flipped it horizontally. I didn't want her nose on the spine of the book. Something you need to consider when making your own. Think of the placement. Now I needed to crop it and get rid of that background. I use Photoshop CS3 to edit photos, but there are a ton of free programs out there.

This was the most time consuming and tedious step. I didn't want to lose the integrity of the photo or all her whispy hairs, so I blew it up and literally erased one pixel at a time along her hair line.

Now for the back ground. I spent several more hours (yes hours) searching for the right background, but didn't find it. Then I remembered a few photos I took when camping a few years ago. Here's the one I used.

I cropped the section I wanted and placed it behind the portrait of Kira. When I was finished, I realized I had yet another problem. UGH! The portrait didn't fill the 6 x 9 inch cover, at least not at the size I wanted. You can't see it very well above, but there is blank space at the top and bottom. I didn't want her face any larger and I didn't want to distort it by stretching it.  What I decided to do was fill the space with black and then texture it a little.

Here it is!

MY AWESOME COVER!

Here are some tips to keep in mind while in the creating process:

1) THINK AHEAD!  Thank goodness for my friend Ali Cross who asked a very important question. What about the other covers? Will you use the same model?  *panic* I hadn't thought of that. Frantic, I searched the stock photos and luckily found a whole slew of pictures taken of this same model. Whew!  I've since purchased two for the same price as this one. Now I'm set for the entire series. I've also saved all three photos in several different places in case my computer crashes.

If your book is the first in a series, make sure you like the style of the first cover because the rest of the books in the series should match. I'll use the same font and place the title and my name in the same positions. The only real difference will be the photo used, and even that will be similar. The photos I purchased for the other covers are all head shots of this same model. Uniformity is key here. You want your "fans" to recognize your work. (Yes, you're going to have fans.) SQUEEEEE!

2) THINK SMALL!  Remember that this cover will be a little tiny thumbnail on Amazon.com or wherever you choose to sell your book online. Make sure it rocks TEENY. Is the title visible? How about the author's name?


3) THINK POD!  Are you doing a printed version (print on demand)? If so, you'll have to create a back cover as well. For mine I used the same background photo of the forest. I darkened it a little so my cover copy would show up and then added a fun element. The story has a white tiger in it, so I cropped one from a free stock site and placed it in the forest. I still might darken it a little more, but you can at least get the idea here. What do you think?

You'll also need to create the book spine detail, but that should be easy enough. Be sure to leave room at the bottom right for your BAR CODE and ISBN number. And you'll want to leave plenty of room for those endorsement quotes from Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling, right?  RIGHT?

If you'd like to know more about creating book covers, join the INDELIBLES on Tuesday, March 27 on Twitter for #IndieChat. Heather McCorkle will join me and a few of the other Indelible authors to answer any questions you may have about covers. It starts at 9:00pm EST.  


SEE YOU THERE!!



The cover for Christine's second novel, BROKEN, will be revealed on April 1st, 2012. Watch for it!!