It is amazing to me the differences in book covers.  Some have gorgeous coloring.  Some have only a man, some only a woman.  Some have a man and a woman.  Some have no people at all, but an item, a glove or a mask.  Then, there are the backgrounds castles and otherworldly moons or spaceships, all in an attempt to depict what the book is about, to convey visually what the reader can expect.

Many cover artists have popped up in the recent years.  I use Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs for my covers.  http://www.hotdamndesigns.com/

Here’s two covers she did for me.

The Angel and The Prince

Lost Souls: Resurrection

Notice the difference.  You can tell right off that The Angel and the Prince is a romance and is set in medieval times by the clothing the woman wears as well as the castle in the background.  For Lost Souls: Resurrection, the people on the cover look ethereal and you can see through them, so you can tell it is a paranormal.

Lately, my husband has been dabbling in creating covers.  He enjoys the work.  To produce these covers, he uses GIMP, an open source software similar to PhotoShop.  He purchases royalty free images from Dreamstime and pictures of romantic couples from Hot Damn Designs.  Then he gets to work and puts it all together.  He tries different fonts, different layouts, different color schemes.  He used this method to produce my free novella, The Bride and The Brute.

What covers do you like and why?