I’m a fan of the male form. Sexy abs, large muscles, naked skin, I love it. However, there’s an awful lot of it when you look at the covers of most Romance books. Which is why when I first published my Twin Moons of Andove series I decide to show that my books were romances with a more feminine title font and went with an image of space instead of naked, male chest.

I quickly realized that I needed chests. Naked torsos were what everyone else had, and if I wanted to sell, which I did, I needed some abs on my cover.

I might have gone overboard.

Now here we are a couple years later and there are even more naked male chests than ever and I’m starting to wonder if it’s time for a change. Something simple, something that still shows that this is a Sci-Fi Romance, but that isn’t embarrassing to be caught reading.

Covers are difficult, if you’ve never had to deal with them before it might not be that obvious. You have to have something that clearly conveys your specific genre. Branding, both series and author, is very important as well. Covers can range from free if you do them yourself to well over a thousand dollars. I’ve paid a couple hundred for covers before and been happy, but I’ve also been just as happy with covers I’ve spent a couple dollars on that I’ve made myself.

Unfortunately, right now, I do not have the money to pay a professional, so I’ve been working on possibilities on my own. I’ve come up with one I really like, but before I go changing things I wanted to ask my readers, the people that have already paid for my books in all their naked male chest glory, what they think. Here is the current cover for Abducted and the one I’ve been working on. What do you think? Which one do you prefer?

Current Cover

Possible New Cover