Salute to My Cover Artist Fiona Jayde

Our theme this week is a shout out to the non-author creatives we collaborate with, or who enrich our lives. I'm going to keep my focus on the author sphere of my life and mention the wonderful Fiona Jayde.

She's always done my scifi romance covers and in the last year or so has also given me my fantasy covers and new Egyptian paranormal covers. Getting my new cover from her is a treat for myself, an encouragement to keep working on the book in question and FUN!

I highly value her professional opinion on the various genres and what's in, what's out, as well as her creativity...and her patience! I'm not a patient person but I admire the quality in others. Fiona has always been so patient with me when I pick stock photos that totally don't work (Me: "This one is great if we could airbrush out these three things, change the background, add a supernova and give her red hair..." Fiona: O_o, followed by a patient explanation of why we can't do any of that to the photo in question, followed by specific suggestions to achieve what I'm going for in a different manner, or alternate stock photos or...)

I think Fiona is really REALLY good at capturing the 'flavor' of the book in question from just my few notes and any inspiration photos I may send along.

I'll always remember the thrill of getting my first cover from her, for my first scifi romance to be published,Wreck of the Nebula Dream ("Titanic in space..." as one reviewer called it). That cover established what was to become my 'look' or brand for the books set in this universe.

My first REALLY huge seller was Star Cruise: Marooned and I've always thought the fabulous eye catching cover from Fiona was a key factor in getting readers to give the book a second look and maybe even a third one.

When it was time to start my Badari Warriors scifi romance series, she developed the series branding, with the ominous alien lab in the background and the sexy genetically engineered soldier in the foreground. Here's the entire series (including one we did under the In the Stars Romance logo, which frankly doesn't work as well for a book in a series.  Sigh. I confused everyone by writing that book outside the series! Never again! It's a perfectly fine logo for books written for that imprint and I might just be writing a few more for them....but not Badari Warriors.)

For my fledgling fantasy series, I asked her to have fun and sort of surprise me. Usually when we're doing the SFR I've at least tried to select the cover model or models and sent her anywhere from 3-10 possibilities. (I'm still not too good at not falling in love with photos that just don't work for a romance cover.) But I had no idea where to begin in fantasy romance.

I'm very happy with my two sparkly fantasy covers (and I have a third one already, for the next book, which I just have to write LOL.)

My original ancient Egyptian covers were mostly done by the amazing Frauke Spanuth of Croco Designs. I love her work and she did my first ever published book cover, for Priestess of the Nile, which I believe I may have cried when I saw it - so perfect.  But when the rights for the first book reverted to me, Harlequin kept the rights to the cover art.

Fiona and I had been working toward that day by designing a 'brand' image for these paranormals going forward.  Here's are the three recent covers she's created for me in the loosely connected series:

I have 38 books published, so it's tempting to give you all 38 pieces of eye candy but I'll restrain myself. (Book #39 coming soon...)

For more about Fiona and her services you can visit https://fionajaydemedia.com/

Note: Background graphics behind the multiple cover displays are from DepositPhoto