Today’s guest blogger is Elaine Faber, a member of Sisters in Crime, Cat Writers Association, and Northern California Publishers and Authors. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two housecats. Elaine leads two writer’s critique groups and enjoys working with other talented authors.

Winner of multiple awards for her short stories and novels, she pens a series of cozy cat mysteries and a series of humorous WWII mystery/adventures. She has published seven novels and an anthology of short stories highlighting the lives of cats. Fourteen additional anthologies include her humorous tales

Here are her comments on getting the cover right.

There are as many ways to design a book cover as there are books. Nonfiction book covers, particularly political books seem to lean toward THE TITLE against a plain background and the author’s name. Many cozy mystery novels present an artist’s rendition of a house and garden, often including a dog or cat.

I prefer using photographs on my book covers. The book cover should suggest the plot. If the book is part of a series, there should be consistency in the design. Using the same color and size font for the title and a similar design helps readers recognize a particular series.

I just published the fourth cozy cat mystery. Black Cat and the Secret in Dewey’s Diary is a dual tale that takes place in California and also in Austria. While Black Cat and Angel are embroiled in village intrigue and riveting drama along the shores of a No. California resort town, Dorian and Kimberlee seek a long-lost treasure they believe is still hidden in Hopfgarten, Austria. The story moves back and forth between Black Cat’s wisdom and Angel’s snarky wit in Fern Lake, and Kimberlee’s unexpected challenges facing a stalker in a foreign country.

It all started with a message in a WWII diary from a soldier who befriended a German soldier during the battle of Normandy. Following the war, Dewey receives and records in his diary, a mysterious message from his friend… The treasure is in Hopfgarten….touch the feet of the babe…
Kimberlee reads Dewey’s diary just before she and Dorian embark on an Austrian vacation. Of course, they must go to Hopfgarten to follow the clues to a treasure missing for more than 50 years.

Kimberlee’s Austrian adventure includes many of my own 1987 personal experiences when I traveled through castles and villages, saw cows wearing bells around their necks, visited 1000-year-old churches in Salzburg, and finally into Hopfgarten where I experienced many of the events included in Kimberlee’s adventure, and first imagined the story of a missing treasure and Dewey’s diary.

Finding the right photographs for my Black Cat mystery was time-consuming. I wanted the photos to suggest both parts of the story. It had to include a cat with his foot on a diary to suggest that important plot point. It must also suggest the European half of the story. There are plenty of Europe castles available on Fotolia and Shutterstock, but the search was on for the right black and white tuxedo cat.

I requested photographs from an online cat group, of black and white cats with their paw raised,so a diary could be photo-shopped under it. I received over 100 lovely pictures. However, another picture was eventually chosen from Shutterstock.

I think my readers will enjoy this new and latest exciting Black Cat adventure, Black Cat and the Secret in Dewey’s Diary. Let me know how you feel about a book with basically two stories interwoven throughout.

Black Cat and the Secret in Dewey’s Diary  at:

http://tinyurl.com/y2tyyeh5                ($3.99 e-book)

(Dewey’s diary Back Cover blurb) In this dual tale of mystery, lost treasure, and riddles, while Black Cat narrates the exciting events in Fern Lake, Kimberlee discovers a cryptic clue in a diary about a hidden treasure, and heads to Austria to solve the puzzle. 

When Kimberlee and Dorian arrive in Austria, they attract the attention of a stalker determined to steal the diary in hopes the clues will lead him to the treasure first. On a collision course, it is inevitable that Kimberlee and the stalker meet in Hopfgarten.

Black Cat and Angel’s lives are endangered with the arrival of Kimberlee’s grandmother in Fern Lake, and the return of a man presumed dead for twenty-five years. With both arrivals, emotional and financial difficulties loom for Kimberlee’s family.

Since their return to Fern Lake, Angel seems reluctant or unable to adjust to her new home. Does she regret leaving Texas and Grandmother? And, when the opportunity arises, will she decide to leave Black Cat and Fern Lake?