Guest: Lilly Cain - Cover Love

Cover Love – Lilly Cain

Thank you for having me here again at Fierce Romance! I’m so happy to be celebrating the release of my third book, my new novella Building Magic from Red Sage Publishing. I’ve asked a lot of author friends if the amazing feeling you get when you see your cover up on the website (or bookshelf) and I am delighted to report that they all say no!

I’ve been thinking a lot about covers. Recently I interviewed several cover artists and art directors to prepare a workshop for my local RWA chapter – the Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada. Entitled Picture This – What Every Author Should Know About Cover Design, I asked all sorts of questions about the procedure for cover design, and whether the process is commercialism or art, and how the artists feel about it. As I sit here gazing at my latest beautiful cover, I’d like to share a few comments from those interviews with you.

“I think it's a combination of elements combined with pleasurable composition make a marketable cover. Sometimes one element stands out more than another, but what that might be is hard to say until you actually design the cover and what might be important to selling the book, whether it's the models, or an effect.” – Rae Monet – Cover designer

“Most times, as soon as I read the title and genre, I start to percolate ideas. The more I get to know the author’s online persona, the more solidified the sketches become. An example of my process: I’ll receive the cover form. That’s when I go get a coffee (lots of milk and sugar!) and start exploring the form and its links, if any. This gives me a black and white mental image, a sort of blueprint. Then I visit the author’s site, blog, twitter (I sound extraordinarily like a stalker...!) to get a sense of tastes. Has the author decided on a dark background for her site? Big, bold text? Subtle feminine touches? Knowing this fills in details in my mental image of the book. Then I start the actual file.” – Kanaxa – Cover Designer

I am a voracious reader and designing cover art has given me the opportunity to help bring an author’s words to life visually. I’m always searching for ways to improve my work and keep it fresh and different. I absolutely love my job! – Angela Waters, Cover Designer.

And I absolutely love the cover of Building Magic. It really caught the heat between the heroine, a woman who never fit in on Earth but who finds herself a new home in the arms of a living legend, a dragon shapeshifter, and the hero, a man searching for a way to save his people.

To read more about Lilly check out her website at www.lillycain.com. Or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/LillyCain
To purchase a copy of her book Building Magic or find out about other fantastic authors, check out www.eRedSage.com .

Guest: Lilly Cain - Location, Location, Location

Here I sit, writing at Starbucks again, and since it is summer a cool caramel frappuccino perches at the side of my table. A tiny flicker of guilt erupts into flame and I try to quench it with creamy coffee goodness. It can’t be that bad to spend a morning in the coffee shop can it? Aside from the calories I am certainly imbibing, I am people watching and catching a little jazz music. But is it really concentrated, focused writing?

I wrote most of my last novella, Alien Revealed, sitting in my sister’s camper or visiting the beach. But I wrote Dark Harmony my first full length novel here, in a corner of the loud, busy Starbucks ten minutes from my home. I’m not sure which was better. But I think the drive here focuses my thoughts for what I am about to write and the environment forces me to focus on my words. If I don’t focus I don’t write, at least not here. There are too many people moving around me, too many distractions if I don’t focus. So it’s concentrate or do nothing. I think too, that because I am focused my prose comes out a little sweeter. And no, I don’t think it is the frappuccino, LOL.

When I write at home I sit in a cozy armchair (for some reason I don’t often make it to the desk) and my cat sits nearby, watching my fingers move and waiting for a chance to attack. There are distractions here too – the cat, the kids, the TV (eek!) and the refrigerator. At least at Starbucks I am only limited to one treat because, after all, I’m not a millionaire, LOL. I’ve heard other authors refer to their offices or writing corners as their cave courtesy of author Paige Cuccaro – but mine is anywhere I am. I just need my laptop. I even got a chapter written while on a Girl Guide camping trip. Hey they had to sleep sometime, right?

Writers have to be flexible, IMO. It isn’t like people imagine – that we can only write when the muse strikes us. That we babble our words out until we lay there spent, drained. Well okay, that can happen, but most of the time authors work, day in, day out, a little each day, writing, revising, editing. And we do it everywhere, anywhere. As long as we are comfortable, who cares where we sit? Or if we use a laptop, desktop, pen and pad of paper or a voice recorder.

Where do you write? Find your focus? Drop in with a comment and you could win an electronic copy of my novel Dark Harmony from Red Sage Publishing, or my novella, Alien Revealed from Carina Press. Both had recent releases – Alien Revealed was a part of Carina Press’s launch last week and Dark Harmony came out in paper June 1!

Lilly Cain
“Stories of Darkly Seductive Fantasy and Sensual Romance”

To read more about Lilly check out her website at http://www.lillycain.com/.
To purchase a copy of her book Alien Revealed or find out about other fantastic authors, check out http://www.carinapress.com/. And to buy a copy of Dark Harmony, in print or ebook, visit http://www.eredsage.com/.


Lilly Cain is a wild woman with a deep throaty laugh, plunging necklines and a great lover of all things sensual - perfume, chocolate, silk! She never has to worry about finding a date or keeping a man in line. She keeps her blond hair long and curly, wears beautiful clothes and loves loud music. Lilly lives her private life in the pages of her books.

Lilly lives in Atlantic Canada, although she spent eight years in Bermuda, enjoying the heat and the pink sands. She returned to her homeland so she could see the changing of the seasons once again. When not writing she paints, swills coffee and vodka (but not together), and fights her writing pals for chocolate.

When not living up to her pen name, Lilly is a single mom who loves reading and writing, dabbling in art and loving and caring for her two daughters. She loves romance and the freedom erotic fantasy provides her imagination. She loves the chilling moments in her novels as much as the steaming hot interludes. Her stories are an escape and a release, and she hopes that they can give you that power, too.