When I began my journey as a fiction author, the first book I conceived was If I Seem Quiet…, which ultimately became the fourth book in the “Gay Tales for the New Millennium” series. As I was developing the characters and plot for the novel, I created character profiles of the main characters. Many “how-to” articles I read suggested doing this.
The main character in If I Seem Quiet… is Aaron Bradbury, at least in the book’s early chapters. At one point he meets Ryan Robertson, so I also created a character profile for Ryan. Soon it became clear that Ryan’s difficult past merited a book of his own – which turned into the first three books of the series. Hence, for the series, Ryan is the main character, although others such as Aaron and Ryan’s high school boyfriend Chris have co-starring roles.
As I was writing a description of Ryan’s physical appearance and personality traits, I formed an idea in my head of what he looked like – tall, slender, wavy dark-blond hair, cute face – overall, a wholesome, boy-next-door type.
Years ago, I met a friend of a friend who fit this description. He was 6’7” tall with dark blond hair and a cute face (the man in the white T-shirt). He was also nice, decent, and brilliant – everything I envisioned Ryan to be. Sadly, his parents disowned him when they found out he was gay, which made me think of him and imagine him as Ryan in my book.
After I had settled on an image of Ryan in my mind, I attended the first post-pandemic rehearsal of a local community college jazz big band I belong to. The lead trumpet player, a high school senior, looked exactly like my mental image of Ryan. He was tall, slender, blond, and cute. He was an outstanding trumpet player and loved jazz, like Ryan. (He is now attending a prestigious music school.) He even seemed rather quiet and introverted, like Ryan. It was uncanny. On top of that, one of the alto sax players could easily have been Chris. All year long, I’d go to rehearsals and think, There’s Ryan and Chris.
I looked online for pictures of young men who fit my mental image of Ryan (or Bryan, before he changed his name). Not surprisingly, I found quite a few. Since I knew I would need to put the image of one of these men on the book cover, I focused my attention on stock photo websites that offered free public-domain photos and those that licensed photos for reasonable fees.
One stood out in particular, so I selected it and made early mock-ups of the cover using this model. You can see more pictures of this young man here.
But when I test-marketed the cover to my Facebook followers, they didn’t feel this image drew them in or attracted them to the book. He was cute, to be sure, but he didn’t set the right tone for the book – especially since this was a story about Bryan and Chris coming out and dealing with their budding relationship.
By the way, before I settled on Maybe Next Year for the title, I had two previous working titles: P.K. (subtitled Preacher’s Kid) and Becoming Bryan. Both titles focused on Bryan, so a cover image with one guy made more sense.
Choosing the right cover image often involves spending many hours looking at hundreds of photos. It’s kind of fun, but also frustrating. Many photos came close but had some characteristics that make them not quite right. For example, this photo came close to capturing how I envisioned Bryan and Chris. Plus, it looked like they could be having one of their many conversations about themselves, their relationship, and their future. But these men look too old to be high school students.
Showing faces presents another challenge when writing a series: finding more photos of the same model for subsequent books.
For the first Bryan character, another photo of this model with a rolling suitcase could have been a good cover for Instant Adult. But the model’s expression in this photo doesn’t convey the sadness and uncertainty of a young man who was suddenly leaving home for an unknown destination.
That’s why the cover models for Maybe Next Year, Instant Adult, and Karma Train from Kansas are facing away.
Here are several other pictures of the cover model for Instant Adult that show his face. As you can see, his face didn’t work that well, but I thought the view from behind superimposed over an image of a large city captured the mood well. By the way, the photos of this model were taken in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the city is Guangzhou, China. I stretched the photo of the young man to make him look taller and more slender.
I finally showed a face that looked enough like my concept of Ryan on the cover of Open Books, Closed Sets. Here are some other photos of this model.
For this cover, the search for a good bedroom scene was more difficult than my search for a good model. After scouring the free-use and stock photo websites, I turned to Google Images. I’m well aware that virtually all images on the internet are copyright-protected, so I couldn’t use an image without permission. I found an image I liked on the website of a studio and prop rental company in Atlanta called CoCo Studios. I contacted them and asked permission to use their photo, which they granted.
The cover models for If I Seem Quiet… and Karma Train from Kansas are not intended to be Ryan. If anything, they are Aaron Bradbury and Rocket Crockett, respectively. But they were selected to convey feelings more than represent one of the characters.
This brings us to Maybe Now. I found a series of photos that perfectly captured the essence of Ryan and Chris – both their appearance and their chemistry. These guys also appear to be in their early 30s, which is appropriate for the timeframe of this book. Here are other photos of this pair.
The dark-haired model (Chris) is actually taller than the blond (Ryan), but in the book, Ryan is several inches taller. The photo I picked hides this fact because the blond carries the brunette on his back. Plus, the blond’s feet are hidden behind a ridge of sand, so it’s hard to tell how tall he is.
In a couple of the other photos, the blond is standing on higher ground. I experimented with switching the heads on the models for another photo I liked, but I chose the photo of the blond carrying the brunette because I loved the joy and affection it conveyed.
Ultimately, the job of a book cover is to attract the reader’s interest enough for them to check out the blurb. I learned that the emotions the cover suggests are often more important than the faces. For many of my books, I offered several choices to my email list subscribers and Facebook followers. Based on their input, I often selected a different cover than the one I would have chosen. Overall, I’m happy with my choices.
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Photo credits:
If I Seem Quiet…: Daria Lixovetckay. Licensed from Shutterstock, all rights reserved.
The side-by-side pictures are from my personal collection, all rights reserved.
Blond young man wearing a sweater and with a suitcase: Mikhail Lavrinov. Licensed from Dreamstime, all rights reserved.
Maybe Next Year: Goodboy Picture Company. Licensed from iStock, all rights reserved.
Instant Adult model: Kseniia Ivanova. Licensed from Dreamstime, all rights reserved.
Instant Adult city: sevenke. Licensed from Shutterstock, all rights reserved.
Karma Train from Kansas: Jat306. Licensed from DepositPhotos, all rights reserved.
Open Books, Closed Sets model: G Stock Studio. Licensed from iStock, all rights reserved.
Open Books, Closed Sets bedroom: CoCo Studios, Atlanta, Georgia. Used with permission, all rights reserved.
Maybe Now: EpicStockMedia. Licensed from DepositPhotos, all rights reserved.