The Morning Star Tour: Guest Post + Giveaway

The Morning Star by Tania Penn
Synopsis: Being the daughter of Lucifer keeps seventeen year old Dawn Belial busy. For almost her entire lifetime, she has been trying to think of a way to free her Archangel mother, Michaela, whom her father has held captive for centuries. She's also attending high school - balancing trigonometry, history, and recruiting souls for her father along with her wicked half-sister, Venus.

There has been no time for love until she meets mysterious Gabriel, a British exchange student. As they fall in love against their will, she discovers a startling secret about him, and a shocking connection to her mother that changes everything.

Meet The Author: 

Author of debut young adult novel, The Morning Star. Currently working on the sequel, Equinox, as well as a chick-lit, rom-com, slightly sleazy and funny story with a twist, Catching Frogs. And, because I'm loco in the roco, I've got about 12 more on the back burner. When I'm not writing I can be found kayaking, hiking, ninja-training, traveling, and taking a ferry over to the San Juan Islands to search for the elusive creature known as the "Orca." I also am constantly adding ridiculous wants, needs, must-see's and do's to my ever expanding bucket book. 

I covet a delicious malbec with a rare steak and make a killer salsa.

Guest Post: The Importance of a good cover. 

There’s that old adage - “Never judge a book by it’s cover.” But we do anyway, right? Whether it be in relation to a person, a restaurant, a destination or an actual book cover, we still do. I’ve usually not been one to pay much attention, until I started writing myself, to the importance of having a good book cover. It should be all about the story, right? Granted, my eye has always gravitated to certain ones — black and red especially catch my attention, inanimate objects, bold lettering, etc. Once I started writing, I really began paying attention. And what did I see?

That for all the thousands upon thousands of books out there, exists some exceptional, and unfortunately, some exceptionally bad (in my humble opinion) covers. Now, being married to an artist, I tend to be a little bit biased on what is good, beautifully laid out, compositionally pleasing and attention grabbing. My husband has a very trained eye, he gets paid to do that, and after a while, that rubbed off on me. I used to be one who before, would have wanted to put every single thing I possibly could on the cover to get the point of the story across. A few years ago, the cover of The Morning Star would have been something like having a hot looking stud portraying Lucifer, a couple of teenage girls, one unruly and one looking innocent, maybe a serpent to represent Hell , a cross to represent Heaven, and a pair of angel wings. I would have made it completely literal. But nowadays, I prefer simplicity to get the point across. Symbolism, striking and bold colors. What would make the story come across just with the cover? My husband came up with the concept in ten minutes when I told him the meaning of what The Morning Star was. To me, it was very simple, but brilliant. Ten minutes, the font, the color the bright flash. Done. But then again, I am biased!

Still, even if there is something I am interested in reading, I don’t dismiss it simply because of the cover. If what I read on the back doesn’t turn me on, then it isn’t happening for me! And even then, in some cases, I will skim through the first chapter to see if maybe, just maybe there is a little hope to continue on. It’s only fair, right? But I think for most people, if the cover doesn’t catch their eye, you are prone to possibly losing some readers, no matter how phenomenal your story may be. Call it human nature, law of attraction, beauty being in the eye of the beholder. (Or depending, beer holder!) So bottom line, it is important. You’ve put all that effort into writing potentially what may be your Magnum Opus, your Great American Novel, pouring your heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears, alcohol, more tears, alcohol and heart into it. Don’t you owe it to yourself, your story, your potential readers to have the most awesome sauce deluxe topped with bacon and a side of badassery cover you can possibly have? Okay, so that may be a bit over the top. To most likely (mis) quote a line from the movie “Oz” that I saw recently, “Don’t be great, be good.”

Bottom line? Yes, a good cover is important! 

I hope you all enjoyed that awesome guest post! Now before you jump into the giveaway make sure you check out the tour page here to see the other stops on this tour :) 

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway