creating romance covers

Finding Hotties

I've been looking at a lot of stock photos lately -- a LOT. Why? Because I'm currently in the process of commissioning covers for my Southern Nights series of books that release this October, December, and next January. (No, you can't see them yet, although I can tell you book one, Teach Me, is done -- but you have to wait to see it. :) ) In the process, I've learned something very important: Not all stock photos tagged "sexy muscular man" are of the same...shall we say...caliber.

You might be expecting this:

channing-tatum-2-300But you get this:

*SONY DSC

Um...really? (You might also get a whole slew of women, but somehow I thought putting "man" in the search terms would kind of, I don't know, exclude those pictures?)

For "sexy man with long hair" you might be expecting this:

*256px-Johnny_Depp_Paris_2009But you get this:

*144832328_f516a543e2_mFor"athletic man at beach" you might be expecting this:

299px-Freeballer_board_shorts_01But you get this:

*2648663220_1d86c8ff7c_mSee what I mean? Needless to say, that old "needle in a haystack" analogy is making more and more sense lately. :D

Want to keep up-to-date with my adventures in cover land and all the other exciting things I've got going on these days (including new releases and fun contests)? Then be sure and sign up for my newsletter here. I promise not to hold back any sexy details -- or REAL man candy. ;)

*Hotlanta Voyeur, Georges Biard [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons, Richard Riley, Paul Jones