Shawn James, Black Freelance Writer: October 2020

Back in 2009, I published the first SJS DIRECT book All About Marilyn. And back then I didn’t have much money to pay for things like book covers.

So I drew my own.

Back then I didn’t know much about designing covers. And I didn’t know how much they left an impression on readers. I too busy working on building up the catalog of the SJS DIRECT imprint.

And while many of my titles like All About Marilyn got a lot of critical praise from Black book clubs and readers all across the globe, they didn’t have the impact they should’ve had due to the covers I drew.

Original Cover

I always felt All About Marilyn could’ve been a book that took my writing career to the next level. Unfortunately, the thing that set the book back was the cover.

Back in 2009 I wasn’t a fan of stock photos. I always thought they were kinda bland generic looking. And I always feared that the same image I used would wind up on another cover.

Worse, there weren’t many images of Black women. Back then almost all the stock images were of White women.

Fast forward 11 years and stock photos have come a long way. And after seeing how a stock photo I used on the cover for my novel Spellbound, led to an increase in sales and left a positive impression on readers I’ve changed my view on using them for certain projects.

These days there’s a lot more variety as related to stock photos featuring images of Black people. And that allows an author like myself to tell a great story on the covers of a book.

I’ve been working to replace many of the older covers I drew on books since 2019. And after searching through stock photos I finally found an image that I think fits Marilyn Marie and would make the book more relatable to readers. So after paying for the credits, and manipulating the image in Photoshop Elements I finally had a new cover for one of my most critically acclaimed books.

Will the refreshed cover lead to new sales? Will it lead to new readers discovering All About Marilyn? Will it lead to people discovering what makes the story of the faded former teen sitcom star an absolutely fabulous five-star read? Only time will tell. But when I look at the new cover I designed I see how I’ve come a long way from the days of 2009 when I was working from a Dell Latitude D830 laptop on a shoestring budget from my bedroom.

You can get a copy of All About Marilyn featuring the new cover on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.