Before I went to RomantiCon last October, I'd never heard of a trading card. Browsing the promo tables, I spotted the nifty little cards and picked some up. When I got home, I looked up the official web site and said, "I've gotta try this."
I happily designed a card for Plucking the Pearl, my interracial historical erotic romance novel -- putting my blurb on the back and my book cover on the front.
The book cover is very explicit, which I believe helped sales. However, it didn't help when I tried to get my trading cards printed. Vendor A had reasonable prices but declined to fulfill the order due to the cover. Okay... So I contacted the publisher who suggested some other vendors. Turned out those didn't do trading cards but one thought it was a great idea, so that could change.
Next I went to Vendor B, one that had printed bookmarks for my first book. Their price was higher, but something was better than nothing. However, they couldn't handle the cover either.
At that point I was pretty frustrated. Then I got on iStockPhoto and found a bunch of images of the same couple that appeared in my cover. I happened to find a very nice one that is suggestive but not nearly as explicit. I bought it. To make sure it would pass the vendor's censors, I even cloned part of her nightie to remove any hint of shaded nipples showing through! I also put a moustache on my hero because he has one. Vendor A printed it, no questions asked. Hooray!
The result is above. What do you think? I can't wait to distribute them at shows.
Afton Locke
Unlock your fantasies...
www.aftonlocke.com
1 comment:
I don' t understand why a print vendor would give a crap. Geez. People can be so uptight. Boo.
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