The Evolution of Teasers

I have a trilogy about a female, half-Asian hockey player named Kelly Tanaka. In Part One, she dates Phil. In Part Two, she dates James. And in Part Three, she choses one man over the other. The reason I'm telling you all these details is because these specific circumstances make it almost impossible to find the right photographs for covers or teasers. First off, finding half-Asian women is tough. Finding tomboyish ones who don't wear a ton of makeup is damn near impossible. And finally, finding the same half-Asian, make-up free woman with two different men is the equivalent of eating one potato chip. So when I went to make graphics for this book, I spent tons of time looking for images.

When I first made teasers, I was way too committed to my words. I combed through the books and looked for exactly the right quotes. Then I combed through the stock photos looking for exactly the right photos. I experimented with different ideas on Canva. Needless to say this process took ages, time I should have spent writing or cleaning litter boxes. 

Before

These were the first teasers I came up with:

I think they're okay, but they certainly have no synergy between them other than the fonts are the same. The photos are all over the place, some of people and one of a ring. The colour palettes are different. Some of the text is hard to read. I didn't even use the same image size for reasons known only to 2014 Mel. Maybe I was overcome by the scent of those uncleaned litter boxes.

After

When I took all three books and put them into a box set, I decided to focus on the fact that Kelly plays hockey. I already knew it was tough to find stock photos of hockey, so I started there first. Bingo! I found an amazing image of a female hockey player. She had dark hair in a ponytail, which is Kelly's coiffure of choice.

And the image was already awesome, so I wrote some lines to describe the series. I darkened the photo a little and took my colour palette from the photo: blue and yellow. When the teaser was done, I loved it.

So, I remade the rest of the teasers to match the best one. Sure I make mistakes, but I don't hesitate to fix them. That could be my life philosophy.

I used the same colour scheme, same fonts, and put similar blue filters on each photo. I tried not to sweat the fact that each woman looks completely different. If my teasers look the same, it communicates the idea of the series more than each individual image.

So, what did I learn from these evolving teasers?

1. Get the image first. The image is going to be hard to find and a good image will draw attention and interest better than the "right" image that matches your characters.

2. Consistency. Make the font choice count. Make the colour palette count. You want readers to recognize the style and look of your teasers.

What do you think?