Cover Reveal: Political Gain

Every author has parts of the publishing process they don’t enjoy. For some folks, it’s the editing process. For many, it’s marketing. I know an author who loathes the actual writing process, claiming they enjoy storytelling, just not the process of writing it all down, formatting it, editing – basically everything that comes between the idea and release day.

For me, it’s the cover design. Which is unfortunate, as people do, in fact, judge a book by its cover. I have a dozen years of marketing experience, and I’m quite good at it by all accounts, but design? Not my ministry.

When the time came to design the Political Gain cover, there were a few things I was certain of:

The Nos of Political Gain’s Cover

No Illustrated Covers

Don’t get me wrong. I love illustrated covers. Some of my favorite books have illustrated covers. But when I stand in the romance section of Barnes & Noble, or browse the book section in Target, or even visit my favorite local romance bookstore, I don’t see Political Gain on those shelves with a colorful illustrated cover.

Political Gain is gritty. It’s not a dark romance, but it does, at times, get dark. The line from Taylor Swift’s “CANCELLED” always reminds me of Political Gain: “Welcome to my underworld, where it gets quite dark.” That’s the book’s general tone, just add romance. There are politics, underhanded dealings, and so many secrets being kept that I’m not sure how our characters are keeping them all straight. The story simply doesn’t give “bright, happy, illustrated cover” vibes. Yet it also doesn’t give dark romance cover vibes. It’s somewhere in the middle.

No Character Art.

Most readers, maybe even the majority of readers, love character art. I like it, too, and I love when readers send me art they’ve made (sans AI) of my stories. It’s really important to me not to have Kage and Lyla depicted on the cover, whether in illustration or stock photography format. I want my readers to be able to freely visualize what these characters look like. I want them to come up with their own renditions of Kage with his dark hair, haunted brown eyes, tan skin, and a tattoo that swirls up his arm, over his shoulder, and onto his chest, and Lyla with her long hair, fair skin, hazel eyes, and a casual style, perpetually with a big tote bag and a book in tow. Maybe one day I’ll have special editions with character art, but for now, I knew early on that I didn’t want characters on the cover.

A Theme.

Political Gain is book one of a five-book series. All five books take place in New York City. When book five comes out, I want to be able to lay all five books down and see the continuity. I want them to so clearly belong to the same series that you don’t even need to read the titles – all of which start with ‘Political’ – to know that they belong in the same universe, in the same setting, with the same group of people.

Designing the cover.

With those three things in mind, and after asking my Instagram followers to tell me in my DMs what they imagine when they think of a Political Gain cover (oddly, it was almost exclusively in line with my own vision!), I came to a conclusion: I wanted Windy City indie cover vibes, but make it New York. I reached out to a handful of designers found through social media, freelance sites, and word of mouth with my vision. Some of them didn’t respond. Some of them did. A couple weren’t the best fit for my vision, and no less than three ghosted me, thankfully, before dollars were exchanged.

Sidebar: Can we please stop with the ghosting? If a project isn’t right for you, or you don’t have the bandwidth to take it on, the professional thing to do is say so.

Moving on.

I inevitably came to a conclusion. Most of my budget went to editing (no regrets – Cait made this story shine), which meant I was limited in what I could pay for a cover without making a poor financial decision. And so, I had to create my own cover.

Again, design is not my ministry. I have spent hours over the last six weeks or so watching tutorials and improving my limited skills. I spent six hours on a Saturday alone figuring out how to add texture. At one point, someone well-meaning said, “Just put it into Chat and let AI do it.” Thank you, but no, we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do it ourselves like a proper creative.

Without further ado, allow me to share the Political Gain cover with you.

Honestly? It’s exactly what I wanted it to be: moody, gritty, and New York. It’s Kage Kensington in a book cover. He is New York. He’s dark. He’s mysterious. He thrives in this city, and he’s bringing Lyla into the heart of it. To me, this cover leads to that. This cover makes me think “oh, this is going to be good.”

If you are a designer by trade or at least moderately skilled compared to me, I’m sure you’ll look at it and see flaws. I’m learning to be okay with that. Done is better than perfect or whatever, and maybe book one will earn enough for me to hire an editor and a cover designer for book two. For now, though, hi, I’m the cover designer, whether I want to be or not (I do not).

Such is the life of a self-published indie author with a limited budget. Learning as we go, figuring things out as they come, trying to be smart with what money there is to create a book, and teaching ourselves how to do what we need to do. I do not enjoy design work. I never have, I never will. But I’m proud of myself for learning. I’m proud of myself for digging in and doing something I find hard. Hard things are usually worth it, after all. I’m especially proud of myself for doing this by myself. No ChatGPT or other AI tools, just a lot – a lot – of hours logged on YouTube and, surprisingly, TikTok, discovering how to do more in Canva than add text to something. There were a lot of curse words, too…

I love, too, that this is the brand. The next four covers have New York-themed inspiration photos already picked out, and in about 18 months or so, I’ll be able to lay them all down in a row and say, “This is the Political Gain series.” That’s so cool to me.

Maybe by then we’ll have that book deal and special editions, hey?

Now that I’ve shared the cover with you, I’m going to go hide in a corner and hope you don’t hate it. This is, easily, the most terrifying part of a book launch for me, especially when I know how many folks loved Political Gain in its fanfiction format.

If you hate it, don’t tell me?

Off to my corner I go…

Political Gain, out January 29th in ebook, paperback, and on Kindle Unlimited. Pre-orders for the ebook are available here.

About Political Gain:

Lyla Adler wasn’t looking for love, just one reckless night to forget her manipulative ex and the unanswered questions surrounding her father’s suspicious death. A no-strings one-night stand with a handsome stranger in the front seat of his vintage Bronco feels like the perfect escape. Until she realizes he was never a stranger at all.

Kage Kensington is rich, ruthless, and dangerously well-connected. Entangled in a long-brewing revenge plot tied to the tragedy that destroyed his family, he has no time for distractions. But when Lyla’s brother calls in a favor, Kage is forced into a role he never wanted: protector to the one woman he should stay far away from.

As Lyla digs into the truth behind her father’s so-called accident, one she suspects her powerful senator mother was involved in, she’s pulled deeper into Kage’s secretive world and his fiercely loyal, morally gray inner circle. The closer she gets to the truth, the harder it becomes for Kage to keep his distance from the woman who threatens to unravel everything he’s built—and everything he’s tried to avoid.

What began as a single night becomes a dangerous game of secrets where love is a liability, trust is a gamble, and the truth could destroy them all.

Political Gain is Book One of a five-book series in which power corrupts, love is used as leverage, and secrets are the price of survival.