151: Small Town Stilettos cover reveal day!

Today is a special day, because it is COVER REVEAL DAY for my upcoming romance novel, Small Town Stilettos: a modern marriage of convenience! In this episode I want to share more about that novel!

Here’s the working blurb…

Aunt Eleanor fully intends to arrange a marriage for me from beyond the grave—to my childhood sweetheart, no less—and she doesn’t seem to have considered that I might be falling for my other childhood best friend! 

But her inheritance is the only chance I have to make my dream a reality: to create a fashion line for bodies like mine. I would almost be willing to give up that dream, if Aunt Eleanor hadn’t stipulated in her will that my inheritance will go to my cruel cousin unless I marry a man I barely know. 

There’s no way around it: a modern marriage of convenience is my only option. Now I just need to convince my “intended” that this is a good idea...

Tropes: 
Modern marriage of convenience
Small town contemporary romance
Love triangle, second chance, friends to lovers, only one bed.
Fat positive, sex positive, ethical non-monogamy positive.

RELEASE DAY: Tuesday July 25 2023

ADD TO YOUR WANT TO READ LIST ON GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55302931-small-town-stilettos

PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Small-Town-Stilettos-marriage-convenience-ebook/dp/B0C776DB4M

Resources & links mentioned in this episode: 
Tune into Indie Author Weekly on your favourite podcast platform at https://saganmorrow.com/podcast 
Learn more about all of Sagan’s books (including the Polyamorous Passions romcom series, Small Town Stilettos, and her business books for solopreneurs) at https://saganmorrow.com/books/ 
Subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/indie-author-weekly/id1469586590 
Check out Sagan’s YouTube channel to watch the video versions of these podcast episodes: https://www.youtube.com/user/SaganMorrow 
Get success & life coaching: https://saganmorrow.com/coaching 
Enroll in the Productivity Powerhouse anti-hustle e-course: https://saganmorrow.com/powerhouse 
Work with Sagan: https://saganmorrow.com/workwithme/ 

Let’s chat about this episode:
@Saganlives on Twitter and Instagram
Hashtag: #IndieAuthorWeekly
Email: hello@saganmorrow.com 
Share your thoughts (or submit requests for future episode topics) at https://saganmorrow.com/question 

Transcript

Welcome to the indie author weekly podcast where you get to hear about the behind the scenes journey of my adventures as an indie author. I'm your host Sagan Morrow, and to date I have written and published seven rom coms in a polyamorous fashion series left several business books for solopreneurs. Now today is a very special day because it is cover reveal day for my upcoming romance novels small town stilettos a moderate marriage of convenience. So because it is cover reveal day I want to share a little bit more about that novel with you here on the podcast today. And by the way, if you are watching this episode on YouTube, then you might be able to see behind me that I have the picture up on the screen. It's just it's a little blurry because I like to blur my background, but you can see the cover design and a little bit later on. In this episode, I will actually share my screen with you so that you can see the cover here on YouTube. If you're listening to this episode on your favorite podcasting platform, then you can check out the cover at Sagan morrow.com/books. You can view this beautiful new cover I'm so excited about it. Okay, so again, I wanted to share with you a little bit more about this novel small town stilettos. So here is the working blur. I might knowing me I'm probably going to play with it a little bit more. I want to I want to test out the blurb but before I make any big changes to it, so it might get a complete overhaul but here is the current working blur for small town so that was a modern marriage of Indians. And Eleanor fully intends to arrange a marriage from the from beyond the grave to my childhood sweetheart nonetheless, and she doesn't seem to have considered that I might be calling for my other childhood best friend. But her inheritance is the only chance I have to make my dream a reality to create a fashion line for bodies like mine. I would almost be willing to give up that dream animal in our heads stipulated in her will that my inheritance will go to my cool cousin unless scenario man I barely know. There's no way around it. A modern marriage of convenience is my only option. Now I just need to convince my intended that this is a good idea. The tropes in this novel include modern marriage of convenience, of course because that's the subtitle the tagline of the novel, small town contemporary romance. It is I would say it's a romantic comedy. It has a love triangle it's second chance friends to lovers only when bed it is that positive sex positive and ethical non monogamy positive. So small town stilettos a modern marriage of convenience is the story of Margaret Peggy Malcolm, who is a fashion designer and she actually lives in the same city that my polyamorous passion series is set in. This is kind of fun. This is a really fun actually I really love writing this novel because there includes a cameo of Emma, Helen and Scarlett who are the main characters of the polyamorous fashion series. So we actually get to see them popping into small town stilettos and Helen actually plays a really big role for for Margaret and even though she only makes a brief cameo she's actually a very important character in small town stilettos. And just a little a little spoiler alert a little teaser for you. The next book in a polyamorous passion series. One of the main plot lines is a direct result of a key theme. A very, very quiet quick scene that happens in small town stilettos. So this little scene doesn't really mean a lot doesn't really have. It's not a pivotal moment in the small town stiletto story, but it sets everything up for this really important plotline in book eight of the polyamorous passion series for Scarlet. So it's so much fun. I absolutely love writing novels that are all integrated in some way or another so I do really enjoy that. Now in small town stilettos. Margaret, the main character hates small town life. She loves living in the big city. She hasn't actually been back to her small hometown in like 20 years. And so she is not happy about being back in the small town. And I do want to note that there is going to be a sequel to small town stilettos, it will be called Love by design. And in that novel, the main character will be someone who adores small town life. And I just wanted to mention this because, you know, I think that whenever we are writing books, it gets I don't know, at least for me as an author. I do sometimes you know, want to assure readers but just because my characters are seeing or thinking or doing something, it doesn't mean that I agree with them. And so in this instance, Margaret is just you know, there's a lot of sort of like stereotype type of things around small towns, but she has and she has a very particular way of viewing them. And so I'm looking forward to writing a sequel where the opposite of that happens where someone falling in love with small town life. So I just want to share that and I do also think, however, that Margaret's approach her her perspective on small town life is fair is quite entertaining. It's very good. It's quite entertaining. So it was really fun to write this novel with just her attitude towards small town life. One of the one of the other important factors of small towns to widows is that grief is actually a really important theme in the novel. When I was doing the final proofread. Recently, I was crying at the end at one point because I was like, oh, it's very emotional. It is again a rom com but there is grief that is underlying the story. She the entire purpose. The whole plot begins with her returning to this small town because her great aunt has passed away. And there's a lot of Margaret sort of processing her grief and trying to ignore her grief. And also because her mother had passed away previously so she's she's kind of dealing with a lot of those different emotions. And we really see that theme come up throughout the novel. I wrote this novel while my two of my grandparents were not well, and you know, it was it was important to me as I was writing this novel to to ensure that we are approaching grief in a thoughtful sort of manner. And it did also help me and I often find that writing things can be very cathartic. In that kind of thing. So it was it was good in that sense. I think that if you've experienced any kind of grief, I am sure that you will be able to relate to the theme in this in this novel, I think you'll be really able to connect with it. And I also feel I mean as an author, we can never we can never quite distance ourselves from our work, but I do feel like the grief is written in a very respectful and thoughtful and also very raw touching sort of way. I think. Another note that I wanted to make about small town stilettos, you know, giving my author disclaimers as I like to do you know, of course, this is a this is a work of fiction. I have no legal background, right? I mean, it's a lot of small town stilettos. Is that Margaret I mean character is being forced into a modern marriage of convenience if she wants to access her inheritance. Now, I am sure that all of this but the entire way that I approach it as an author, the fact that there is this stipulation in a will the whole legal proceedings that I've outlined, I'm sure that all of it is completely unrealistic. And I just want to mention that because, again, I got it sometimes sometimes when we're reading novels, we're like, oh, this was a real thing, though. And I just I encourage you to sort of set that aside, just have fun reading the book. If you yourself are actually have awareness of how wills work and the legal proceedings around these types of things. It might be a little bit more difficult for you to take a step back and let those pieces go. But you know, even though I'm sure that many of those aspects are just wrong and incorrect, that's not the point. It's fiction. It's fun. So, I just want to mention that one of the other things also is have small towns. So that is easily first novel that I will have published that is written in the first person. So that was kind of exciting. All of the other novels in my polyamorous passion series. We all they're all written in the third person. So it was really fun to change perspectives and write in a different perspective. And I am always really curious because, you know, for me as a reader, I personally don't have a preference of first person or third person. It doesn't. It doesn't make me want to read a book any more or any less, depending on the perspective it is certain, but I am curious for you, if you do have a preference, if something is first person versus third person, so let me know connect with me on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is at Sagan Lewis and let me know which do you prefer? Do you have a preference? I'm curious. Okay, so that's a that's a quick sort of overview about small town stilettos, you can visit Sagan morrow.com/books. To then add it to your want to read list on Goodreads. I would recommend that you do that. And as I mentioned earlier, since today is the cover reveal day. And since we now do video versions of the other weekly episodes here on YouTube, I'm going to share my screen on YouTube and show you the cover right now. So I'm going to show this cover to you if you're watching this on YouTube. If you're listening to this on other podcasting platforms, I'll do a quick description of the cover for you. There it is the small town stilettos cover Isn't it so pretty. It was designed by Avery daisy book designs and they were just such a pleasure to work with. I'm already really looking for to hiring them to design more covers for me in the future. And again, if you weren't listening to this episode on your favorite podcasting platform, and if you're not watching it on YouTube, then the small town stilettos book cover uses the same fonts as my polyamorous passion series which ties into that really well. It's this lovely pink background with red accents and the cover features it's Illustrated cover features two men and women standing on a rain box and there's this rain in the background. I just I love it. I think that it is so so beautiful. And also I do want to note that when I approached every day the book designs I you know gave gave a very the full rundown about small town stilettos and the the blurb and the details my vision for what I kind of C as the characters. And he got back to me with two different versions of the cover. One was the three main characters with a yellow background which is actually letting me use as a poster for the book which is so so generous. And the other version was this one that I went with, which features the character standing on a ring box. I did not like that was all every every time with that idea.
I think it's so cool. I think it looks great. I never had that vision at all for the book. And I was just very delighted to have this as as the cover I think that it's just so lovely. So there you go. There you go. And again, if you are listening on your favorite podcasting platform, then visit Sagan morrow.com/books or search small town stilettos on Goodreads and you will be able to see the cover for yourself. That my friend is a rapper for today's episode of indie author weekly. In the coming weeks I am going to share with you a reading from small town stilettos. So I will read to you an excerpt from the novel. I'm also going to share more details about the background of this novel The inspiration for it. I'm going to share with you my book launch plans, marketing experiments, all of those fun things. So if you have any questions about small town stilettos a modern larger convenience, if you have any questions about it, if you've any questions about the book launch the cover the writing process, the editing process, market experiments, anything at all, please do reach out and ask me your questions because then I can make sure that I incorporate them or that I answer them in a future episode. You can do that you can either email me hello F Sagan. morrow.com or you can submit your questions your public requests, all the things or just general feedback at Sagan morrow.com/question release day for smartphones widows is Tuesday July 25 2023. So I do recommend adding small stilettos to your want to read list on Goodreads so that you don't forget to grab your copy. By the time that that date rolls around. I will pop that link in the show notes. Or again you can visit Sagan morrow.com/books. To do so. Access the show notes for this episode, including all links and additional resources at Sagan morrow.com/podcast and share your thoughts on this episode on Twitter or Instagram. My handle is at Sagan Lopes. Please take two minutes to rate and review in the other week on Apple podcasts. Or if you're watching this episode on YouTube, subscribe to my channel and give this video the thumbs up. Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you next week for another episode of indie author weekly