Done? So we're in agreement, right? Good. Okay...

Third, I'm not sure an illustrated cover would convey the right tone. (Note: tone and mood are not the same thing.) Both set your expectation, but this story was written with yaoi in mind so an illustrated cover sets that up.

Ultimately, I chose to go with an illustrated cover because of branding. The cover, book trailer and teasers will all have the illustrations Zoe created. It's just makes sense with that point of view. I'll go with Zoe again when I make the next books so I have an all around brand with the Notice Me Sempai series.

You can see from Zoe's first attempts it doesn't give any impression that this is an all male menage. At least not really. The above picture is adorable. They look like they're posing for the year book. But the cover says this could be a story about three humorous friends, their lives, their differences and how they relate. That's not this story.

I needed a cover that could give me their character traits, besides teacher and students, that I'd like to put as the representative to my story. So then Zoe shows me this...

No, it doesn't show all their faces. I might still want that. But this at least screams, there's sex in here. The blatantness -- yes, my new word blatantness -- is what I was going for. I gave Zoe the okay for this one. Here's why.

It shows Mori's weakness, it shows Itsuma taking the lead like he always does, and it shows Scott's eager but gentle way. Those are my characters. Oh, for those who don't know the order from left to right is Itsuma, Mori, Scott. The best character illustrations of them are found here.

So Zoe's got the okay from me and I've got a rough sketch. The next time you see the cover will be for the cover reveal. For now, try to use your imagination for detail, color and shading. Until next time!

XOXO ~ Stephy

In late 2014 I was "hired" to ghostwrite a gay romance of 10k words. The premise was "gay assassin". NOT MY PREFERED WIP NAME, but whatev's. I did my world building, made my characters. Did my sheets. Filled out my story outline and... (here comes the punch line of this entire thing)...

My god, you must be sick of me giving updates of my latest work. However, the picture you see above is the last panel of Zoe's story boarding for the trailer of Seducing Sensei. Now all I have to do is...

...put it all together.

Here's what we have so far:

• Music
  

• A title.
  

That's easy...Seducing Sensei. I'd thought of the title Teacher's Pet, but I think I'll save that one for a later book.

Combine my 87 images to the music and we'll have a trailer. Holy hell it's been fun. I think Zoe made the process awesome. She kept feeding me images every week. After panel 40, my face was turning red and I was a total fan girl...

What to do now:

Hire someone to put these all together. This YouTube video is what I'm going for:

Yeah, sorry for the warning but some people don't take my dirty blog seriously sometimes. Anyway...

So all this work and still no video, yet. But there will be!

As for the rest of the book. I've penned the last word of the first draft and have put it in the drawer to simmer. Don't freak...I'll leave it in there for a few weeks, bring it out, edit it over a week, then send it out to the betas!!

But as soon as I shelved it and could think about something else, my paranormal, fantasy, dragon story reared its sexy legs up and...it too is an all male menage. Hell if I know what's going on with the inner workings of my head but there you have it. I don't even know what genre to call this one other than all male menage dragon story. It's been in my head since 2014 and it's never let go. So...I'll be posting about that one until I have more news about Seducing Sensei. I'll send out an email to all my peeps so if you want to be apart of my crew, scroll to the top and sign up for my readers group list. You'll get a free story too--just to see if we're compatible. If not, no worries! 

So now, whip-lash back to S.S. (Seducing Sensei) I'm putting all the updates of SS in chronological order for posterity purposes for later. One day, we'll look back and smile.
http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/good-luck-finding-a-book-trailer
http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/storytelling-vs-genre-writing
http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/current-events-notice-me-sempai 
http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/seducing-sensei-update 

In other things to do before this book comes out...I need:

• Cover
• Beta Readers/Crit Partners
• Line Editor
• Marketing Plan

All of which is underway shortly. Zoe is working on the cover. I'll prolly have a cover reveal. But before that even, I'll have beta readers/crit partners look at the story and then a line editor. After that editing we'll get a copy editor. Then it will go up for pre-order and a marketing plan will ensue. But I'm so excited! I have my trailer almost there. Everything is coming together. Ahhhh...the birth of a book. Thanks so much for following me on the journey!

Until next week!!

XOXO ~ Stephy