'Striker' re-launches with a brand new cover!

I'm delighted to have cool chick Michelle Betham here today. She's really excited to be re-launching her novel, Striker, with a brand new (totally hot and awesome!) cover. Anyway, over to Michelle....

Brand new totally sexy cover!

With the imminent release of my latest book ‘Extra Time’ - book two in my steamy soccer romance trilogy - due in September, I decided to give book one in the series a bit of a cover makeover. Why this sudden need for a change? Well, it was my husband’s idea, really. I’d always liked the original cover for ‘Striker’ – it reminded me of those Jilly Cooper books I used to (and still do!) love reading. But, as my husband kindly pointed out the other week, Jilly Cooper could put a bag of flour on the cover of her books and they’d still sell! He then went on to point out that I was no Jilly Cooper (I did thank him for that…) and that he thought I should probably think about changing the cover for ‘Striker’. His reasons for this? Well, when he explained them to me, I actually realised he did have a point.

The old cover

The original cover had the image of a football/soccer ball on it – and even though the book is set within the world of professional football, it’s most certainly not about the game itself. Far from it! But, as my husband continued to point out, that image alone could be putting potential readers off the book before they’ve even given it a chance.
It’s not a secret that quite a few women aren’t particularly keen on football. Therefore, if they’re faced with the image of a soccer ball on the cover of a book they might just assume it’s a book that concentrates just a bit too much on the sport, and bypass it without giving it a second look. That might be the case, I don’t know, but the idea of giving the book a little makeover was one I became quite keen on, because, let’s face it, people do judge books by their covers – especially books by indie authors like myself. We can’t sell books on our name alone. We aren’t lucky enough to be able to do that.
So, hopefully the new cover for ‘Striker’ gets the message of the book across a lot more than the old one did. It’s basically a love story, after all – a bit of a racy love story, I’ll give you that, but I think the cover kind of tells you that. Hopefully! It isn’t a book about football, and you certainly don’t have to have an interest in the game to enjoy this book. It’s sexy escapism, pure and simple. And I hope that’s what the new cover portrays.
'Striker' concentrates very much on the off-pitch action, on the glamorous, and not-so-glamorous, lives of the people involved with the so-called Beautiful Game. Because, as far as this book is concerned, there's more to score than just goals...

Get your copy of Striker from Amazon or Kobo.