The Redneck Romance trilogy is small-town gay romance. The covers needed to lean into the rural setting without veering into parody. Romance-cover conventions are real and they sell books, so I worked with them, not against them. Rugged guys, soft backgrounds, warm tones and bold typography that holds up at thumbnail size on a phone screen.
Target Audience
Readers of LGBTQ+ romance, particularly the small-town and rural-trope subgenre. These covers have to do their work fast. A reader scrolling Kindle is making a decision in less than a second. Character-forward imagery and clear genre cues matter more than anything subtle.
Touchpoints
The covers ran on Amazon, in social promos and in print. Series cohesion was the priority. Each book gets its own front-and-center hero, but the type system and color palette stay consistent so the trilogy reads as a single shelf.
Success Metrics
The series launched on Amazon with strong early sales and reader engagement. The author was happy enough to hire me for additional design work after, which is the metric that actually matters in this business.
