Deena Zheng is desperate. With her father's expensive Alzheimer treatments and the decay of her family townhome in Queens, the bills are piling up. Out of options, she chooses to nanny for the worst client at the firm, Jesse Grant.
After losing the...
During the production of The Alpha Nanny I was acting like a kid before Christmas. Why? Because I hired a photographer to do a photo shoot for The Alpha Nanny.
As a self publisher I was at a crossroads. I am an interracial romance writer and one of the promises I made was that I would feature a POC on the cover, and if I could, that person would be in a romantic embrace with another race.
Why do I look for covers like these? Because this tells readers, this is what your going to read. You are going to read a book about a black woman finding love with a white man. Take it or leave it.
Another reason why I look for couples in an embrace is because to me, the couple seems more realistic than just two stock photographed people pasted together. While there's nothing wrong with this, (I'm going to have to use this style of cover for several of my books) I just like my interracial covers to look like this, both as a reader and writer.
Lastly, a couple in a romantic embrace just sells.
Getting back on subject, I wanted to hire a photographer for The Alpha Nanny because I wanted a genuine photograph of an Asian woman and black man. I've researched dozens of stock photos sites and I could never find a cheap photo that portrays both of my characters image. Refusing to rewrite my characters to fit into a picture of a model. I hired Lenin Luna, from Upwork (Instagram @leninluna) to get the cover I wanted. The process was easy. After a few days of discussion, he found models that fit my criteria, scouted locations and took about a dozen high quality shots for me. And when I got the results, I was happy to say that he was spot on in my vision.
I now have several options to choose from for a book cover along with pictures for a potential sequel and promotional materials. Below you will find most of the pictures from the shoot. Please not that I own all rights to these photos. You're welcome to share them on social media, but please don't remove the watermarks. With that said enjoy! Be sure to vote and comment on which ones are your favorites!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
