I don’t think this cover totally sucks. I like the font, the colors, and the placement of the elements. I only wish it was more obvious what I am looking at.
Oh – and PLEASE remove “A Novel” – so amateur and pretentious.
I dunno about removing “A Novel.” A great many pro books have “A Novel” on their covers, and I think it’s becoming more common to do that. After all, there are other kinds of books, notably short story collections and nonfiction.
But speaking of things that pros have done that amateurs SHOULDN’T imitate, I’m sure that somewhere in the world there are a few examples of excellent professionally-designed covers that make use of children’s drawings (or what look like children’s drawings). And it seems that vast hordes of amateur, would-be cover designers have seen those few professional covers and have thought “Aha!” That’s all I have to do: Take my 7-year-old’s crayon picture down off the refrigerator and use that!”
I’ve seen plenty of trad pubbed books that have “A Novel” appended on them. ::shrug:: It always cracks me up, because then I think, “Well, actually, I thought this was a kumquat!”
Now when people put “by” before their name on the cover – THAT is amateurish. Not to mention it drives me absolutely crazy. 🙂
I put “A Novella” on my book, so people who ignore things like page counts in a description, know not to expect a full length novel.I’m not crazy about it, but it beats bad reviews because some yokel doesn’t pay attention.
I think this might work if it was a middle grade novel. Remove “A Novel” and make the vehicle a little clearer. I thought it was a van.
red
10 years ago
Actually, this cover actually led me to guess pretty close what the book is about. I guessed that it might be a novel about a washed up rock band (I called them “AA Bottom” because of the red car and the font) who have had so much booze and drugs and booze they can’t even hold a font steady any more (except for the ‘w’, their sober-buddy may have helped with that one).
If drawn with a more professional-grade stupor and some tweaking here and there, I think this would work pretty well.
Reader
10 years ago
I’ve seen trade-pubbed MG/YA novels that look very similar – kind of abstract and artsy. I like the colors and style. This actually worked for me. It could be better if the vehicle were more distinct, as noted above, but as it is, I don’t think it’s a fail.
Could’ve been a good concept. Like the title treatment and the texturization. But WTF is the red thing? Bus? Truck? Serial killer’s kidnap van?
Hotrod is my guess. And you know – there just aren’t any decent pics of hotrods out there.
http://bit.ly/1mbQMrL
I don’t think this cover totally sucks. I like the font, the colors, and the placement of the elements. I only wish it was more obvious what I am looking at.
Oh – and PLEASE remove “A Novel” – so amateur and pretentious.
I dunno about removing “A Novel.” A great many pro books have “A Novel” on their covers, and I think it’s becoming more common to do that. After all, there are other kinds of books, notably short story collections and nonfiction.
But speaking of things that pros have done that amateurs SHOULDN’T imitate, I’m sure that somewhere in the world there are a few examples of excellent professionally-designed covers that make use of children’s drawings (or what look like children’s drawings). And it seems that vast hordes of amateur, would-be cover designers have seen those few professional covers and have thought “Aha!” That’s all I have to do: Take my 7-year-old’s crayon picture down off the refrigerator and use that!”
I’ve seen plenty of trad pubbed books that have “A Novel” appended on them. ::shrug:: It always cracks me up, because then I think, “Well, actually, I thought this was a kumquat!”
Now when people put “by” before their name on the cover – THAT is amateurish. Not to mention it drives me absolutely crazy. 🙂
It could be worse. There’s always “Written by ___.”
And then there’s “A book which was written by author ___.” Which I haven’t seen yet, but trust me, it’s inevitable.
I put “A Novella” on my book, so people who ignore things like page counts in a description, know not to expect a full length novel.I’m not crazy about it, but it beats bad reviews because some yokel doesn’t pay attention.
I think this might work if it was a middle grade novel. Remove “A Novel” and make the vehicle a little clearer. I thought it was a van.
Actually, this cover actually led me to guess pretty close what the book is about. I guessed that it might be a novel about a washed up rock band (I called them “AA Bottom” because of the red car and the font) who have had so much booze and drugs and booze they can’t even hold a font steady any more (except for the ‘w’, their sober-buddy may have helped with that one).
If drawn with a more professional-grade stupor and some tweaking here and there, I think this would work pretty well.
I’ve seen trade-pubbed MG/YA novels that look very similar – kind of abstract and artsy. I like the colors and style. This actually worked for me. It could be better if the vehicle were more distinct, as noted above, but as it is, I don’t think it’s a fail.