Howdy y’all,
One thing that even the most supportive self-publisher says (or implies) of the, ahem, “service” which Lousy Book Covers provides is, “If only I had gotten all of this feedback before I published!”
With that in mind, I’ve been mulling over an crowd-critiquing site for for indie covers before they go live. Self-publishers could post what they’ve got, and we all (that’s the “crowd” part) offer critiques and suggestions.
I haven’t figured out whether to have a curated blog, with the submitted covers posted by an admin (i.e., me), or a looser-organized bulletin board system.Thoughts?
A bulletin board would be better for getting feedback. Authors could post whenever they want without having to wait for their cover to get through your queue.
Haha, sounds great! I’d put it into my RSS feed, just like I do this glorious blog. What you’re doing is actually a great service to the publishing industry, and this new proposal sounds even more useful. My advice would be to use an admin to quickly pre-screen the expected river of garbage… LOL. Or just implement some kind of up/down clicky system that shoves the awfullest ones to the bottom of the heap.
I think this is a great idea. Sometimes people just don’t know how bad their covers are. ( I realized that after seeing what you’ve put up on this site) OK, I’m still stuck on “Bitch stole my man” I know…I know…I need to move on, but that did come to mind.
Great idea, Nathan. Either a bulletin board as AJ selected or a blog with labels based on genre–click on the label if you think you can offer advice on paranormal romance and what not.
To prevent theft, a watermarked cover should be required.
If someone would steal some of the covers featured on this site, I’d say great. See how far you get with that. Also watermarks can be removed.
I would like to use this. 🙂
Love it. I say, let it fly.
I think it’d be a great idea and save many an author from an…um…”return trip.”
Great idea! I think the covers should be submitted through you though.
I think it sounds like a heap of fun! I agree with Sue that the covers should be submitted through you.
I think that’d be great! I was always wondering if I could send in my covers (all tentative) for a review and advice before self-publishing. On the flip side, my friend who loves to make bad art (her words, not mine) makes me random book covers all the time that won’t be using on the final product, and I think it’d be fun to have a thread as well for things like that. It’s like, we both know they’re bad, but it’s also cute at the same time because it’s not at all serious, and I love to show people the covers. So just a place where bad book covers that are meant to be bad can be appreciated in a different way than on here.
Anyway, I like the idea.
A loosely administered board would probably become a troll magnet so there should probably be some administrative supervision over what gets posted.
A good idea. However, IMNSHO, go with an admin-administered site. Otherwise, the site will be a free-for-all, an open spam target, and a forum for thin-skinned, vitrolic writer wannabes to vent at any and all critiques.
It’s been my observation that admin controlled sites are far better than open sites.
“a forum for thin-skinned, vitrolic writer wannabes to vent at any and all critiques.”
You say that like it’s a BAD thing. *grabs popcorn*
I’ll be the first in line, but I’d prefer an admin-administered site like James suggested. I’d be after quality feedback, not a free-for-all.
Yet another vote for an administered site. Otherwise, I’d say forget a “bulletin board”, and go with some other form of social media, such a Tumblr or a FB page.
I actually did this on Facebook a few months ago – I used Amazon’s book cover creation tool to make something simple, and asked for feedback. Over the course of two days, I went through probably a dozen variations of my cover and came up with something that looked pretty good. Some of the advice conflicted (Author vs. Title top/bottom of page, etc.), but overall, it was really helpful.
I would go for the monitored blog, the a fore mentioned trolls and some people posting inappropriate pictures being the biggest reasons.
I love this idea and definitely think it should be an administered site to keep out the crazy. This site really is helpful outside of the snark – reading the tags/comments has taught me exactly why a particular cover doesn’t work and how a bad cover could have been improved with a few tweaks (or major overhaul in some cases). I had no idea what kerning was until I came here! But most importantly, I knew I never wanted to end up on this site myself so I went on and hired pros to do my covers, lol. Anything I did myself would be a massive fail.
I would certainly volunteer to be a part of this. I’ve advised a lot of authors on the Lulu forum site regarding their covers and (hopefully) have saved many of them from some grievous mistakes.
Abso-flippin’-lutely yes! Without having an opportunity to first consult the sterling wisdom of this site and its contributors, I fully expect all my future books to end up being laughed at here!
I totally want in on this. The rat showed me the way to this site, and my art background gives me double the enjoyment.