I’d love to be the person that asked that question!
Bruce
9 years ago
You’d better keep the love, joy, peace, kindness, and faith, or she’ll turn her aspect ratio-challenged tiger loose on you!
Also, five fonts.
RK
9 years ago
I’ll bet this “paranormal romance” takes some rather severe liberties with Christianity’s actual theology concerning angels for the sake of the romance. In this case, I suspect the basic story is: “Angels are all ravishingly attractive scantily clad women, and if our hero plays his cards right, he’ll get to bone this one!”
Since you appear calm and level headed, you can have some actual non snarky advice!
Do not limit yourself to only one font Greg, it is not as simple as that. That would not fix this. Less text is a good start though, that is a lot of text for a cover. Reading it and both of those taglines do not need to be on this cover. Both should be conveyed with the art itself. We should know looking at this that this is an angel love story.
Look up books of the same genre as yours. Look at the covers. Look at the ones you find visually appealing. Why do they appeal to you? Look at the typography. Notice how the text interacts with the graphics visually? You cannot just spew text upon a picture and call it a cover… well you can, but it will not be a good cover. It will look amateurish, which will negatively impact your sales.
Pick out one really good font for the title. Play with the placement. Treat each word as a separate object. Leave all the drop shadows, bevels, and effects off of it. Nothing looks worse for typography than effects on text by someone that isn’t highly skilled in them. It will look better without them, trust me. Make you author name in a readable font, the placement on this is alright though. keep it on the top or bottom.
The artwork. Never, ever, ever change the aspect ratio of a picture. Always scale it uniformly. That tiger has been squished, it is obvious and takes away from your cover.
The angel is cut from something else. It is obvious, especially in the wings. I can see parts of the old background. Also, the new one does not match colourwise, the tone is different. It is night outside, why are the angel and tiger in bright daylight?
If you don’t know how to properly mix up photos like this, don’t do it. Honestly, it will show. There are so many lovely angel pictures, even some with tigers, already all made and proper looking on photo buying sites. Seriously, I saw 10 on the first page that would be appropriate.
I know some people say, but the cost!!! Six dollars for a nice picture? Come on people, just spend the six bucks.
Taking photos from Google image search and using them like this is stealing. You could get sued by the original artist, which will cost you are more than six dollars for a nice picture.
Lastly, after you have everything in a row, all your ducks like this, the right picture, great fonts you like that were not included with your computer, (fontsquirrel is a good place), take your cover over to the sister site of this one. Covercritics.com – post it there, and ask for help. We will help you make is so much better than this!
Please Greg, we beg you. Try it for this cover as well. It isn’t too late for a new cover!
SELL MORE COPIES OF YOUR BOOK AND MAKE MORE MONEY! Seriously, why are people so against that concept?
Thanks for the advice. I changed the cover for Gabby, Angel of God, shortened the title and chose a single image. I placed the cover on Cover Critics as you suggested. I am anxious to hear your thoughts, and thanks for caring about my cover. The sequel is due out very soon and I don’t want to make the same mistakes twice. Greg
![cover[1]](https://lousybookcovers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/cover141.jpg)
If you need to squish the aspect ratio of your tiger just to make your title fit… your title might be too long.
I would hate to be the person who has to answer the casual question, “What are you reading?”
I’d love to be the person that asked that question!
You’d better keep the love, joy, peace, kindness, and faith, or she’ll turn her aspect ratio-challenged tiger loose on you!
Also, five fonts.
I’ll bet this “paranormal romance” takes some rather severe liberties with Christianity’s actual theology concerning angels for the sake of the romance. In this case, I suspect the basic story is: “Angels are all ravishingly attractive scantily clad women, and if our hero plays his cards right, he’ll get to bone this one!”
But first he has to get past the tiger =)
I don’t get it… is she in love with the tiger? Because it sorta looks like it… Can angels get away with beastiality?
Stern tiger is also squished. Just how much does that angel weigh?
Stern tiger looks like the reincarnation of J.P. Morgan (or vice versa).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JP_Morgan.jpg
Five fonts!
Thank you for your comments, the sequel comes out soon, I will limit the wording in the title and use only one font. Thanks for the comments, Greg
Since you appear calm and level headed, you can have some actual non snarky advice!
Do not limit yourself to only one font Greg, it is not as simple as that. That would not fix this. Less text is a good start though, that is a lot of text for a cover. Reading it and both of those taglines do not need to be on this cover. Both should be conveyed with the art itself. We should know looking at this that this is an angel love story.
Look up books of the same genre as yours. Look at the covers. Look at the ones you find visually appealing. Why do they appeal to you? Look at the typography. Notice how the text interacts with the graphics visually? You cannot just spew text upon a picture and call it a cover… well you can, but it will not be a good cover. It will look amateurish, which will negatively impact your sales.
Pick out one really good font for the title. Play with the placement. Treat each word as a separate object. Leave all the drop shadows, bevels, and effects off of it. Nothing looks worse for typography than effects on text by someone that isn’t highly skilled in them. It will look better without them, trust me. Make you author name in a readable font, the placement on this is alright though. keep it on the top or bottom.
The artwork. Never, ever, ever change the aspect ratio of a picture. Always scale it uniformly. That tiger has been squished, it is obvious and takes away from your cover.
The angel is cut from something else. It is obvious, especially in the wings. I can see parts of the old background. Also, the new one does not match colourwise, the tone is different. It is night outside, why are the angel and tiger in bright daylight?
If you don’t know how to properly mix up photos like this, don’t do it. Honestly, it will show. There are so many lovely angel pictures, even some with tigers, already all made and proper looking on photo buying sites. Seriously, I saw 10 on the first page that would be appropriate.
I know some people say, but the cost!!! Six dollars for a nice picture? Come on people, just spend the six bucks.
Taking photos from Google image search and using them like this is stealing. You could get sued by the original artist, which will cost you are more than six dollars for a nice picture.
Lastly, after you have everything in a row, all your ducks like this, the right picture, great fonts you like that were not included with your computer, (fontsquirrel is a good place), take your cover over to the sister site of this one. Covercritics.com – post it there, and ask for help. We will help you make is so much better than this!
Please Greg, we beg you. Try it for this cover as well. It isn’t too late for a new cover!
SELL MORE COPIES OF YOUR BOOK AND MAKE MORE MONEY! Seriously, why are people so against that concept?
Thanks for the advice. I changed the cover for Gabby, Angel of God, shortened the title and chose a single image. I placed the cover on Cover Critics as you suggested. I am anxious to hear your thoughts, and thanks for caring about my cover. The sequel is due out very soon and I don’t want to make the same mistakes twice. Greg