The cover isn’t meant to be pleasing to the eye, just as the content and style will challenge you and be “hard to swallow.” Put your thinking caps on, for Pete’s sake.
Which would be fine if potential readers would only see your book by its lonesome. However, they’re going to encounter it on Amazon or some other bookseller, where the covers for other books to either side ARE pleasing to the eye. Those book covers are gonna get the sales.
With all due respect, f.smith, you are making a typical, new-to-it author mistake. (If you’re not new to it, then you are making the same mistake again…), which is thinking that your readers will ‘get it’ after they read the book.
They won’t. Nobody but you will. If I see a cover that doesn’t immediately clue me to something–anything–I go right by, because it tells me that the publisher (that’s you) doesn’t know what their story is; for whom it’s written, the nature of their target audience, etc. With literally hundreds of thousands of other choices, why would I waste time on your book? I can choose from other authors in your genre, who do know who they’re serving, to whom they are writing and so forth.
There’s a test–the Miller Test: if the text on your cover art were in Russian, or any language you don’t speak, would ANYONE know what genre, what are, what topic it’s about? The answer is, no, they wouldn’t. And that means that 99% of your prospective buyers are going to go right past this cover. They won’t give it a second look. Why should they? From their perspective, you’ve made zero effort to say to them, “hey, you, this book is for YOU, this is what you’re seeking.” That cover tells me you couldn’t care less if anyone finds this book. And if that’s how you feel, you’ve succeeded.
This is meant to be a romantic comedic misadventure? Who in the name of God would think that, looking at that cover? (NOBODY.)
I’m sorry, really. Your cover isn’t as dreadful as much of what we see here–but it’s not doing its job. Your cover is clickbait–that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not there to be “mysterious” or to engender thinking or any other obscure thing. Its job is to make the person click, period. Then it’s done its job. At that point, your description takes over, then the LookInside and so forth. All the cover is meant to do is to get someone to click–that’s it. And this particular cover won’t do that. Your sales rank should already tell you that what we’re telling you is accurate. If I were in your shoes, I’d change up the cover and see what happens. It damn sure can’t hurt.
Professional hint: Dorrance screwed up your Kindle book, too. Between the not-helpful cover and the screwed-up interior, you’re killing your own book. If I were you, I’d kick Dorrance to the curb, redo the eBook interior, get a proper cover (doesn’t have to be expensive) and give that book another shot at life. But that’s just my $.02.
Where in the heck would I be if I judged books by their covers?? What kind of vacuous, trivial person does such a thing?? Charles Bukowski’s first two novels (Post Office and Factotum) are a couple of my all-time favorites. Those are not “attractive” covers in the least bit. And what’s this nonsense about how I couldn’t care less if anyone finds my book? For starters, I didn’t design the cover, with the exception of the roller coaster design of the subtitle. (You haven’t figured that out yet, right? That that is in the shape of a roller coaster — a metaphor for the roller coaster ride that the characters find themselves on.) And the colors used in the design are the types of colors you’d find with a story that is “close to the flame,” O.K.? The colors that one would find in the “hot” range, get it? And what you are looking at, in total, is down beneath and into the dark cellar, where profanity, sexuality (including a heavy dose of female bisexuality) and violence — and all the other things that might indicate some sort of dark side — might be found. It was love at first sight when I saw this cover. I wrote the woman that designed this cover and went on and on and on for about three pages explaining about how she nailed it — perfectly. As for the “sales ranking,” I have on very good information that many wonderful, good people all over the world AND I MEAN ALL OVER THE WORLD have been illegally downloading my first (and second) novels for free. (Now what would you have me do about that?)
Okay, I’ll bite: how do you categorize “very good information” for illegal download sites, 99% of which aren’t actually download sites, but credit-card scamming sites that don’t, in fact, have the books in the first place?
I’ve been in this biz a long time–and whoever it telling you that is feeding you utter drivel. Sorry, but there it is. (Ask yourself this–since you don’t even have an author page, on Amazon–how are these thousands of would-be fans even FINDING your gems? And why aren’t those wildly-downloading fans buying THIS book, then? With all due respect, the Kindle version doesn’t even have a sales rank! That means it has never sold a single copy. The paperback is in the 8million range! That’s like…1 sale, ever.) and you can’t credit that your cover might be a problem, after two years?
Now, back to the cover: so, you think that the buyer is going to say to themselves, “OMG, it’s a roller coaster!,” when they see that 1″ wide and 1.5″ tall and then click to go buy your book? (And BTW, yes, I assumed it was meant to indicate highs and lows of some emotional ride. So what?)
Well, all I can say is, good luck with that. (And, btw, before I understood the world of books, when I too was merely a voracious reader, I thought all that stuff–that the covers don’t matter, only the content matters, “real” readers aren’t swayed by covers–and I’m here to tell you, I was utterly, completely and totally wrong. I actually wrote an article in 2011, talking about that very thing.
No, the cover won’t make someone BUY the book–but a crap cover will surely make someone just go right on past it, never giving it a chance–and honestly, that’s where this cover sits. It’s a resident on The Island of Misfit Covers(TM).
I do wish you good luck, but you’re doing what new(er) authors always do–you’re tanking your book’s chances by being willfully blind to the cover’s flaws. A cover that appealed to an audience of One–the person who already knew everything that was in the book–not to the audience of many, people who might have wanted to find out what was in the book.
But, hey…it’s your book and your cover. What I do know is that if I had one sale, after two years, instead of listening to people filling my head with fantasies about illegal downloads, I would seriously take a look at the cover.
Where in the heck would I be if I judged books by their covers?? What kind of vacuous, trivial person does such a thing??
99% of your potential readers, actually.
Publishers may be stupid, but they aren’t actively trying to lose money. If covers hadn’t had a significant impact on sales, for the last 100+ years, they wouldn’t still be paying artists and designers to put them together.
The thing is, your book will almost NEVER be seen by a potential reader by its lonesome. Whether at the bookstore or online, there will ALWAYS be some other book to either side. If either of those books do a better job of signalling to your target reader that “this book is FOR YOU,” yours won’t be picked up or clicked on. It just won’t.
And yep, the original covers for both Post Office and Factotum were, at best, underwhelming. Back in 1980 and 1981, EVERYTHING was ugly. You don’t have that excuse. (And oh hey, look at how eye-catching the covers on the latest editions are — and that’s WITH the added draw of Bukowski’s “big deal” name on the covers!”
I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. The cover will stand as is. If someone thinks the cover is ugly or depressing, then they sure as heck will not like the story — which is quite ugly and depressing (as is true to life). As far as sales are concerned, there are at least half a dozen sites where you can download novels for free and without falling prey to a credit card scam. Where have you good folks been? Illegal downloading has been a major problem on the net for at least 10 years! At any rate, sales and book covers designed to rack up the big numbers are not my cup of tea. I’m an artist and didn’t write my novels to rack up big sales. Save that kind of piffle for the likes of Patterson, Grisham, Steel and other burnout cases who are in it strictly for the money.
Ah, we are in ze presence of an artiste! She does not, how you say, pander to ze masses! Why, if she had good sales, she would castigate herself as “a sellout!” Covers that attract readers are strictly for potboiler-pedlars! You know that f. smith is a serious writer, because no one’s heard of him/her!
Hint, f: We’re not criticizing your cover for being (intentionally) ugly or depressing. We’re criticizing it for being amateurish. We are now criticizing YOU personally as being a closed-minded poster-child for the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
This is an insane conversation. The cover is SUPPOSED TO have an amateurish quality to it. This separates it from the slick “buy me! buy me!” covers that you people worship and adore, even if the covers adorn the latest boring, predictable novels that rule the top of the sales charts by the likes of fried and wasted burnout cases like Patterson, Grisham, Steel and so forth. So at any rate, the deliberately amateurish aspect (and it’s just one aspect) of the cover is just that — deliberate and serves a major, important purpose. So that rules out incompetence, you dig? (Please excuse my hipster talk — this’s how us intelligent, sophisticated artists like to express ourselves from time to time.Just kidding. Just like I was just kidding when I referred to myself as an artist above.You didn’t get that, did you?) As I said at the very beginning of this conversation, put your thinking cap on. So here we are, you and I, right back to square one. It is time that I split.You don’t get it, and you don’t want to dig any deeper, even though you are capable of doing so, so there is nothing else I can do. I can’t force you do dig any deeper. It’s been real.
Ah. If it’s supposed to be amateurish, like your conduct, then MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Go pat yourself on the back for all those sales you skillfully avoided.
Listen, don’t get the idea that I’m trying to have the last word here, but I can’t resist this one: I thoroughly enjoy my amateur status. I refuse to take a “if you can’t lick ’em join ’em” attitude vis-a-vis the likes of all these pathetic burnout cases that are sitting on top of the sales charts such as Grisham, Patterson, Steel, Nora Roberts and the like that haven’t written anything of quality in years and years. As an example, I read Grisham’s 2017 entry, The Rooster Bar, which turned out to be something even worse than a boring, predictable retread of The Rainmaker. To repeat, It was worse than boring and predictable. All the supposed heroes, the Rudy Baylors, in it were a bunch of sociopathic criminals in my mind. Good God, I hope this isn’t a new trend: bestselling novels with no sympathetic characters. I don’t want to become part of that f-ing club: The slick, bestselling mindless professionals. I’d much prefer to be considered an outsider, or an amateur if you wish, attempting to provide something new and challenging. To provide something with gamble. Loads of gamble. And I think Julie and Horace provides that. My second novel, Julie and Horace, Part II: The Johnny Mop Splashback, also has its fair share of gamble, even though it was kinda…sorta written for the mainstream market. I’ve also been told from various sources that the cover is considerably easier on the eyes.
Why is it–seriously–that every time an author is told that they have a solid non-starter, for a cover, the answer somehow includes a rant about how all the big-selling authors are sellouts, burnouts, no-talents who use and abuse writing interns and ghosts to churn out their bestsellers?
What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China? What on EARTH do James Patterson or Grisham or Dan Brown have to do with this discussion? Did any of them design that uniformly BAD cover you have on your book? No? Will you bravely turn down sales from their fans? No? So. what on earth do their careers have to do with yours? And why should any of us care? For that matter, why do you care? What they’re selling is what they’re selling and the bad news for you, sport, is that that’s obviously what millions are paying to read.
If telling yourself that you’re some brave outsider, some artiste, gets you through the night, great. But the harsh reality is, ain’t nobody gonna read your “challenging” material, with that godawful cover on it–and anybody who knows ANYTHING about the Dark web and pirate sites also knows that you have absolutely zero way to actually know, or guess, or remotely guesstimate, how many downloads your novel has had. That’s….utter fantasy. Those of us in the biz professionally know that the pirates slap up all sorts of numbers of downloads, as faux “social proof” to encourage people to click.
Lastly, $9.00? For an unknown novel, with “challenging” storylines and unlikable characters, from an author that doesn’t have a fan base? Honestly, between that and the godawful cover, are you TRYING to keep yourself in perpetual obscurity? Is this some form of oddball self-destruction?
I give up, now, officially, on this thread and page. It’s simply befuddling.
No.
A Decide Love You Story I guess
Yeah, “of” warrants a cap, but the author’s name doesn’t. Facepalm
I see that those who dared critique the cover are all being down-voted. Speaking of FACEPALMS! We may as well give this one up–we’re wasting our time.
Facepalm indeed. None so blind…
The cover isn’t meant to be pleasing to the eye, just as the content and style will challenge you and be “hard to swallow.” Put your thinking caps on, for Pete’s sake.
Which would be fine if potential readers would only see your book by its lonesome. However, they’re going to encounter it on Amazon or some other bookseller, where the covers for other books to either side ARE pleasing to the eye. Those book covers are gonna get the sales.
With all due respect, f.smith, you are making a typical, new-to-it author mistake. (If you’re not new to it, then you are making the same mistake again…), which is thinking that your readers will ‘get it’ after they read the book.
They won’t. Nobody but you will. If I see a cover that doesn’t immediately clue me to something–anything–I go right by, because it tells me that the publisher (that’s you) doesn’t know what their story is; for whom it’s written, the nature of their target audience, etc. With literally hundreds of thousands of other choices, why would I waste time on your book? I can choose from other authors in your genre, who do know who they’re serving, to whom they are writing and so forth.
There’s a test–the Miller Test: if the text on your cover art were in Russian, or any language you don’t speak, would ANYONE know what genre, what are, what topic it’s about? The answer is, no, they wouldn’t. And that means that 99% of your prospective buyers are going to go right past this cover. They won’t give it a second look. Why should they? From their perspective, you’ve made zero effort to say to them, “hey, you, this book is for YOU, this is what you’re seeking.” That cover tells me you couldn’t care less if anyone finds this book. And if that’s how you feel, you’ve succeeded.
This is meant to be a romantic comedic misadventure? Who in the name of God would think that, looking at that cover? (NOBODY.)
I’m sorry, really. Your cover isn’t as dreadful as much of what we see here–but it’s not doing its job. Your cover is clickbait–that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not there to be “mysterious” or to engender thinking or any other obscure thing. Its job is to make the person click, period. Then it’s done its job. At that point, your description takes over, then the LookInside and so forth. All the cover is meant to do is to get someone to click–that’s it. And this particular cover won’t do that. Your sales rank should already tell you that what we’re telling you is accurate. If I were in your shoes, I’d change up the cover and see what happens. It damn sure can’t hurt.
Professional hint: Dorrance screwed up your Kindle book, too. Between the not-helpful cover and the screwed-up interior, you’re killing your own book. If I were you, I’d kick Dorrance to the curb, redo the eBook interior, get a proper cover (doesn’t have to be expensive) and give that book another shot at life. But that’s just my $.02.
Where in the heck would I be if I judged books by their covers?? What kind of vacuous, trivial person does such a thing?? Charles Bukowski’s first two novels (Post Office and Factotum) are a couple of my all-time favorites. Those are not “attractive” covers in the least bit. And what’s this nonsense about how I couldn’t care less if anyone finds my book? For starters, I didn’t design the cover, with the exception of the roller coaster design of the subtitle. (You haven’t figured that out yet, right? That that is in the shape of a roller coaster — a metaphor for the roller coaster ride that the characters find themselves on.) And the colors used in the design are the types of colors you’d find with a story that is “close to the flame,” O.K.? The colors that one would find in the “hot” range, get it? And what you are looking at, in total, is down beneath and into the dark cellar, where profanity, sexuality (including a heavy dose of female bisexuality) and violence — and all the other things that might indicate some sort of dark side — might be found. It was love at first sight when I saw this cover. I wrote the woman that designed this cover and went on and on and on for about three pages explaining about how she nailed it — perfectly. As for the “sales ranking,” I have on very good information that many wonderful, good people all over the world AND I MEAN ALL OVER THE WORLD have been illegally downloading my first (and second) novels for free. (Now what would you have me do about that?)
Okay, I’ll bite: how do you categorize “very good information” for illegal download sites, 99% of which aren’t actually download sites, but credit-card scamming sites that don’t, in fact, have the books in the first place?
I’ve been in this biz a long time–and whoever it telling you that is feeding you utter drivel. Sorry, but there it is. (Ask yourself this–since you don’t even have an author page, on Amazon–how are these thousands of would-be fans even FINDING your gems? And why aren’t those wildly-downloading fans buying THIS book, then? With all due respect, the Kindle version doesn’t even have a sales rank! That means it has never sold a single copy. The paperback is in the 8million range! That’s like…1 sale, ever.) and you can’t credit that your cover might be a problem, after two years?
Now, back to the cover: so, you think that the buyer is going to say to themselves, “OMG, it’s a roller coaster!,” when they see that 1″ wide and 1.5″ tall and then click to go buy your book? (And BTW, yes, I assumed it was meant to indicate highs and lows of some emotional ride. So what?)
Well, all I can say is, good luck with that. (And, btw, before I understood the world of books, when I too was merely a voracious reader, I thought all that stuff–that the covers don’t matter, only the content matters, “real” readers aren’t swayed by covers–and I’m here to tell you, I was utterly, completely and totally wrong. I actually wrote an article in 2011, talking about that very thing.
No, the cover won’t make someone BUY the book–but a crap cover will surely make someone just go right on past it, never giving it a chance–and honestly, that’s where this cover sits. It’s a resident on The Island of Misfit Covers(TM).
I do wish you good luck, but you’re doing what new(er) authors always do–you’re tanking your book’s chances by being willfully blind to the cover’s flaws. A cover that appealed to an audience of One–the person who already knew everything that was in the book–not to the audience of many, people who might have wanted to find out what was in the book.
But, hey…it’s your book and your cover. What I do know is that if I had one sale, after two years, instead of listening to people filling my head with fantasies about illegal downloads, I would seriously take a look at the cover.
99% of your potential readers, actually.
Publishers may be stupid, but they aren’t actively trying to lose money. If covers hadn’t had a significant impact on sales, for the last 100+ years, they wouldn’t still be paying artists and designers to put them together.
The thing is, your book will almost NEVER be seen by a potential reader by its lonesome. Whether at the bookstore or online, there will ALWAYS be some other book to either side. If either of those books do a better job of signalling to your target reader that “this book is FOR YOU,” yours won’t be picked up or clicked on. It just won’t.
And yep, the original covers for both Post Office and Factotum were, at best, underwhelming. Back in 1980 and 1981, EVERYTHING was ugly. You don’t have that excuse. (And oh hey, look at how eye-catching the covers on the latest editions are — and that’s WITH the added draw of Bukowski’s “big deal” name on the covers!”
I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. The cover will stand as is. If someone thinks the cover is ugly or depressing, then they sure as heck will not like the story — which is quite ugly and depressing (as is true to life). As far as sales are concerned, there are at least half a dozen sites where you can download novels for free and without falling prey to a credit card scam. Where have you good folks been? Illegal downloading has been a major problem on the net for at least 10 years! At any rate, sales and book covers designed to rack up the big numbers are not my cup of tea. I’m an artist and didn’t write my novels to rack up big sales. Save that kind of piffle for the likes of Patterson, Grisham, Steel and other burnout cases who are in it strictly for the money.
Ah, we are in ze presence of an artiste! She does not, how you say, pander to ze masses! Why, if she had good sales, she would castigate herself as “a sellout!” Covers that attract readers are strictly for potboiler-pedlars! You know that f. smith is a serious writer, because no one’s heard of him/her!
Hint, f: We’re not criticizing your cover for being (intentionally) ugly or depressing. We’re criticizing it for being amateurish. We are now criticizing YOU personally as being a closed-minded poster-child for the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
This is an insane conversation. The cover is SUPPOSED TO have an amateurish quality to it. This separates it from the slick “buy me! buy me!” covers that you people worship and adore, even if the covers adorn the latest boring, predictable novels that rule the top of the sales charts by the likes of fried and wasted burnout cases like Patterson, Grisham, Steel and so forth. So at any rate, the deliberately amateurish aspect (and it’s just one aspect) of the cover is just that — deliberate and serves a major, important purpose. So that rules out incompetence, you dig? (Please excuse my hipster talk — this’s how us intelligent, sophisticated artists like to express ourselves from time to time.Just kidding. Just like I was just kidding when I referred to myself as an artist above.You didn’t get that, did you?) As I said at the very beginning of this conversation, put your thinking cap on. So here we are, you and I, right back to square one. It is time that I split.You don’t get it, and you don’t want to dig any deeper, even though you are capable of doing so, so there is nothing else I can do. I can’t force you do dig any deeper. It’s been real.
Ah. If it’s supposed to be amateurish, like your conduct, then MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. Go pat yourself on the back for all those sales you skillfully avoided.
Listen, don’t get the idea that I’m trying to have the last word here, but I can’t resist this one: I thoroughly enjoy my amateur status. I refuse to take a “if you can’t lick ’em join ’em” attitude vis-a-vis the likes of all these pathetic burnout cases that are sitting on top of the sales charts such as Grisham, Patterson, Steel, Nora Roberts and the like that haven’t written anything of quality in years and years. As an example, I read Grisham’s 2017 entry, The Rooster Bar, which turned out to be something even worse than a boring, predictable retread of The Rainmaker. To repeat, It was worse than boring and predictable. All the supposed heroes, the Rudy Baylors, in it were a bunch of sociopathic criminals in my mind. Good God, I hope this isn’t a new trend: bestselling novels with no sympathetic characters. I don’t want to become part of that f-ing club: The slick, bestselling mindless professionals. I’d much prefer to be considered an outsider, or an amateur if you wish, attempting to provide something new and challenging. To provide something with gamble. Loads of gamble. And I think Julie and Horace provides that. My second novel, Julie and Horace, Part II: The Johnny Mop Splashback, also has its fair share of gamble, even though it was kinda…sorta written for the mainstream market. I’ve also been told from various sources that the cover is considerably easier on the eyes.
Why is it–seriously–that every time an author is told that they have a solid non-starter, for a cover, the answer somehow includes a rant about how all the big-selling authors are sellouts, burnouts, no-talents who use and abuse writing interns and ghosts to churn out their bestsellers?
What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China? What on EARTH do James Patterson or Grisham or Dan Brown have to do with this discussion? Did any of them design that uniformly BAD cover you have on your book? No? Will you bravely turn down sales from their fans? No? So. what on earth do their careers have to do with yours? And why should any of us care? For that matter, why do you care? What they’re selling is what they’re selling and the bad news for you, sport, is that that’s obviously what millions are paying to read.
If telling yourself that you’re some brave outsider, some artiste, gets you through the night, great. But the harsh reality is, ain’t nobody gonna read your “challenging” material, with that godawful cover on it–and anybody who knows ANYTHING about the Dark web and pirate sites also knows that you have absolutely zero way to actually know, or guess, or remotely guesstimate, how many downloads your novel has had. That’s….utter fantasy. Those of us in the biz professionally know that the pirates slap up all sorts of numbers of downloads, as faux “social proof” to encourage people to click.
Lastly, $9.00? For an unknown novel, with “challenging” storylines and unlikable characters, from an author that doesn’t have a fan base? Honestly, between that and the godawful cover, are you TRYING to keep yourself in perpetual obscurity? Is this some form of oddball self-destruction?
I give up, now, officially, on this thread and page. It’s simply befuddling.
Seriously, what other response could I have to this but laughter?