Judging a Book By Its Cover

With the advent of eBooks and ereaders like Kindle, Nook, and iPad, the aspiring writer has an opportunity to be on par with the Big 6 publishing houses. The one thing that they had in the past that authors did not was distribution. Now, you can get that rather easily with free accounts with Amazon, Barne & Nobles, and a slew of others.

The convenience of being able to produce your own book and keep all the profits for yourself is liberating, to say the least. The savvy indie publisher/author will know when to do things themselves and when to call in a professional.

One of the instances that I am adamant about calling in a pro on is in the area of book covers. In this industry, people judge a book by its cover and rightly so. It can make or break a book as I've mentioned before. I scrutinize covers constantly and will be the first to tell you that if I dislike the book cover, as in it looks cheap and unprofessional, I will not buy the book. Hands down. No discussion. It is a reflection of how serious the author is taking their craft and when they can't take it seriously enough to present a polished product, I'll pass.


In Christian fiction, I find this to be the number one problem. In perusing the Christian sci-fi Top 100 at Amazon, it took me to about the 40s before I found a cover by an indie author that looked professional. It was called The Didymus Contingency by Jeremy Robinson. The cover is good and it actually prompted me to check out a couple of his other titles.

Even if the book is free, if the cover looks amateurish, I won't bother looking further at an unknown author. There has to be a perception of value that I'm getting from the beginning. Apparently, I'm not the only one that thinks this way. Over half the readers will agree with me when they shop for a book. Of course, this is fiction only, not non-fiction which is a different story.

Since the cover is so important, it would behoove you to make sure yours looks the best that it can. I suggest saving up the money, budgeting between $400 and $600 dollars. You can get a very nice looking cover for that price.

Below is a short list of book cover designers/artists that I recommend (remember, this is for fiction only):

• Carl Graves - Extended Imagery
• Christopher Steininger
• Book Cover Express
• Author Support
• Howard David Johnson

The book cover above is a part of Carl Grave's portfolio. Guy is good if you're going for the thriller novel look. Christopher Steininger is just a good artist. The two companies listed make pretty good covers and Howard David Johnson does some top notch work for romance and fantasy.

The long and the short of it is that you don't want to cut corners here for the sake of a lack of funds. Everything that we do we should do for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). This is an area where you need to bite the bullet and get someone to do it for you. It's the first step in getting folks to take notice of your book. And that's the point, right?

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Posted in: book covers,fiction,self-publish

Search for a Book Cover Designer - Part I

I recently finished the first draft of my book, Stop Bringing Them to Church. I was elated over the fact that I actually finished it. Grant it, we still have a long way to go but a milestone has been reached with its completion.

Now that I'm in the editing phase, I'm in the market for a book cover designer. One of the things that I tend to see more of in the self-publishing arena is a plethora of bad book covers which is a no, no. Anyone that reads books knows that the cover can make or break a book. Granted, a good cover won't make bad writing good, but it will draw people in to take a closer look at your book. A bad cover will guarantee you won't get the time of day from a prospective reader.

Since my offering is non-fiction, it may have saved me a bit of money to do it myself. But because of its importance, I'd rather pay to have it done because the learning curve for me would just take away too much time from my writing and other endeavors.

Some of the bids and samples I've gotten so far have been...uh...blah. This is from people that do it exclusively. I don't care about years of experience. I care about what the final product is going to look like. If the final product looks like "Ugh!" then it means nothing if you've been doing it for 20 years. You're a 20 year designer that puts out "Ugh!"

All is not lost. I do have at least one promising candidate who actually did a mock up from the details I provided in the listing (it's the graphic up top). This isn't the final one but he's definitely in the ball park. But the bidding is still going on.

As I get these in, I'll be posting them asking for my potential readers' input. We'll start with the one in this post. What do you think? Be happy to get your input.

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Posted in: book covers,self-publishing

The Importance of Book Covers

I want to start this post off with a small reality check: I'm pretty much a nobody.

When I say that, it's in reference to my being an author. Yes, I've been published in national magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and the like. But I don't have any books published and this first offering, Stop Bringing Them to Church is probably going to ruffle some feathers for the people that read it. In the very least it's going to challenge them to take a closer look at the Bible and what it actually says. However, that is currently en route to publication.

I had to think about the reason why I was writing this blog and what I wanted to accomplish with it. I like helping people (the reason why I'm writing my book) but like I said, I'm a nobody so why would people listen to me in the area of book publishing? Well, they really don't have to. However, I've decided that's not going to deter me from trying to help others as I research and educate myself in this Wild West of publishing.I view it as a journey of what I'm learning in the process of writing a book from start to finish, giving real time experiences during the process. Of course, I'll be plowing my wares here for those who are interested in what I'm writing. As a matter of fact, I'll talk a little about the aforementioned book in an upcoming post.

Much of what you'll find here is self-explanatory and should be common sense (the operative word being "should"). I'll be referencing many good blogs and sites that provide sage information and tips from seasoned vets and as well as others in the industry.

That being said, today I want to turn our attention to the importance of book covers, especially in self-publishing.

How important is the book cover for the book you want to write? Very important. Extremely important. In short, it can potentially make or break the success of a book.

In the world of book publishing, the cover is what will draw people to a book. It's a representation of how seriously an author takes their work at a glance. It's the author showing up for an interview to the reader. Did they come dressed professionally and appropriately for the job or did they slap on a pair of oily jeans and a T-shirt? The book cover conveys this and it happens quickly. Though it's not hard and fast data, I tend to agree that reader's spend an average of about 5 to 8 seconds looking at the front cover of a book...if it's good. That's seconds folks. If it's a bad cover, try 1 to 3 seconds and they don't even consider buying. Ouch.

Patrick Janson Smith, literary agent and a former publishing director at Transworld, was quoted saying:

I can't think of a jacket that has transformed the fortunes of a book, but I have seen books absolutely die on the back of a jacket.

This seems to mirror the results of a Random House Zogby International poll completed in 2008. One promising stat is that 77% are buying their books online and 43% of those people buy it there most often. This is really good news for the self-publisher because it allows them to compete head to head with other authors they would never have gotten a chance to in a retail chain who only has limited shelf space.

But the kicker was that over 52% surveyed admitted that they are influenced in their buying by the cover art.

Bam.

Now, what supersedes this is the subject matter they are looking for. No one is going to buy a book simply on cover art. However, it will influence their buying decision once they find the particular subject matter they are looking for.

Apparently, not even endorsements by Oprah is enough to overcome bad cover art .

Take a look at Robert Gregory Browne's cover on the left (no, I'm not endorsing the book. Just using his book cover as an example). This is a good cover for a thriller writer. The thing about it is that he's set himself up as being recognizable with three covers which are similar creating a brand for his series.

But the front cover is not all you have to be concerned with. The back cover is important as well. Readers spend more time looking at the back cover once the front cover has caught their attention. It can be anywhere from 10 to 15 seconds. However, before they'll do that, they have to be drawn in by the front cover.

This topic is so intriguing to me and so important that I'm going to break it up into separate parts. Today was simply a primer and a wake up call to the importance of book covers to the success of a book. It shouldn't be taken lightly and a good amount of deliberation should go into it because of the impact it can have on the success of a book.

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Posted in: book covers,self-publishing