Judging A Book By Its Cover Part 3 cont. And 5 More Covers
Question:
If your book is in print, is your back cover photo the same as the front or different? Or is it a panoramic photo, stretching from the front, across the spine, and around the back?
Note:
Today, Thursday (I always put together my blog posts the day before) at 5:30 p.m. pacific time, my blog has had the most page views (135 ) since I created my blog
And I want to thank all of you for that! And it’s still early
I haven’t received any covers for Saturday, so not sure if I will have a post for Saturday, but I will on Monday as we continue “Judging a Book By it’s Cover” Remember I would love to have all of you participate and share your blurbs. Once again I will post your front cover, or back if you prefer, a link to amazon or wherever you want, and your blurb, so that everyone can see what your book is about. Chris Ward asked me to let all of you know his book “The Tube Riders” is FREE October 5-7. Which I did in the last post, but I wanted to remind you in case you want to pick up a copy.
Oh and I forgot to tell you I did a guest post for Paul Dorset’s blog! If you get a chance check it out
http://blog.pauldorset.com/2012/10/emotions-before-during-and-after.html And follow Paul on twitter @jcx27
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Cops, Crooks, & Other Stories in 100 Words written by Mark S. Bacon
Good morning Karen, This is a book of mystery short stories so I wanted a cover picture that was, well, mysterious. I remembered a few foggy street shots that a photographer friend of mine had taken and planned to use one of those. Fitting the type around them proved a challenge and they were more horizontal than vertical.
As the deadline approached and the graphic designer was getting anxious, I went out in my own neighborhood one night with my Canon 50d and tripod and this was the result.
The title was easy. More than half the stories here involve bad guys (crooks) and good guys (cops) but there are other stories as well. And since this is flash fiction I thought it important to include information in the title that would explain that these were ultra-short stories. So, it’s a long title, but it gives the reader a true idea of what’s inside.
Designer Don Markofski chose Agency FB font with a drop shadow and I liked the effect.
http://www.amazon.com/Crooks-Other-Stories-Words-ebook/dp/B007Q1MKUY
Best,
Mark
Wishing you a great evening Mark.
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Hello, Karen,I hope you are still in need of covers to feature on your blog. If so, I have included mine as an attachment and its story below.Daniel Derasaugh
The cover of my novel, The Silk Code, was designed by Joel Iskowitz - http://www.creativeshake.com/professional_details.html?MyUrl=JoelIskowitzI came up with the title as a combination of The Silk Road and DNA code – both of which play prominent roles in the novel.Joel choose the colors and the element of the cover – a Neanderthal figure, silk worms and silk, and DNA – all of which are major themes of the novel.The cover is attached. I’d like it linked to its Amazon page http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0091W43JW/ref=nosim/?tag=dexter2a-20Thanks – Paul=Twice Upon a Rhyme=
“perfect soundtrack for a lethargic spring day” – Shindig=The Silk Code=
“delivers on its promises” – NY Times2nd edition in July 2012 =New New Media=
- Posted in: Book Covers ♦ Uncategorized
- Tagged: amazon, authors, books, covers, designers, judging covers, links, photos, readers, writers


Honored to see my cover here, Karen – thanks so much for including it!
You are very welcome Paul
I do hope you share your blurb with us next week.
Have a great weekend
Karen
Will do, Karen – thanks again for posting The Silk Code cover!
Hi Karen – Just popping by today – can’t help myself! I love to participate wherever book covers are discussed!
The first cover here – Wings of Steele – has a great design but it somehow looks a little squashed down – as if it needs a little vertical stretching. Maybe not the title but the image in the middle needs to be stretched down a bit.
The second cover – Cops & Crooks – has a really clear and nice title – though somehow I am not too fond of all-black covers…
The third one – Private island – is nice except the lady’s face is squashed in from the side – maybe it was designed to be like that but it looks odd, as if the book was too wide and the book store shrunk the cover and pushed it in and messed up the dimensions.
I like the Fox and The Fawn! I find the completely different size of that cover refreshing too.
The last cover – The Silk Code – is superb! It drew me in to read more on Amazon and the descriptions and reviews there further convinced me to buy this book!
Thank you for your interesting posts!
Melody Simmons
http://ebookindiecovers.com/
Good morning Melody
Thank you for commenting. So if you were to go into a book store and there were 20 books side by side, what would be the first thing to catch your eye? The color? The photo? The title? Since you like book covers, let us know, so that when we go to design our next covers we have a general idea. I actually like the black covers and was going to use that with “The Good Dr. Grant” but found it didn’t compliment the photo as well as the purple color I chose.
Thank you, Melody – enjoy the novel! (Reading your post was like listening to a great song
Hi Karen! Thank you for inviting me to a further discussion! You are asking me about “if you were to go into a book store…” Well, I assume you are talking about a virtual book store? Online ebook stores are where I mostly hang out, and the first important thing is that there is a big difference between online stores and physical ones, and the same goes for book covers!
If you simply take a printed book cover and place it online, the chances are great that the title will be almost invisible, and the image may be faded too!
There are more than 1 million ebooks up on Amazon. If you want your ebook to be noticed, the title has to be bold and visible, and you need a bold and visible image – or at least a part of it needs to be visible or colourful enough to draw a reader in. Many of the best ebook covers may look a bit overdone on text size if you zoom in – but they sure attract in the thumbnail size in the ebook stores.
Colour is very important too. Black is great but I think there have been too many plain all-black type covers off late in the book stores and I am a little weary of them. Though off course if you are portraying a dark theme some black needs to be there.
Genre is so important too. Your book needs to reflect the genre somehow…I had a look at your “The Good Dr. Grant,” Karen, and no offence – but I would have missed that one in the stores as it doesn’t look like a Romance cover. The title also disappears in the image.
I love all types of Romance novels, also Fantasy, Paranormal and SciFi, so naturally I am drawn to those types of covers. If maybe an attractive man had been added in with the gorgeous dog – now I think that would have attracted my attention! Art is always a subjective thing and each artist has a particular type of style really…so there may be others who completely disagree with me. I love people and faces on covers, it looks personal and warm, especially on romance covers…but I know some artists and authors who prefer a more abstract, conceptualised, symbolic sort of approach. I can design both ways, though…
One thing I have also contemplated is the difference in taste between men and women. Do men and women tend to click on the same type of covers? I guess they generally don’t even read the same type of genre…perhaps men are more into SciFi and Mystery/Suspense plus more abstract covers too? Or do you think they like pretty girls on covers?
This is getting a bit lengthy so I will say cheers for now. I am looking forward to more of your posts.
Melody
http://ebookindiecovers.com/
Hi again Melody. Wow this is great feedback! No offense taken, that’s the goal of this post. To get readers to let us know what they look for in a cover. Since you are a cover designer and reader you have a more critical eye for the details, As for men, I don’t know. I’d love to have them comment and let us know what they think about covers. But I’m thinking a pretty girl would grab their attention. Which is a great point! If I were to have had a sexy girl on the cover of The Good Dr. Grant, would it have targeted a different audience? I guess with my son’s gorgeous dog on the cover, I was targeting the sweet romantics who love dogs. But I do have to say, when I chose Sandi as my cover, I was worried about the people who don’t like pitbulls. I myself said to my son when he sent me her first picture to my phone, “Please tell me that isn’t a pitbull.” But I can honestly say she is sweeter than my chihuahua!
Reblogged this on shereallysaidit.
Hi Kimmie
Are you going to share your blurb next week? And thank you for reblogging again. Hugs for a great weekend!
Thanks for posting my cover! Appreciate it! And just a little fyi to your question, my print cover is a panoramic wrap across the spine and back.
Jeff Burger
Wings of Steele – Destination Unknown
You are welcome and thank you. I thought about that question when I was dusting my shelves where my Stephen King books are