Comments on: It’s All About the Book Jacket, Stupido! From No-Seller to Best-Seller

By: Felicia

Felicia — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 22:49:41 +0000

Many of the self-published authors at Lulu have already gone through so much writing, formatting, proofreading, and marketing their books that they forget how critical an enticing cover is to make that whole process worthwhile. It’s hard to wear all hats and that’s what self-publishers often have to do. Hiring a good cover designer in my opinion should be just as an important part of your budget as purchasing a Library of Congress listing and ISBN number.

Felicia

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): I’m with you 110%, Felicia.

By: LiNCOLN PARK

LiNCOLN PARK — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:18:40 +0000

Here is the cover of my latest book, HANDLE TIME: Under the criteria you present, I hope this cover does the trick.
The photo depicts the subject matter
The title is to-the-point and catchy
the PARENTAL ADVISORY warning is present, but not glaring
The border is graduated; and matches the model’s eye color
the title gradient matches the color of the model’s sweater
The typefont indicates that the novel is a fiction book
The yellow in the title pops the cover right off the shelves

Image truly counts — whether we like it, or not. Hmph. LOL

By: John R.

John R. — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:28:37 +0000

For some reason my jacket cover wasn’t considered “appropriate” for trade distribution, so I was told. Major derailment. Smoking ruin. I cannot properly recount my marketing misfires without sad music playing in the background. I have Book 2 entering production in a couple of months and I must stop visualizing a train approaching with this first wreck still uncleared. Pile-in!

Well, as they say “there’s no crying in publishing.” Okay, they don’t say that and there’s a reason dammit. It’s a hell of a ride anyway, ain’t it?

By: anne holland

anne holland — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:17:50 +0000

A thumbnail with white knock out text on a red background. Are you nuts? Are are you just trying really hard to make sure that not one word of that copy is readable? Readable thumbnails are about science — there’ve been lab tests of what print gets read and what does not, including point size, color, font, etc. This is stuff that anyone doing thumbnails (or Web marketing of any kind) should know by heart. I would boot that cover back to the art department for a reality check.

By the way - a rule I made in my own publishing company for years — thumbnails DO NOT have to be pure and simple squished down versions of the actual cover. They do need to resemble the cover and maintain brand colors/loyalty. But thumbnail art is made for looking at as a thumbnail. It should look like a book, but be readable as a thumbnail. That can change typeface, line breaks, type placement, amount of type, etc.

It’s worked for me like crazy - millions of dollars sold online crazy.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): I agree with you, Anne, that a thumbnail should be a readable variation of the actual book jacket. If you go to my Web site for The Cure for Jet Lag, you will see that the cover of my book is not thumbnail size at all. Your advice is spot-on for most Web sites with jacket thumbnails, though not so much for Barnes & Noble and Amazon because if you click on those thumbnails, they enlarge.

By: Jim Aach

Jim Aach — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:49:08 +0000

Thanks! Keep the good ideas coming, WW fans!

By: Kris Warrenburg

Kris Warrenburg — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:36:38 +0000

I’m sorry, but the RAD Decision cover leaves me cold. It looks like it will be a rather dry history of nuclear power. I think it’s a combination of the title needing to be jazzed up — as WWofP says: a thriller comment and perhaps a color change.

What about using yellow/orange background to shout: CAUTION! READING THIS BOOK COULD BE DANGEROUS AND EXCITIING! Perhaps adding some diagonal black lines above and below the title?

And Witch in the Art Dept is right, the G should have been kerned.

My bad!

By: Witch in the art dept.

Witch in the art dept. — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:08:20 +0000

Explain to me what is so beautiful about that Understanding Business Statistics cover. I must be missing something. It’s a title and author name, too small to read, that’s framing a great blue void. It’s not even a good blue for print, it looks pretty RGB to me. The image could be from istock or perhaps the designer made it herself, but honestly, if my daughter had come up with this for her grade-school project, I would have been greatly disappointed in her. It looks like someone opened Photoshop, managed to find the gradient tool and called it a cover.

Alpha Male is no better. Terrible font choices and no imagination at all. It also has no flow between elements, color or within the layout. Your eye doesn’t follow anything, it’s just a mishmash of glyphs and cheapo images.

The hard edge on the spine of Jet Lag is going to cause nothing but wrap problems and how much effort would it have been to kern that G? Seriously?

I realize you’ll have to delete this because of my anonymity, but I can’t really post with my real name because I work with these people. I just can’t always manage to keep quiet. /vent

By: Jim Aach

Jim Aach — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:24:36 +0000

FYI: The background of the Rad Decision back cover is black, with the text alternating between a muted orange-yellow and a muted yellow as each subject is presented. (Not able to scan at the moment.) The description and author note are roughly the same size as the author name on the front page, the endorsement is in a box in slightly smaller type, and the other quotes are a bit smaller yet. I took pains to make sure the type was clear and readable in passing with sufficient spacing to make each line stand out. The book is 348 pg.

RAD DECISION BACK COVER TEXT:

A tale of espionage and disaster within the real world of atomic energy.

James Aach has worked in the U.S. nuclear power industry for over twenty years.

“I’d like to see Rad Decision widely read.” - Stewart Brand, Founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, internet pioneer and noted futurist.

Unsolicited praise for Rad Decision from independent readers:

“….I couldn’t stop reading the thing, I was rude to company I had over and snuck a few chapters at work. It was a definite “thriller”….” K.

“I started readng Rad Decision because of my interest in nuclear power — then found I could not put it down!” G.L.

“I’m diggin’ it. What a cool way to learn about nukes.” - J. L.

“This book shows you can have an edge-of-your-seat read without rewriting the laws of physics.”

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:36:35 +0000

The yellow against the black on the cover is dramatic and the image pops, but unless the copy on the back of the jacket is dynamic, I would not buy this book based on the cover.

By: Katy Gurley

Katy Gurley — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:13:31 +0000

There is a world of difference between your cover, the Alpha Male cover and Understanding Business Statistics. The blue cover with no explanation about the book’s contents will be a hard sell, especially with that esoteric title. Great blog, WW, and welcome back.

Note from the Wicked Witch of Publishing (TM): Katy is a former news editor at InfoWeek and currently a writer at The East Hampton Press.