Book Cover - The 3Rs- Rethink, Re-badge, Redo From Start

[sozme]

Many of you kindly (you have to be cruel to be kind) commented on my book cover last year and a re-think has been lurking for a while. @Theophania Elliott kindly gave me input on types of urban fantasy that were in the same ballpark as Demonyka and links to several cover websites and other advice on covers. Working from that, the new plan is to change a few details: the series name, the title and the whole cover. Other than that, no change...

The main contenders for the new look are now lined up for demolition. I shall be hiding at the back, waiting for comments.


[GALLERY=media, 2135]Option 1[/GALLERY][GALLERY=media, 2134]Option 2[/GALLERY][GALLERY=media, 2133]Option 3[/GALLERY][GALLERY=media, 2132]Option 4[/GALLERY][GALLERY=media, 2131]Option 5[/GALLERY]

I dont like any of these covers. The illustration looks amateur, and the font looks like a cheap generic one from MSPaint. I would hire a professional to design your cover, because right now it very much appears amateur.

Here is a service that seems to make self-published books look professional: Bestselling Book Cover Design and Ebook Cover Design and here is their portfolio. As you can see, these covers are professional and clean. If you saw these books in the store or even online, you wouldn't think they are self-published. I would never go for something worse than this. Even when you get illustrations that are decent, there are just certain things that still indicate that they're self-pubbed. The fonts in particular give it away a lot of the time, as do the attempts to recreate scenes from the books (which seems to always be a terrible idea, since no one knows what to think of them and they look very bad as thumbnail images on bookseller websites).


Here is a good article by that same company about cover design: 4 Book Cover Design Rules That Authors Have To Respect -

 

[apocalypsegal]

When looking at similar books, only look at the top 100 list. What books had before they were selling good now doesn't matter, it just takes up your time.

I don't know what your book is about, and in some ways it's not as important as selling the genre. You don't need an exact presentation of a scene or character from the book, but you must sell the genre. Remember, the cover is your first sales tool It isn't art, its an ad. Readers will be stopped by a good cover that tells them what sort of book they're looking at, and then it's the blurb's job to fully sell them (or at least get them looking at the sample).

I think you should take up the offer to play around with a few concepts, see if something pops up that you can use. If nothing else, it gives you a few more options to look at.

 

[GCJ]

I've experimented with covers for the two books I've self published, and here is what I found:

For a very niche and very short oil and gas book a simple picture of an oil rig with the title and author (psuedonym, actually) worked reasonably well. I think that it connected well with those who worked in the industry and those who aspired to do so.

For my first (to date) science fiction book, I initially created a cover bastardised from open source images of the dwarf planet the book centered around.

However, I ran two short A###on adverts, one with my original cover and one with a far more professional cover, and the difference in impression to click ratio was pretty apparent.

The lesson: people want the whole package.

A slick cover leads them to read the teaser. A good teaser leads them to think about the book. And a period of reflection leads to them taking the plunge.

I'm still just a bloke who writes stuff for fun and spends his meagre amazon earnings on adverts with a break even mentality, so dont take my advice too seriously.

I'll not post pictures of before and after for fear of breaking forum rules, but the difference was pretty awesome.

 

[Biskit]

Thanks all for you comments.

Apologies for the erratic responses Friday and break in transmission Saturday. Friday was a lot of darting in and out as newest lamb got his first expedition outside, which was a bit fraught as he still unsteady on his feet but seriously needs to learn the 'follow Mum' skill. Saturday was good weather for outdoor jobs (before it went wet and foul today) and provided the perfect combo of variable humidity and temperature that has our broadband connection bouncing up and down every few minutes.

Now it's cold, wet and I have internet. Mostly.

:: your work is more like Buffy[without the vampire slayer]. Though I haven't read any Mike Carey so for all I know he might have a bit of levity in his writing.
Yours could be dark, but it doesn't quite make it and then even though it has an element of mystery at first it hits a point where it becomes more of a global apocalyptic type story, although it is limited to a small community. The fact of an ongoing and possibly some insidious global reaching plot-which I'm still not sure was resolved at the end, makes me want to place this in some paranormal and twisted even--romance--category.

Then there is that middle ground space between dimensions and all. I rather thought my cover--covered it well.

Plus your demons tend to look so normal so much of the time--it's difficult to find a scary silhouette that works.

You would do well to take Gary up on that offer.

Thanks @tinkerdan - nice to hear from a reader and that you finished it Hope you enjoyed. Also thanks for spending time on the cover.
Mike Carey does definitely have levity in his writing in the Felix Castor series and that seems to be marketed on Amazon as both as the fantasy end of horror, as supernatural, as a thriller and as a mystery. In fact, I'm amazed it doesn't pop up under chick-lit and cookery as well. The Biskitetta has done a bit of research on this, so using Mike Carey as an example, welcome to the genre jumble:

Book 1 of the FELIX CASTOR series on amazon.co.uk falls under

#1194 in Books > Fiction > Horror > Fantasy
#1632 in Books > Fiction > Horror > Ghosts
#22652 in Books > Fiction > Fantasy

But book 5 of the same series gets tagged as

#1145 in Books > Fiction > Horror > Fantasy
#13634 in Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction
#21872 in Books > Fiction > Fantasy

Only a little bit off, but wait, travel over the Atlantic...


On Amazon.com book 5 is
: #860,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

#4635 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Horror > Occult
#4708 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Hard-Boiled
#4821 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Supernatural

So Amazon (or the publisher(s)) doesn't badge Mike Carey'S FELIX CASTOR as urban fantasy at all. Duh? It's fantasy. In a city. Present day.

On Goodreads, the users tag the Kindle edition of book 1 as follows:

Fantasy > Urban Fantasy 719 users
Fantasy 455 users
Horror 228 users
Mystery 194 users
Fiction 148 users
Fantasy > Paranormal 143 users
Fantasy > Supernatural 94 users
Paranormal > Ghosts 77 users

I'll stop there, but the Biskitetta has dug out all sorts of bewildering and inconsistent info on other authors you'd expect to be urban fantasy.

We initially marketed Demonyka (now 'Hell of a Deal' TBC) as contemporary fantasy as we thought the humour/dark one liners took it out of urban, but on the re-cover we'll be heading to some of the same categories as Mike Carey. Its all a bit ..... hhm. Given what a broad church (or pentagram) urban fantasy is, best option does seem to be finding particular books people like that have things in common with Hell of a Deal. And then remember to rebadge every 6-12 months, because that's what the rest of the world seems to do. (Or perhaps not. There's only so much of this I can take.)

Now, science fiction - futuristic building or space ship or picture of space and bob's your uncle.... fantasy - sword, shield, horse, battle flag, castle ...... But urban fantasy....

There is an interesting webpage where the development of an urban fantasy cover and a paranormal romance cover is discussed - here - and one of the things it says is how difficult urban fantasy covers are to define. Designing urban fantasy novel covers – Andrew Serong – Medium

Demonyka/Hell Of A Dell is definitely not paranormal romance. The Bisketetta is very clear about that. She reads paranormal romance (I don't) and she thinks Hell of a Deal isn't paranormal romance because it doesn't have that particular feel or style and there are expectations on that - or as you said its a bit twisted for paranormal romance. .

Also major disasters and threatened apocalyspses do turn up in all sorts of genre. Another comment from Bisketetta is that the reddish mist sort of portal idea is really more "fae portal" to her - and she'd expect the hero to be nipping back and forth through it, if it is featured on the cover in that way. Maybe I'll do fairies in the next one... NO. Kidding.

We do agree that the cover needs a more supernatural element on it - and are working on some ideas with demonic writing/occult symbols.

Don't think a scary sillhoutte is right, really. Anyway, it isn't just the demons that are nasty. You could almost say that most of the demons are quite nice compared to some of the human beings. So we were trying for a generally noir with a bit of urban grubbiness look to it and now adding supernatural. Then bake in a hot hell for two centuries until done.

@Biskit

Send me some examples of successful covers in the genre and I will see what I can do. All I ask in payment is to review some of Tickety Boo's books that you would normally read. I will send ebooks for free. This way everyone wins and I get to practice more.

You could also send me the synopsis as well or a scene from the book.

Here are some of my covers.

Thank you very much for the offer. As you can see, at present we are still trying to pinpoint what is needed. I'm not really a reviewer - I occasionally write a short paragraph on Goodreads, but the result reads back to me like those annoying sort of reviews that make you wonder if the reviewer was reading a different book, so I'm not sure I'd be giving value for money (or art). The Bisketta does review more - so we'll have to come back to you on that one as she is pretty heavily committed at the moment. Again, do appreciate the generosity,as you have some gorgeous covers.

 

[Gary Compton]

Here goes my effort with demon hunter and demon lurking in the shadows.