A Cover Should Tell a Story

by guest blogger Charles Prandy

Fair or not, many people judge a book by its cover. That’s just the way it is. The cover is the visual artistic element of the book, and it should in some way give a visual reference to what the book is about. How do we as readers know if a book is worth reading, outside of reviews?

Hopefully, the book’s description is enticing enough to get us interested. But before we even get that far, the book’s cover has to grab our attention. The cover is the gateway to a potential reader and it should tell its own story. Since I’m a writer, I like to pick people’s brains about what they do and don’t like about books they read. Often I’ll ask how they choose a book out of the millions that are currently for sale. Most often people tend to read authors they’re familiar with.

The people who randomly choose books say the first thing that piques their interest is the cover. While writing this post I went on Amazon.com and typed in crime thrillers and over a hundred thousand hits came up. As a book reader, there’s no way I’m going to surf through that many books to find one to read. I’ll likely tighten my search by looking for “best sellers” or “top 100” or some other search term that’ll narrow the search.

Outside of reading a James Patterson or Harlan Coben or John Grisham, there’s literally thousands of other books that I’d have to sift through to find one that’s interesting. So, like you, the first thing I’ll notice is the cover. And sadly, if the cover is drab and unappealing I’ll likely move on until I find one that catches my eye. Hence, I could have negatively judged what possibly could be a great book because the cover didn’t grab me.

Here are two examples. My second novel in my Detective Jacob Hayden series is titled, Behind the Closed Door. In the first version, I chose a cover that I thought was enticing. While the book sold a lot of copies, the cover didn’t tell a great story. At first glance the cover looks like it should belong to a horror novel, not a detective series.

I reached out to an amazing cover artist, Ronnell Porter, and he took a look and said, “It’s missing something that grabs and demands your attention.” After I explained what the book was about, he took my vision and created a cover that does a better job explaining the book. Not only is the cover bold and eye catching, it tells its own story.

A novel could be the perfect crime thriller full of page-turning suspense, mystery and action. The characters could be well developed and the plot could move at a brisk pace. But if the cover doesn’t entice the reader into diving into the story, chances are, that in the potential reader’s mind, the book wasn’t good enough because the cover wasn’t appealing.

L.J. adds: For his second cover, he used a similar visual element, which adds a branding factor and makes the book easily identifiable as part of a series.

What do you say readers? What do you look for in a cover?


Charles Prandy graduated from the University of Maryland University College with a degree in legal studies. He attended Wesley Theological Seminary for two years, and it was there he got the idea to write his first novel, The Last of the Descendants, which was published in May of 2008. Charles enjoys writing crime thrillers and does extensive research on his topics.

The Trigger: Cover and Title... Finally!

by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

As only a writer could do, I spent the week obsessing about the word the. I’ve had a title for my new thriller for months—The Trigger. But I started considering those powerful one-word thriller titles: Stolen, Missing, Inferno, Bombshell, Shiver, Dust (seriously, a new Patricia Cornwall), and I thought maybe I should title it just Trigger.

We developed a cover, and the single-word title looked great. I asked people in my house what they thought, and everyone said, “Yeah, I like Trigger better.” But it bothered me. Whenever I would talk about the story, I would stumble over the title. It started to sound funny.

Then my editor questioned the new title and said it made her think of a name, like the horse. So I knew it wasn’t right. Especially for people who might only see the title in text  (sans cover) and be confused by it.

So I’m back to The Trigger, which works well with the story, which goes like this:

Agent Jamie Dallas loves undercover assignments that get her out of the Phoenix Bureau. But when a woman and her baby disappear from an isolated community of preppers in Northern California, she knows the risk of infiltrating the armed group is dangerously high.

Once inside the compound, she discovers that the brothers who founded Destiny are scheming something far more devious than kidnapping or murder. Meanwhile, her local FBI contact, Agent McCullen, is pulled from her team and assigned to investigate the murder of a woman with phony ID, found at the bottom of a motel pool.

Soon Dallas finds herself in deeper trouble than she's ever encountered—with no way to reach her contacts. Can she break free of the bunker and stop their bizarre end-of-world plans? Will Agent McCullen identify the killer in time to help?

The Trigger is a gripping story that highlights our greatest fear—how a hacker and a fanatic with grandiose ideas can threaten civilization as we know it.

The book is scheduled for release January 1, and I have a great contest planned with a huge prize—a trip to Left Coast Crime. More details can be found on my website.

If you’re interested in an early copy of The Trigger (ebook and some print) and are willing to be on my street team to help launch it, please email me. ARCs will be ready in about a month.

So what do you think of the title? The cover? Story concept?

Lousy Book Covers ReBlogged

By:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced over 2,000 ebooks for over 750 authors and imprints.

I genuinely do know that I'm a dreadful nag.  In my first post here at CFC, I posted the second part of my discussion on book covers (Cover Design Calypso, Part II), which appeared here in November of 2011, and then reposted the first portion, which originally appeared on my own website, Cover Design Calypso, Part I, here on CFC during the Christmas holiday, I did indeed nag our gentle readers about the import of good cover art.  In thinking about it (and in my happy treks around the Internet), I discovered a source that has become a daily stop for me, before I open my emails--it's called "Lousy Book Covers" (on tumblr) and it's the CakeWrecks of book covers.  If you haven't discovered CakeWrecks, ("Where Professional Cakes Go Horribly, Hilariously Wrong") you don't know how to live, but suffice it to say:  LousyBookCovers is worth a daily visit. 

And it occurred to me, in my enjoyment of LBC, that I'd learned an old but valuable lesson:  a picture is worth a thousand words.  And thus, this week's nag is an urge for you to visit LousyBookCovers, and think to yourself:  Would I ever pick up this book and flip through the pages?

Since Blogger won't allow you to reblog from Tumblr, and my understanding of the associated rights isn't quite thorough (Mr. Shumate pulls the images through his Amazon associates link, and I don't know how he manages to obtain only the cover images, sans Amazon text--I think it's a Tumblr thing, which is, after all, an images weblog site), here are some links to his Tumblr blog that I know reinforced my theories on "what NOT TO DO" when creating a cover:

Erotic Refugees:  (captioned, "We don't want your kind here!")

Talon of the Raptor Clan (captioned:  "I don't want to startle you, but you have an eagle where your hair should be."

Goat Suckin' --- Hotter Than It Sounds (captioned:  "It would have to be, wouldn't it?")

Elfthade (captioned:  "Words fail me.")

And,

If You Miss the Train Im [sic] On (captioned:  "On the plus side, the unreadable font almost hides the fact that the apostrophe is missing")

Now, trust me when I tell you:  there are plenty more.  These aren't even the worst; they're just five examples of why you not only need Beta readers for your book (not to mention editors and critique groups!!), but for your cover design as well.  Remember two things:  if you enjoy LBC from now on, you have me to thank.  (Okay, really, you have Nate Shumate to thank, the evil genius behind LousyBookCovers, but, hey, I am the one who toldja!).  Secondly:  when you look at your cover, close your eyes and just imagine:  "can my cover end up on Lousy Book Covers?"  If the answer is yes, or maybe:  get working on that redesign!  (if you're on a budget, don't forget our Super-Secret Budget Saving Tip from Cover Calypso 2:  Check out Goonwrite.com, for high-quality pre-made covers.) 

If you have a good amount of memory on your computer, click through and view Nate's "ARCHIVE," which will leave you gasping for air, because you'll either be crying or laughing so hard, you won't be able to breathe.  If these don't make you laugh, you're clearly a cyborg designed by Cyberdyne systems, and they left out your humor module. 

You've been warned!  The posts are all in good fun--but an object lesson is to be had, as well. 

Next time:  actually, I have absolutely no idea. 

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Judging a Book by the Cover

Tom Schreck

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was at the Baltimore Bouchercon sitting having beers with my buddy and mystery writer extraordinaire, Henry Perez.

"I read 'On The Ropes' and damn, Schreck, you can write," Henry said.

"Wow, thanks, Henry," I said.

"Yeah that was some dark shit."

"Dark? People usually tell me it's funny," I said. I hadn't heard "dark" before.

"A coerced mother-daughter internet sex ring isn't dark?" Henry said and took a sip off his Sam Adams.

I guess he had a point. Then he said something shocking.

"You gotta lose the dog on the cover, though. That's going to kill you."

"What? I love the hound." I thought everyone did.

"Yeah, he's great, Schreck, but you put a dog on the cover and everyone thinks you're a cozy writer. Let me tell you, you ain't a cozy writer." Henry took a self-congratulatory pull off his draft.

Fast forward six years and Thomas & Mercer releases the fourth in my series, "The Vegas Knockout." My editor told me when he signed me that we were losing the hound. I was bummed.

For a little while.

The book was released at the end of April.  On July 1 it was the number one rated hard-boiled mystery on Amazon.

The cover is a close up of a fighter getting punched in the face and spitting out his mouth guard.

Well, I got my rights back to my back list and in a joint effort with my literary agency, Irene Goodman, we're re-releasing the books with new gritty covers. In the first week "On the Ropes" with no advertising or buildup made it to the top 50 of the mystery sports genre six years after its original
release.

What do you think about covers? Which of my covers do you prefer and why? Even if you like the doggy one which one would you be more apt to buy?

Cover Design Calypso--Part I

By:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced books for over 750 authors and imprints.

T'was the Night Before Christmas....this week, co-blogger Marlyn Beebe is taking my usual Tuesday spot, as she wants to say something more "Christmas-y," and me, being the Scrooge that I am, (pre-ghosts), intend to rerun a post from my own website (www.Booknook.biz), dealing with cover design.  I'll be back in two weeks on my regular Tuesday!  In the meantime, here is the original Cover Design Calypso, from April of 2011.  I've added some new bits at the end--and have a link to a little-known gem for those of you on a budget with regard to your cover design. 

Everything I ever needed to know about Book Cover Design, I learned in the frozen food aisle of the supermarket...

What makes a great book cover?

Is it color? Is it blurbs from famous authors? Is it just luck? I wish I knew.
Like pornography, I know a great book cover design when I see it, but I can't tell you why it is fantastic, particularly, other than WOW! What a great book cover . It's something that grabs me when I see it. Sadly, it's not like a Chinese menu...one from column A, one from column B, when it comes to cover design.

I do know, though, that I have learned a shocking lesson in this business. Being an avid reader, I of course always assumed that it was what was inside the covers that sold books. But I've learnt otherwise; great covers do sell books, even those with less-than-stellar stories inside of them. And in thinking about it, I realized that I already knew why these books were selling; it's something I learned years ago, when I was ill and had to cruise the aisles of the dreaded "TV Dinner" section of the supermarket. And here's the horrible truth:

People buy frozen dinners based not upon the actual content of the bag or box or TV-Dinner-Tray, but, rather, based upon which company has put the best picture on the cover of the box.

Let me say that again, in case you missed it: When you go to the supermarket frozen-food aisle, and get ready to try something you haven't had before, you will almost always buy the brand with the best-looking image of the food. The brand with the prettiest picture, in other words.

We humans are visual creatures. We're sight-hounds on two legs. This works on television; it works in movies; it works in advertising...and it works for book covers. So keep this in mind when you are preparing your next cover--think of crows, and bright, pretty things.

That was the end of the original post.  In the 20 months since I wrote it, there have been a ton of books through Booknook.biz, and that fact is truer now than ever before--if you have very little money to spend, if you must, forgo the formatting (DIY) and pay for a great cover designer.  I've also learned this lesson:  a great cover is not a busy cover.  There are, in fact, no "great" busy covers.  As I said in my sequel to this post--the first post I ever made here at Crime Fiction Collective, authors frequently err on the side of attempting to tell the entire story on the cover, and end up with a muddled mess. 

Your book cover is not an IMAX screen.  Your saga should not roll across the cover as if it is.  The best and most glorious covers have one single, strong graphic element. Your color selections should be powerful and vivid.  The cover doesn't even necessarily have to do anything with your actual story--it simply needs to evoke a strong emotion, and a desire to OPEN IT and see what's inside. 

But I'm on a Budget!

Many authors are scraping by, and can't afford the $150-$200 (average price) for a custom-designed cover.  What to do?  One of the little-known trade secrets are "pre-made covers."  Yes, I said "pre-made."  Unlike used cars, someone else didn't use this before you; what  a pre-made cover represents is a cover designer that was bored, and made some up on a weekend!  His boredom is your gain--you can buy the cover, have the text changed to match your title, and your author name, and VOILA!  For as little as $30, you have a professionally-designed cover that does not look like the dog's breakfast.  Now, of course, you need to peruse these pre-made covers carefully; some places that offer them are, well, let's say you'd do better with a crayon.  But one such place does exist, that I've Pinned on Pinterest and even Tweeted about, and that's Go On Write, at http://www.goonwrite.com.  If you're pinching those pennies--and every publisher should--cruise on over there and check 'em out!  Save some shekels!

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And to all the kind people who drop by and read me, from time to time....Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!--Hitch

Under The Covers

by C.J. West

When I first started publishing books I thought it was really cool that I had complete control over what I wrote and what cover I put on my books. Little did I realize that readers have become accustomed to some very specific things and they expect them when they are looking for a good book. 

I talked a little about Amazon pages and how the formatting really matters. Well, in the last few weeks I’ve been retooling the covers for my Randy Black series and I’m ready to unveil the results. 

Book One: Sin And Vengeance

The old cover has a cartoonish feel to me that suggests there will be fire and maybe some action and suspense, but it gives me the feeling that it’s done in an amateurish way. When I looked at other suspense novels one of the first things that struck me was that the large majority have clear, realistic photographs on their covers.

The New cover is a little sexier in my view and fits reader expectations for a suspense novel.

For years I felt like a great book was hiding underneath a cover that wasn’t getting attention. The book itself was optioned for film and came very close to the big screen about a year and a half ago, but the deal fell apart due to lack of funding. 

Book Two: A Demon Awaits

The old cover was a marvel of graphics work by my cover artist. She took a real flame and morphed it into a demon. The guy on the cover is me, photographed by my oldest daughter. It was fun to tell people that was me on the cover. I liked this cover, but even though it was created using two photographs it still had a surreal feeling to me that didn't fit a suspense novel.

The new cover is sexier, consistent with the series and still shows the main idea of the book, a man seeking redemption, even as a thumbnail. This picture to me speaks of a man facing his maker in a more concrete way than the fire demon did.

Book Three: Gretchen Greene

The old cover is a scene I really like. The oil refinery sets up the reader for the climax and this is the only cover I was sad to see go. The coloring here is softer than I would like and it doesn't set up as suspenseful for me. It doesn't convey a sense of mystery or danger.

The new cover matches the series well and also shows a scene right out of the book where Randy walks out of a swamp toward a vehicle in dark. This cover says spooky much better than the old one and it is clear that this is a suspense novel.

Only time will tell if these covers help the books sell better and given how little we ever know about marketing, I may never truly know what impact they have. But I feel good about the change and I’m excited for the future of these books.

What do you think about the change and the importance of covers?

Tweaking Titles and Covers to Improve Sales

by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

In December, I did Amazon-sponsored giveaways of The Suicide Effect and The Sex Club, and between the two, I gave away more than 55,000 ebooks, and they both have sold really well since.

So I thought I’d repeat the effort with The Arranger, a book with nearly all 5-star reviews that had never gained any traction. After two days, I only had about 2500 downloads. I couldn’t even give the book away!

Not everyone likes futuristic thrillers, but The Hunger Games is huge bestseller, so there is an audience for the genre. I decided that the problem was the name. The Arranger just didn’t have enough intrigue or power. It was one of two choices at the time, and my husband really liked it, and I let him talk me into using it—against my better judgment.

So I changed the title to The Gauntlet Assassin and did a two-day giveaway...with a terrific download response. The ebook has been selling steadily since at five times the rate of its previous sales. Yeah! But I think it has even more potential, so I’m having a new cover created, and I’m contracting with a new designer, one that specializes in thrillers. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with and how it affects sales.

I’ve also recently changed the cover of Secrets to Die For—for the third time!—and changed the font on all my Jackson books. They all instantly jumped up in the rankings on Amazon’s police procedural list.

This is one of the best things about digital publishing—the ability to quickly and inexpensively make changes. Sometimes I worry that it’s disturbing to readers but I hope they understand. I’m running a small business, and I have to ensure that my products are selling as well as they can.

Readers: What do you think?
Writers: Have you made cover or title changes and did it work for you?

Cover Design Calypso, Part II

by:  Kimberly Hitchens is the founder and owner of Booknook.biz, an ebook production company that has produced books for over 500 authors and imprints. 

Some months back—heavens, in April—I wrote a post on my own website (www.booknook.biz) entitled “Cover Design Calypso,” in which I discussed “what makes a great book cover?” 

At the time, I likened it both to pornography (“I can’t define a great cover but I know it when I see it”) and to frozen dinners (“People buy frozen dinners based not upon the actual content of the bag or box or TV-Dinner-Tray, but, rather, based upon which company has put the best picture on the cover of the box.”)  In other words, as painful as it is to those of us who believe that the words rule the book and its world, the truth is that covers, absolutely, irrefutably and indisputably, sell books--particularly eBooks. 

So, having accepted that shocking truth, how do we mine for great cover design? 

It’s been my experience that authors, in general, envision their book covers as if they are watching a movie in an IMAX™ theater…a grand rolling epic, sprawled across a massive screen, with THX sound, telling the awesomeness contained within.  Or, even when considering space, thinking of it on an 8½x11” sheet of paper.  But the reality is that 99% of the viewing (and buying!) public will only see your book cover the same size that it is displayed on Amazon.com, (or Barnes & Noble) which is a whopping 88x135px (1.2 inches by 1.88 inches), or on the book page itself, a whopping 160x240px (1.75 inches by 2.5 inches).  That’s not a lot of real estate in which to grab someone’s attention and hold it. 

So, what to do?  Remember THIS:  one, single, strong central element.  Don’t make a cover too busy, and don’t try to tell your entire story on its tiny little face—that’s what the book is for, to tell the tale.  When you find yourself thinking, “I want a vampire and a heroine with a bloody neck and a knife and the magic cup and an amulet and a wolfpack in the background and…” JUST SAY NO.   A cover is supposed to catch the eye; to pique curiosity; to impart a feeling.  It needs to reach out to people and make them want to pick up that book (literally or metaphysically) and read it.  If you need to remind yourself what BAD cover design is, roll on over to Fixabook and check out both good and bad covers.  If that doesn’t convince you, simply tootle around Amazon.com, and find one—just ONE—busy cover that you love.  Can’t do it?  Remember that when your next cover comes around. 

Seth Godin, chatting it up at The Domino Project, has issuedbooks that have no title text whatsoever on the covers—neither title nor author name, although the spines have both—and argues that there are compelling reasons not to have either.  Of course, not everyone has the clout—or the hubris—to simply put their last name on the spine as a tell-all/signature/branding.  I don’t love his cover, myself; but Godin’s a guru, and what he says does carry weight.  Will your next book have text on its cover?

Lastly, on the topic of covers, just for fun:  this is a hoot.  I laughed my patooties off.    That's it for today, gang!