I have struggled with cover art for this story ever since I published it. We all know cover art is a major element for a book, and a huge factor in book sales. Does a book's art and design draw in readers? Does it convey the genre, pique your interest, and make a professional presentation? It should, or it isn't doing its job or helping you reach your goals.
**Notice the survey at the top right of this post...**
I thought I had the problem solved with Julius Camenzind's cool action scene image. But... I have two issues with it. One, I'm not real thrilled with the figure in the foreground (presumingly Thorne himself); and two, when printed out in paperback form, the image proved to be too detailed and just too busy to make a nice, clean cover. So as much as I like this image, I still feel this is an incomplete mission. The cover still isn't where I want it to be.
So the other night, I spent too many hours on a new one. I wanted to experiment with Kindle's own in-built cover designer, and so after shopping around for an image I wanted and altering it to fit my tastes, I plugged it into Kindle's device to see what it could do. And mostly, I like the application. The biggest drawback on the KDP Cover Creator is that I can only use it on Kindle. I can't download the image for use on other sites, at least not that I can see. And that makes perfect sense, especially for Amazon, who encourages us to only sell with them in the first place.
The image itself... Well, it's far simpler, which seems to be the way to go. And it's kinda cool and gives more of a military thriller feel to the book, but is it better? Does it answer "yes" to those questions I asked above? Are potential readers more likely to react to it?
Please take a second to share your opinion with me. Visit the survey question, Which "The Thorne Legacy" Cover Is Better? and simply click on an answer.
Your feedback is appreciated!
(In fact, if you want to say more than the survey allows, just leave a comment!)
Thank you.
On a mobile device so answering here. I like the silhouetted soldier as I would be more apt to read the back and see what its about while the other kinda seemed aimed at teenagers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, Spectre. I never saw it that way, but I can definitely see that. Hmm...
DeleteHi J.D. - I like the action scene, because it has more of a science fiction theme. I also like that it invokes a feeling of the more classic sci-fi novels. However, if you're going for more of a thriller feel, or want something that's going to show up better as a thumbnail or on a phone app, then you might want to chose the blue cover. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback, Sonya. But stand-by, I'm about to post my even newer and greatly improved "Legacy" cover, hopefully combing the best of both worlds that you mentioned above!
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