Welcome to the YA Indie Carnival, ya’ll!
This week’s topic is…
Cover Love
This week… well, I LOVE this week’s topic of covers and cover design. Besides reading and blogging, I love photography and if I’m not reading you can most likely find me with a camera in hand or layers deep in Photoshop. So, a very visual person, I tend to be one of those people who judge a book by it’s cover.
Yes, one of THOSE people.
But it makes sense, and not that this principle always holds true, do you know what a well done cover says to me? It says that the author cares about QUALITY. A gorgeous indie cover that rivals those done by the designers at the big houses, gives me hope that the book inside is as carefully and expertly crafted as the outside shell. Bottom line: beautiful cover = a perceived commitment to excellence. Bad cover = possible disinterest on the part of the reader and a wariness of the story inside. I’ve said it before, you could write the BEST story EVER written, but if you do not take care to package your baby to reflect that amazingness visually, people are going to pass right by your novel for something more visually appealing. So if you’re an indie or self-pubbed author, help your book to put it’s best foot forward, and make the investment in an excellent cover.
So what indie covers am I finding squeal-inducing these days?
#1: All’s Fair in Vanities War by Elizabeth Marx
[box] What do I love about this cover? I love the muted tones contrasted by the girl’s bright red hair. I love the ravens, the cracked mirror, the sense of decay and creepiness that’s conveyed through the imagery. I love covers that I can come back to after reading the book and that I can spy something in that I might have not have noticed or grasped the significance of before knowing the story. I have a feeling this cover is going to be one of those. Though the title text is a tad difficult to read, overall, this cover is absolutely fabulous and attention-grabbing.[/box]
#2: Exiled by RaShelle Workman
[box] What do I love about this cover? EVERYTHING. The drama, colors, the lens flares, the hair, her eyes, her expressions, the planets, the BUTTERFLIES. It’s girly, yet it’s sci-fi. Sci-fi for GIRLS? Unheard of… right? I must read it.[/box]
#3: Eden by Keary Taylor
[box] What do I love about this cover? It’s sci-fi, it’s Cyberpunk, it’s reminiscent of The Terminator. With the peeling skin revealing bits of machinery underneath and the hard, challenging stare, this cover has dark and disturbing overtones, but all the same it’s beautiful. Especially with that brilliant turquoise iris. I love it.[/box]
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I agree with you. Covers are so important. Trying to get the right cover is really hard. You are trying to encapsulate the essence of your story in a stunning image that will appeal to your audience. There is a lot to think about!
Thanks for a great post
Thanks for stopping by Melissa!
I totally agree! And it can be really hard to find something that’s just right… Thanks for stopping by Melissa!
Those are beautiful cover! I completely agree w/you.
same here
Aren’t they gorgeous? Just love them. Thanks for stopping by Andrea & Roro!
Those are gorgeous covers! Especially the first one with the girl and the broken mirror.
By the way, I have a guest post up with the Indie author I reviewed last month, Anthea Sharp. I’d love it if you checked it out!
http://watercolormoods.blogspot.com/2011/12/one-on-one-anthea-sharp-author-of.html
I know. That first cover is just really, really eye catching and I just want to keep looking at it. And I will most certainly check out your post
Thank you so much for including me! I am honored to be on this list!
Thank you for dropping in Keary! Just got Eden as a November RAK and I can’t wait to start it
I agree with your statement. I wish more indie authors would listen… Or that I wasn’t so much like you, someone who puts a great deal of stock on being attracted by the cover.
Why? Because, amazingly enough… the self-pubbed books I’ve read that I didn’t really want to read because the cover made me think they’d not be very well thought-out or written ended up blowing me away and left me hanging for a sequel.
And those I was looking forward because the cover was just so cool turned out to have… a lengthy list of issues, let’s leave it at that.
I think self-published authors suffer from this problem more acutely than small-press, indie publishing houses.
I don’t know the reasons, but I’m left with this feeling that some of them have to choose if they’re going to pay only for either editing OR cover art. Of course, there’s always exceptions but I thought I’d point it out, see what you think about it
That said, though, those covers you’ve there are beyond awesome. If I saw them, I’d not even go into this inner debate about indie authors and covers, because I’d be way beyond thinking, just grabbing them to read the blurb and see what they’re all about! And I think that’s exactly the trick for indie authors to success, but then again I’ve yet to really research the issue.
Thanks for the post!
You raise some interesting points. Granted, I’m making these statements as an outsider, but as someone who has a little bit of experience in having to promote my own business…
Publishing is THE WHOLE package. It’s both the words inside and the cover on the outside… it’s the editing, it’s the marketing campaign, it’s social networking. It involves SO much more than JUST the writing. In my opinion, you can’t compartmentalize and separate one part of the process from the other.
If you’re going to take the time to write a book and send it off into the world with it’s best chance of success, you need to have all the pieces of the publishing puzzle, and that includes the cover.
I do think that budget constraints sometimes make authors choose between perhaps editing and something like a cover. But I think both parts are equally important. If your budget does not allow you to hire a designer, then perhaps it might be better to wait until you can, or find an alternative (a talented graphic design student/aspiring photographer who needs to build a portfolio, etc.).
All that to say, I agree, the cover doesn’t mean it’ll be good every time and a bad cover doesn’t mean a book is awful. But essentially it’s about PERCEPTION. The cover is an author’s billboard to potential readers, their first impression of a book, the gateway. So in many ways it’s just as important as the quality of story within. Because if the average reader doesn’t like what they see, they’ll move on never giving that story a chance.
Excellent cover choices Dani! I agree with your post 100% and recently redesigned my covers for that very reason!
Thanks so much for including my cover in your best of the week. I am honored. As an author, and a very visual person, a picture is almost worth a thousand words–I strive to craft my stories with as much detail as the cover portrays. This cover is a modern intereptation of a famous sketch by Charles Allan Gilbert showing the striking symbols of vanity: the mirror and the skull. Happy reading.
I love the 1st one the most! I like them all, but definitely that one the most.
I love the Indie Carnival! And I totally agree a nice cover could make or break your book and would totally buy the physical version instead of an e-book one if the cover is super amazing!