Opinions needed from fantasy fans

[cstn1987]

I looked at the top 100 fantasy books. Most just have plain text. Mine is textured, shadowed, raised, and overlayed with brushed red metal. Did I over do it???

Thanks Sirtel... Guess it all depends on the individual.. I asked the same question on another forum and most people thought the cover was awesome. Probably because they're looking at it on a pc instead of tiny screen. I guess... Thats why it looks great to me. When I look at it on my iphone or tablet in its tiny state I see exactly what you are all talking about.

If you ask me most of the fantasy covers I see are cheesy, overused (dragons etc) and predictable to the max lol.. But #1 rules of sales... doesn't matter what I think.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by cstn1987

Guess it all depends on the individual.

Exactly. I for one don't have a clue about things like typography and never notice any problems with it. And I doubt I'm the only one. But this is the Writers' Corner, after all.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by cstn1987

I looked at the top 100 fantasy books. Most just have plain text. Mine is textured, shadowed, raised, and overlayed with brushed red metal. Did I over do it???

Thanks Sirtel... Guess it all depends on the individual.. I asked the same question on another forum and most people thought the cover was awesome. Probably because they're looking at it on a pc instead of tiny screen. I guess... Thats why it looks great to me. When I look at it on my iphone or tablet in its tiny state I see exactly what you are all talking about.

I'm looking at it on a laptop with a 15 inch screen. At the size the Amazon website presents the image, not only is the font choice amateurish and the contrast terrible, but the words are just plain unreadable - and this is on the main book page, not even on the thumbnails by which books are typically presented for discovery.

There are many many online guides to cover design for ebooks, should you go ahead with choosing to do it yourself.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by meeera

It's a better picture, but the typography remains a mess.

Yes, the text at the bottom is hard to read and the font is all wrong.

[theducks]

The Authors name gets 'Top Billing' ? (my pet peeve)

Sorry, your an unknown. J.D. Robb gets top billing. Her books sell on her Name.

You need to sell on the TITLE and cover image (at least, till you are really well known )

Can't afford a professional Graphic artist? Try a to get a Art Major from a Local College to give it a try (and it adds to their portfolio).

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by cstn1987

I looked at the top 100 fantasy books. Most just have plain text. Mine is textured, shadowed, raised, and overlayed with brushed red metal. Did I over do it???

It's not the texture/shadow/effects.

It's the sizing and positioning. And possibly the font.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by cstn1987

I looked at the top 100 fantasy books. Most just have plain text. Mine is textured, shadowed, raised, and overlayed with brushed red metal. Did I over do it???

Thanks Sirtel... Guess it all depends on the individual.. I asked the same question on another forum and most people thought the cover was awesome. Probably because they're looking at it on a pc instead of tiny screen. I guess... Thats why it looks great to me. When I look at it on my iphone or tablet in its tiny state I see exactly what you are all talking about.

If you ask me most of the fantasy covers I see are cheesy, overused (dragons etc) and predictable to the max lol.. But #1 rules of sales... doesn't matter what I think.

2 things. If you asked on the forum I think you did of course they will tell you it is wonderful. There are numerous reasons for that but the most important is many over there (unless it has changed in the last year or so) think it is them against other authors.

Now on the covers: the reason there are so many similar covers is because that is what sells and what people look for in covers.

And listen to the others here on the cover. They are right.

And get the rest of the book written.

Side note: epic fantasy is not really a good genre for parts/episodes/etc. Unless the parts are at least 400 pages long.

I think the only genre episode books (and then they better be darn good) sell well is post apocalyptic science fiction. And maybe a couple of other science fiction sub genres.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by cstn1987

Takes awhile for it to change on amazon. Just did it yesterday. Simply depicts another character in the book. I haven't been messing around with cs6 for long, but I feel the need to make my own covers.

I can read your name but I cannot read the title. It looks like a red blur.
Red blurs are not good for selling books.

Be cheesy, overused and predictable. That sells more books.

Now other advice: do not try to do it all on your own.
99% of the successful self published authors I know do not do their own covers or their own editing. They hire professionals and invest heavily in their books.
I am not talking $20, I am talking over $1000.
A couple even have full time staff.
Only one writes episodes. They all waited until they had several books out in one genre then they started advertising. Yes, some of them eventually branched out but not until they were successful.
It was in an advertising chat that I met many of these now successful authors.

[Cinisajoy]

Other advice:
I want to sell my books. Who should I listen to?

3 options here:
Authors that sell enough to make 6 or 7 figures a year.
Authors that might make coffee money if they are lucky.
Readers in your genre.

You can pick 2 out of the 3.
I am going to listen to the successful authors (or at least read their blogs). And the readers.

Keep in mind: it is the readers that spend their hard-earned money on your books.

I actually have a list of authors I won't buy because of things they have said about readers.

Oh and when and if you ever do get famous accept that book returns are a part of doing business.

To sum up: if you want this as a hobby, keep doing what you are doing.
If you want to be a success, remember that selling your books is a business and be professional. Approach it like it is a business.

[cstn1987]

Thanks for the advice Cinisa. You've helped me out quite a bit since I've been on here. I did take your direction and have my last book edited. Sales have noticeably increased and I can charge more... This book is more of a test run to see if it has any potential before i bang out 500 pages. Thats why I like to do a "series" first, but as you said, obviously the fantasy audience is entirely different than my usual dystopian readers. I'm going to just take it down and put out two long books.

[cstn1987]

Thanks everybody.

[drofgnal]

link doesn't work.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It's not the texture/shadow/effects.

It's the sizing and positioning. And possibly the font.

The color of the title is awful. The contrast is very poor. And it's not possibly the font, it's definitely the font. The title should be more prominent and the author nameless prominent.

[JSWolf]

I have no idea what happened, but the book is no longer listed at Amazon.

[BearMountainBooks]

There are a few good places now that sell font packages for reasonable prices. If you already have the software for manipulating covers, you'll be able to find fonts that have "extras" (I think they are called glyphs. But I could have that wrong). At any rate, many of the font packages run 20 dollars and both places I use have a freebie font once a week. I used to avoid buying fonts for my covers because they ran 100 and up for one font. These smaller font sites have a lot of great artists that run sales on font packages and are quite reasonable...I don't have the links off the top of my head, but I have them on my blog so can pop over and get them if you're interested.