MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Is it Cover or the Content that Sells the Book

anamardoll · 06-01-2011, 02:18 PM

I completely agree with what Jon Konrath has said elsewhere: that, essentially, if you don't have a good cover, you're not going to get good sales numbers.

Is it fair? No. But it's that simple. In the current market, readers almost HAVE to judge books by their covers, because there's no time to read excerpts from every single book on Smashwords.

Furthermore, there's something to be said in terms of how invested the author is: if you couldn't be bothered to put a nice cover on your book, what should make me believe you bothered to put good content in there?

I'm in the process of writing a novel, and I've already been checking the Deviant Art commission forum - you can get lots of pretty covers commissioned for something like $50-100 (depending on the artist, of course), and I think that's a decent investment to make - certainly, I don't think you can hire a professional editor for that money!

06-01-2011, 02:18 PM	#52
anamardoll Chasing Butterflies Posts: 3,132 Karma: 5074169 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: American Southwest Device: Uses batteries.	I completely agree with what Jon Konrath has said elsewhere: that, essentially, if you don't have a good cover, you're not going to get good sales numbers. Is it fair? No. But it's that simple. In the current market, readers almost HAVE to judge books by their covers, because there's no time to read excerpts from every single book on Smashwords. Furthermore, there's something to be said in terms of how invested the author is: if you couldn't be bothered to put a nice cover on your book, what should make me believe you bothered to put good content in there? I'm in the process of writing a novel, and I've already been checking the Deviant Art commission forum - you can get lots of pretty covers commissioned for something like $50-100 (depending on the artist, of course), and I think that's a decent investment to make - certainly, I don't think you can hire a professional editor for that money!