cover feedback

[Gregg Bell]

I'm re-doing my covers with an eye to getting some consistency. This one's suspense. Thanks.

[Cinisajoy]

That is a cool cover though a bit bright for my taste.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

That is a cool cover though a bit bright for my taste.

Thanks Cin.

[JSWolf]

Have you looked at how this will look on an eInk display? I'd try it, but the posted image is too small.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I'm re-doing my covers with an eye to getting some consistency. This one's suspense. Thanks.

Consistency within a genre or consistency across genres? Personally, the first is very good to have. Across genres some consistency is good but not too much since you don't want to confuse readers who go in expecting a thriller/suspense and get a romance.

For this particular cover, I like the main picture and the bright red isn't too bright for me. For the text, the fonts are fine, although the font for your name gets a little muddled where it crosses the picture when the image is small, but the color of the text seems off to me. Neither color will probably be visible in e-ink and the blue doesn't really stand out but the green bothers me when viewing it in color. I think that I don't like the change of palettes between the bright red cover and then the pastel text.

[GrannyGrump]

I sort of agree with Dazrin, but not exactly pastel against dark. I think the pale gray looks fine. The problem for my eyes is that green and red are opposite on the color wheel, and when you have opposites adjacent to each other, there is a kind of vibration.

You get the same effect if you set orange against blue or yellow on purple. Try another color, or try adjusting saturations and tones a bit, and see if it looks happier. (Example, many covers use orange on teal blue/green, but the tone and saturation are usually modified to make them more compatible)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have you looked at how this will look on an eInk display? I'd try it, but the posted image is too small.

Thanks Jon. Great idea. I'll try it.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Consistency within a genre or consistency across genres? Personally, the first is very good to have. Across genres some consistency is good but not too much since you don't want to confuse readers who go in expecting a thriller/suspense and get a romance.

Thanks Dazrin. That is a great insight. My books do go across genres. Right now the consistency I'm looking for is basic. Things like: title on the top, name on the bottom. Same font for titles. Same font for my name. And having the covers have a fair amount of open space between the title and name.

Originally Posted by Dazrin

For this particular cover, I like the main picture and the bright red isn't too bright for me. For the text, the fonts are fine, although the font for your name gets a little muddled where it crosses the picture when the image is small, but the color of the text seems off to me. Neither color will probably be visible in e-ink and the blue doesn't really stand out but the green bothers me when viewing it in color. I think that I don't like the change of palettes between the bright red cover and then the pastel text.

Thanks. I agree that the green has to go (in my name). I'm thinking light blue there. I suppose I don't need to be too concerned about how the title looks in ereaders though, right? I mean, in a perfect world the cover would look great in color and in an ereader, but once it's in the ereader, well, they can remember what the cover looked like. (Just kidding.)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I sort of agree with Dazrin, but not exactly pastel against dark. I think the pale gray looks fine. The problem for my eyes is that green and red are opposite on the color wheel, and when you have opposites adjacent to each other, there is a kind of vibration.

You get the same effect if you set orange against blue or yellow on purple. Try another color, or try adjusting saturations and tones a bit, and see if it looks happier. (Example, many covers use orange on teal blue/green, but the tone and saturation are usually modified to make them more compatible)

Thanks Granny. I like the pale gray too. The green is going to go though. I'm testing blue.

[JSWolf]

I would also change the font used for your name. It doesn't work. It's not because of the color. It's the font that should be changed.

I would try a different serif font and try sans-serif as well.

[Dazrin]

Disclosure: I don't read romance books in general so I don't have much experience in the genre in knowing what the covers should look like. I am also not an author or designer so my opinions are not from personal experience, just trying to qualify what I like and why.

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Dazrin. That is a great insight. My books do go across genres. Right now the consistency I'm looking for is basic. Things like: title on the top, name on the bottom. Same font for titles. Same font for my name. And having the covers have a fair amount of open space between the title and name.

Looking at your covers on Amazon, it seems like your other three novels already are fairly consistent and appropriate for their genre, at least assuming they are all romance books in some way*. They all have a picture of a couple at the top, then the title, another background picture then your name. They could certainly be tweaked to be a little more consistent by having the title sizes be closer to the same size, Jamie's Gamble seems a little small, and your name could be more consistent in location/size (but color should be light or dark depending on the images used as background). If you are keeping both pictures I certainly wouldn't have them adjacent to each other with the title above, too easy to mess that up and make it look muddled.

For fonts, I agree that having your name be in the same font and the same location/size makes a lot of sense and the font you are using goes well with the elaborate title fonts in the romance books and with the simple font used for the thriller/suspense book (new version). Beyond that, I don't think I would want to have the fonts be the same, especially across genres. If all three of your romance books had the same font for the titles I would be much more inclined to think they were part of series. Having them in the same location and approximately the same overall size doesn't make me take that leap. For a series I would certainly keep font and color palettes the same or complimentary but for stand-alone books that seems like too much.

For Man of God, since it is suspense/thriller instead of romance, having the title up higher and using one larger picture (not as detailed as the romance titles) in the middle with a limited, bolder color palette makes more sense. If the overall space for the title is kept consistent with the others and the font/size/location you use for your name is consistent it should still look like it is from the same family as the others.

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks. I agree that the green has to go (in my name). I'm thinking light blue there. I suppose I don't need to be too concerned about how the title looks in ereaders though, right? I mean, in a perfect world the cover would look great in color and in an ereader, but once it's in the ereader, well, they can remember what the cover looked like. (Just kidding.)

Well, for anything on my e-readers you don't need to worry about how the cover looks once it gets there. It is an interesting question though, I wonder how many people use a cover view to browse on their reader vs a list view? Even if a list is prevalent it is probably not prevalent enough to ignore small greyscale covers. Interesting thought though and would certainly make some things easier.

Also, GrannyGrump may have a better reason why the green doesn't work. I know it bugs me but saying why is less clear.

*

Spoiler:

I would go further and say that The Find is a romance with more of a legal/thriller bend. Similar to a John Grisham book but with a more defined romance plot line. The other two look like they have a more of "finding yourself" type feel to them and probably less thriller if any. I haven't read the descriptions, but that is what the covers fonts/colors/images say to me.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I would also change the font used for your name. It doesn't work. It's not because of the color. It's the font that should be changed.

I would try a different serif font and try sans-serif as well.

Thanks Jon. I kind of like that font. Bodoni XT Medium. I've tried zillions of others. Have any specific suggestions? (I'll try them.)

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

.

Wow. Thanks Dazrin. You are really making me think. (Thank you for checking my covers. I'm attaching a screenshot of them.)

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Looking at your covers on Amazon, it seems like your other three novels already are fairly consistent and appropriate for their genre, at least assuming they are all romance books in some way*. They all have a picture of a couple at the top, then the title, another background picture then your name.

Here's the deal. I am not a genre writer. If someone put a gun to my head and said, 'What genre do you come closest to?' I would say, Suspense.

However THE TEST is a romance. I'm actually thinking of taking that off the market or publishing it under another name. FRONT ROW is a short story and that is definitely coming off the market.

So that leaves me with THE FIND, MAN OF GOD and JAMIE'S GAMBLE. Well, I had a cover designer do MAN OF GOD a long time ago. Then I did covers for THE FIND and JAMIE'S GAMBLE. They were not very good. I met up with a different cover designer. I gave her information about the books (blurbs, synopses etc) but she did not read the books. Anyway, I told her that THE TEST was a romance, so that cover is really appropriate to the genre. But (as you intuited) THE FIND is not a romance. The closest thing it comes to would be 'romantic suspense' and even then it is much more suspense than romance. It's really a suspense book with a strong romantic element.

However, (and this was my fault of course) I went along with the romance nature of the covers the new cover designer did, figuring the bottom portions of the covers suggested the non-romance elements (and that the blurbs would help too).

Several people have since told me that the covers for THE FIND and JAMIE'S GAMBLE do not fit the story. They say that the books are suspense and the covers should reflect that.

So I decided to re-do all my covers, and yeah, with an eye toward branding.

However, I must say that JAMIE'S GAMBLE is not purely suspense. (That's what I was saying earlier--I am not really a genre writer.) It is closer to 'Women's fiction' with a strong female character who finds her way through a tragedy (her lover's execution).

If I (and I don't dare to compare myself to his talent) would compare my books to a writer it would be Dennis Lehane. Deep, complex books. Sometimes with happy endings. Sometimes with unhappy (but ultimately redemptive) endings. All suspenseful and unpredictable.

So really, stand-alone books.

(I'll attach a screenshot of Lehane's latest books.)

Yes, he has a slightly different font for THE DROP but everything else is the same font (including title and name) and I would say pretty close to the font I use in the title of the new version (in the first post in this thread) of MAN OF GOD, which is Bebas Neue.

So my books are all different but similar. MAN OF GOD has very little romance and a lot of suspense. THE FIND has a strong romance element and a lot of suspense. JAMIE'S GAMBLE is the most different of the three. There is romance and suspense but it also has a tragic ending (similar I suppose to Nicholas Sparks' 'cancer romance.')

So your post has really made me think about what to use for the fonts (whether the same or different) in the titles. At this point I'm still leaning toward using the same font (Bebas Neue) for the titles.

I say that because I know several of Lehane's books are dissimilar and yet he has varied the fonts (of his later books anyway) very little.

But you're making me think!

Originally Posted by Dazrin

If you are keeping both pictures I certainly wouldn't have them adjacent to each other with the title above, too easy to mess that up and make it look muddled.

I wasn't sure which pictures you referring to here (in "both pictures").

Originally Posted by Dazrin

For fonts, I agree that having your name be in the same font and the same location/size makes a lot of sense and the font you are using goes well with the elaborate title fonts in the romance books and with the simple font used for the thriller/suspense book (new version). Beyond that, I don't think I would want to have the fonts be the same, especially across genres. If all three of your romance books had the same font for the titles I would be much more inclined to think they were part of series. Having them in the same location and approximately the same overall size doesn't make me take that leap. For a series I would certainly keep font and color palettes the same or complimentary but for stand-alone books that seems like too much.

Well, I certainly wouldn't want people thinking the books were a series, especially since I am really a stand-alone writer. (I have three more books coming out and they are all very different.) So yeah, THE FIND and JAMIE'S GAMBLE would've been okay had they been romances. But for the future I'm thinking all of the covers will be vastly different (image-wise anyway). (For instance see the attachment for SAVING BABY, which is one of the three books coming out soon.)

So the cover images will be vastly different and yet the font for my name will be the same and the font for the titles will be the same. At least that's the plan for now.

And yes, Bebas Neue for the title font is suspense or thriller but the books (except for THE TEST) all have a ton of suspense in them, so Bebas Neue is good fit (for the new covers). And I believe the very different covers (I'll attach a mockup for yet another book I've coming out called AMERICAN BALLERINA, which is about a young American woman who thinks she can dance at London's prestigious Royal Ballet but doesn't have the talent or pedigree. She's an unreliable narrator, pretty unstable.) will tell the readers the books are not strict genre books or part of a series.

Like now, I'm looking at SAVING BABY and AMERICAN BALLERINA. Both books have identical fonts, but I wouldn't think they were part of a series. SAVING BABY says suspense. I (LOL) don't know what AMERICAN BALLERINA says, but I don't know, I don't think either are pigeon holed into a specific genre label, and actually I think that is a good thing. (The cover designer who did the later covers did a cover for SAVING BABY and it was of an empty crib and it just seemed so cliche to me.)

I'm coming to terms with the idea that I'm not a genre writer. (I'm not!)

Appreciate your help in this!

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

I wasn't sure which pictures you referring to here (in "both pictures").

I don't have time to go thru this all right now and respond, but for "both pictures" I was referring to the couple above the titles as one picture and then the pictures/scenes between the title and your name as another picture.

I also wasn't including your short story in any of my commentary. Short stories in general can be treated different, I think, and I didn't want to mix it in with your others.

[JSWolf]

For you American Ballerina cover, the font for your name works for a number of reasons. One is the color vs the background and I do like the slightly embossed look.

With the Man of God Cover, the green does not work.Also, it looks flat. Try a different color and the embossed look.

As for trying another font, try a rounded type sans-serif font as well as the same one you have now with the changes.