Cover Feedback

[AstoundingBruce]

Feedback on this cover, please? It is for an eBook.

[burnafterreading]

looks too much like space / galaxy / something that Carl Sagan would have.

[theducks]

Are those footlights?

I agree with burnbeforereading (the lens flare) makes it look very 'spacey'

[AstoundingBruce]

Not footlights, the one in the image are above. I am considering having a silhouetted figure on the stage, arms raised. Would that help? Or not so much?

[AstoundingBruce]

Better? More changes needed?

[Nabeel]

My feeling is that it's too glossy. It's like one of those adverts for Universities that concentrates on attractive young blondes throwing their hats in the air at the degree ceremony: it says nothing about the amount of sheer hard work that's needed.

Apologies for sounding negative!

[AstoundingBruce]

Please don't apologize, Nabeel -- I learn more from one "negative" comment than from a hundred people trying to stroke my ego. Besides, there is no such thing as negative feedback: Being critical is simply stating what is or is not working and why. It is the "why" that is important, and you've explained why. Thank you so much for your input.

[Gregg Bell]

The cover is good. Whoever is doing it has talent. But it could be better.

You have to remember that almost all of the people looking at it are going to see it as a thumbnail. And it's too dark as a thumbnail. Yes, ACTING will show up nicely but you have to want more appeal for your cover than just a word. And like adding the guy (in the second version)--no one will see him on the thumbnail. You can just barely see him on the full.

Believe me, trying to get my own covers in shape, I know what you're going through and it's tough. You think/hope/wish maybe just a tweak will do it and sometimes that's the case but sometimes you need to start from scratch.

The "Cosmos" comment is on the money. My first thought seeing it was that it was a sci-fi novel. And even as a sci-fi novel it could be improved.

Most non-fiction covers are pretty bright and they often emphasize the text and the subtitle. Don't be so subtle. Brighten it up.

You've got a split second to garner someone's attention. If they don't click on the cover you're history. Now I have to believe in the categories your book is going to be in people will be looking more at the title and subtitle than they would say in mysteries or thrillers, so that's good, but still you want to have everything you can working to your advantage.

So what's your book about? Acting, okay. But that's very very very broad. (And your subtitle From "First Audition to Final Bow" is very very broad as well.) Now I get the sense from your title that your book is going to tell me about the process of starting with an audition and then becoming accomplished to the point of completing a performance. Which is all well and good. It's probably what most of the acting books are going to show people. But it could be much more exciting.

What you need to be asking yourself is, What are people HUNGRY to know about acting? What do they want to know so bad that only my book is going to be able to give it to them? And you can find this out.

With non-fiction books you can go to Amazon's search engine (make sure you're in the Kindle Store--that way you'll know what your competition is) and enter what you're looking for. That tells you what real people (customers with credit cards already in Amazon's files!) are searching for.

I went there and put in "acting." A drop-down menu appears with the most sought after search closest to the top. So you see what people are searching for. When I looked at it a title caught my eye ("Acting Onstage and Off") and I went to the book. (see screenshot 149)

Then I entered in the search engine:

actor

And the drop down had:

actors work (see 150)

So I went there and found a title:

Acting for a Living: How to Act Outside Hollywood - Become an Actor; Work in Film, TV & Video; Make it Your Career

See how it works?

Lastly I went to the thing I would put in:

how to be an actor

There was only one drop down:

how to be an actor

And so I went there and it was loaded with titles like:

How to be a Happy Actor in a Challenging Business: A Guide to Thriving Through It All

So these are your competitors. Will your book's title and cover outshine theirs? That's what it's going to have to do to sell.

Here's my shot at a title that would be similar to yours:

How To Be An Actor: The Surefire Way to Break into the Acting Business and Stay There

The first part "How To Be An Actor" is boring. Yes, but if I want to show up on that search page with people entering "how to be an actor" I want that Search Engine Optimization to find my title. And the subtitle fleshes out what my book is about in more detail.

Being new you have to make a big noise.

Not tacky or gaudy. Just big. Look at how bright most of those covers are and how big the text is. Outshine them.

[theducks]

Who is your target?
Current STAGE Actors who might recognize a view from 'downstage'.
or
Someone who has never been on stage.

I agree it is too dark.
And it is fairly accurate from a actors point of view (bright lights in their face so they really can not see the audience) .

[JSWolf]

What I really dislike about both covers is that it's too blurry. It just looks like a very bad cell phone photo. Also, the text looks like it was added on in Photoshop. The text and the photo do not flow together.

[GMcG]

If you are moving the picture a little bit to the top so that the lamps are adjoining the subtitle you have more space at the bottom for bigger letters for the author's name. Now the elements of the cover are united and with a brightened picture it seems to be okay.

George

[EricPonvelle]

When I hired someone to do my cover for my book, I checked out the genre of my book, and compared the covers. Since the book is in sci-fi, I noticed almost all the covers in Sci-Fi were heavy on black and blue. I told the artists that I wanted to stand out as much as possible and to avoid those two colors.

My results were good to me, and they are enough (for what I paid) to get someone to at least click the image and read my sample/description. Then it's on me.

I actually like your cover a bit, and I am not familiar with the genre to know if you are bucking the trend, but that's my one bit of recurring advice there - make sure it stands out in colors alone.