More Talk About Book Covers

Last time I mentioned a little problem about Team Princess Caitlin's choice of a book cover. Since then the other members of the team haven't emailed me once. It's tough at the top, even in the self-publishing world.

But if you're going to take this self-publishing business seriously the cover is such an important issue. So I wanted to dedicate a few more words to it.

Here's the link to a cover that was recently designed for a novel I wrote. http://staggerleebooks.com/CLComp17lores.pdf

That cover was No. 17 in the process which really isn't that many for a novel. It's not like a children's picture book because in that case you likely already have the cover illustration somewhere inside the book. With a novel you're starting with AIR.

After I OK'd the cover I sent it to a self-publishing list/group to critique. The designer cringed because she knew a lot of weird stuff was about to be said. While most of the feedback was positive there was a few jokers complaining about the typeface, the type placement, the lake was too blue, there wasn't any contrast, the image was out of focus, the title was too sad, whatever.

I really do take all critiques seriously. You have to in any business because it shouldn't be about your ego it has to be about the best possible outcome.

But I rate this cover as nearly perfect for this particular novel. I'm even willing to say I've never seen a better cover for a self-published novel. People who know me just gasped. I never say stuff like that.

My rating is based on reaching the No. 1 goal - getting people to pick up the damn book. That's the only goal there is for a book cover. They don't have to buy it. That's the job of the story description on the sleeve, a lot of marketing, a very well-written story, a hundred other things. The book cover simply needs to get the potential buyer to pick it up. And you know what? The buyer doesn't care about typefaces or leading or a lot of other things. Are they interested enough to pick up the book is all that matters.

In this case the photograph does at least 75 percent of the job. It's a stunning, moody image that thousands of people in the Northwest will relate to. I licensed the image from a well-known landscape photographer. The book designer wanted me to buy a much less expensive image of the lake because she felt she could manipulate any image to whatever we needed and then I wouldn't have to pay the big dough for this particular photo.

I looked at a thousand images of Crater Lake. She was wrong. We needed a photo just like this one for this particular book. I think the difference in cost was $350. She was just trying to help me out. But if I had done that I would have made the same mistake I made on the Caitlin book.

I believe that choice will end up being critical to marketing this book.

The headline works too. It's provocative and many people will stop and wonder what that's about. I relieve confusion by having "A Novel" right there so they know. More than one person tried to talk me into a two-word title - that's a trend today. Some people believe that a question headline is a cheap device. Sometimes it obviously is but not in this case. When you learn more about the story it fits perfectly on a couple different levels. The only better marketing device would have been "Written by Nora Roberts'' or someone like that. (Now that would have been a cheap trick as she didn't write it.)

So I think this cover is going to work. I might be proven wrong.

But I believe the moral of the story is if you don't think something is just right for YOUR book you absolutely have to try something else.

Michael LaLumiere