Thank you for all who visited on last week’s Long and Short Reviews Wednesday Weekly Blog Challenge. This week’s topic is a book or books we’ve bought for their cover.
I will admit to buying a lot of wine for the label. When I’m wandering in wine stores, some are so artistic or interesting, that they are hard to resist. To compete, wine makers are getting really creative on names and labels. In publishing, a lot of genre and literary books really don’t have that sort of artistic freedom. Rather, they use the cover to signal the genre and sub-genre you are buying. Consequently, this means many of them merge together, and few stand-out. Sexy men on romance covers, spaceships on Sci-Fi, and eeriness on mysteries are but a few examples.
Frankly, a book cover is more likely to turn me off from a book than actually convince me to buy it. For example, in 2017, my science fiction romance, Race to Redemption, won a Galaxy Award (a web-based set of awards for science fiction romance, which closed a few years ago). Judges selected books for the award, and give each an interesting award title. Race to Redemption won the “Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover,” award. The cover is pretty sexy, signaling that its an erotic romance, rather than focusing on the science fiction romance part. It has planets and stars, but that’s really it for the SciFi part. While it may attract those who look for erotic SciFi romance, it may have turned off those looking for just SciFi romance. Here is the cover, and I’ll let you judge for yourself.
Having said all that, I’ve had a chance to think as I wrote the stuff above. Writing is one way I think. I realized that there are several genres where covers may come into play when selecting books — children’s books, comic books, and graphic novels come to mind In these, the art is very much a part of the experience of reading them. One book I do remember buying for the cover is Zen Shorts by Jon Muth. Here take a look. It fascinated me, and complemented the title which peaked my interest. I liked the book more than my daughter did, but those are the risks when you buy by the cover.
Make sure to visit all the other bloggers participating in the blog hop.
For me, a cover is the first thing that draws me in for a new author. However, it doesn’t stop there…. if the blurb doesn’t do it for me, back on the shelf it goes no matter what the cover looks like.
The blurb is crucial. I took a blurb writing class, and it was enlightening.
Zen Shorts has such a great cover!
My post: https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-books-id-gladly-throw-into-the-ocean/
It does. I liked the story too.
I dunno, I like your cover. Looks like sci-fi erotic romance to me, anyway.
Thanks, Michael. I am ambivalent about the cover. Maybe cause Amazon tends to hide them, so I believe it impacts sales.
Both are very eye catching.
Thanks Patrick. Glad you could stop by.
My daughter actually buys various alcohols simply because she likes the bottle (thankfully, she’s been pretty pleasantly surprised by the insides most of the time).
I have love/hate relationships with my book covers. One of the reasons I’ve toyed with the idea of self-publishing is to have complete control over that aspect of my story.
That’s a good point. I do try to read the blurb, too, unless I trust the publisher. I’ve gone the route lately of getting things from the library based on the cover and if I really like it after I’ve read it, then I get a copy for myself–which I’ve done too much lately! 🙂