Rachael Eyre's Blog - Posts Tagged "bad-covers"
Uncovered: Why book covers matter
Recently I reserved Mrs Miniver from my town library. A portrait of British upper middle class life in the months before the Second World War, it's as fresh and funny as when it first appeared. President Roosevelt famously told Jan Struther that her stories had hastened America's involvement in the war. I've loved the book since I read it on one of the interminable rainy days of my childhood; I still call the unfavourite half of a couple 'the B-side' or visiting old haunts 'doing a Mole' in homage. The first thing to attract me was the cover: a pretty woman with flyaway hair gazing up at a sky full of spitfires. It captures its essence perfectly.
So you can understand my dismay when, picking it up last Thursday, the library copy showed a frumpy hausfrau in apron and headscarf, scowling into the distance. Not my philosophical, whimsical Caroline Miniver! If I'd seen this cover on that market stall years ago, I wouldn't have spared it a second glance.
People love to quote that banal adage "You can't judge a book by its cover", missing the point that it's about judging your fellow man, not your reading matter. When it comes to picking your next book, it's as pertinent as ever.
Here are the top four reasons why a decent, relevant cover are crucial.
1) Bad covers make a book look amateur
Self published authors have a formidable task ahead of them. As complete unknowns they're pitting their untested product against household names with publishing houses and marketing gurus behind them. They've polished their prose, written a sexy blurb and uploaded the novel onto Amazon. Surely the hard part is over?
Just as it's best to entrust your MS to a professional proofreader, you should invest in a cover artist who knows what they're doing. Blatantly Photoshopped pictures or stock images don't cut it. You need something classy and eye catching that looks equally good as a thumbnail, or in black and white. Otherwise potential readers will say, "Meh, hack job -" the last thing you want to hear.
2) They can mislead readers
I'm a huge du Maurier fan, yet I didn't read her until I was thirteen. Such abstinence seems bizarre - until you consider how her covers used to look. All the copies in our house dated from the Sixties and seemed to show women with plunging necklines flapping around country estates. I came away with the impression they were trashy romances and gave them a wide berth. A far cry from the menacing psychological fare her fans know and love!
When selecting a cover, do your research. Find out what's typical of your genre, what works. Just sticking a castle on the front won't do the trick - it might be a fantasy, but then again it could be a historical saga or travel guide. Don't imitate too closely, however; you don't want to be written off as bland or derivative.
3) It confuses or bores the reader
The trouble with writing a book is that you know it inside out, and fondly imagine that a still from the story is pregnant with meaning. The original cover of The Revenge of Rose Grubb unwisely focused on such a moment, meaning diddley squat to the billions of people who haven't read it. I applied to the good folks of Goodreads, asking why it wasn't shifting; they kindly put me in the picture. The way they saw it, the cover belonged on a cookery book, not a urban fantasy cum revenge tragedy. The image didn't convey anything to them so their eyes slid straight past it.
Covers need to speak a language that a browsing reader can immediately understand. Monica Nolan's books are a brilliant example. Modern pastiches of Fifties lesbian pulp, the covers hijack the old suggestive imagery: pneumatic secretaries with bee stung lips, leery cougars in twinsets. You look at one and know exactly what you're getting.
4) They can be hilarious
Back when I was a copywriter, I was asked to write a blog about science fiction dystopias. I thought I'd include a few covers from the date of publication - and unwittingly embarked upon a new hobby.
There are few things as side splitting as a cover that not only fails but plummets through a black hole to another realm entirely. My favourite is the early cover for 1984 , with the clunkiest symbolism and sluttiest Julia you're ever likely to see, but even that doesn't reach the heights (or depths) of idiocy of Chewitt monster dragons, David Cameron pursued by the Hound of the Baskervilles and a farmer looking at his livestock and proclaiming, "Everything I want to do is illegal!"
If ever you fancy a belly laugh, put "awful covers" into a search engine and marvel at the non sequiturs that come up. It's the gift that never stops giving.
So you can understand my dismay when, picking it up last Thursday, the library copy showed a frumpy hausfrau in apron and headscarf, scowling into the distance. Not my philosophical, whimsical Caroline Miniver! If I'd seen this cover on that market stall years ago, I wouldn't have spared it a second glance.
People love to quote that banal adage "You can't judge a book by its cover", missing the point that it's about judging your fellow man, not your reading matter. When it comes to picking your next book, it's as pertinent as ever.
Here are the top four reasons why a decent, relevant cover are crucial.
1) Bad covers make a book look amateur
Self published authors have a formidable task ahead of them. As complete unknowns they're pitting their untested product against household names with publishing houses and marketing gurus behind them. They've polished their prose, written a sexy blurb and uploaded the novel onto Amazon. Surely the hard part is over?
Just as it's best to entrust your MS to a professional proofreader, you should invest in a cover artist who knows what they're doing. Blatantly Photoshopped pictures or stock images don't cut it. You need something classy and eye catching that looks equally good as a thumbnail, or in black and white. Otherwise potential readers will say, "Meh, hack job -" the last thing you want to hear.
2) They can mislead readers
I'm a huge du Maurier fan, yet I didn't read her until I was thirteen. Such abstinence seems bizarre - until you consider how her covers used to look. All the copies in our house dated from the Sixties and seemed to show women with plunging necklines flapping around country estates. I came away with the impression they were trashy romances and gave them a wide berth. A far cry from the menacing psychological fare her fans know and love!
When selecting a cover, do your research. Find out what's typical of your genre, what works. Just sticking a castle on the front won't do the trick - it might be a fantasy, but then again it could be a historical saga or travel guide. Don't imitate too closely, however; you don't want to be written off as bland or derivative.
3) It confuses or bores the reader
The trouble with writing a book is that you know it inside out, and fondly imagine that a still from the story is pregnant with meaning. The original cover of The Revenge of Rose Grubb unwisely focused on such a moment, meaning diddley squat to the billions of people who haven't read it. I applied to the good folks of Goodreads, asking why it wasn't shifting; they kindly put me in the picture. The way they saw it, the cover belonged on a cookery book, not a urban fantasy cum revenge tragedy. The image didn't convey anything to them so their eyes slid straight past it.
Covers need to speak a language that a browsing reader can immediately understand. Monica Nolan's books are a brilliant example. Modern pastiches of Fifties lesbian pulp, the covers hijack the old suggestive imagery: pneumatic secretaries with bee stung lips, leery cougars in twinsets. You look at one and know exactly what you're getting.
4) They can be hilarious
Back when I was a copywriter, I was asked to write a blog about science fiction dystopias. I thought I'd include a few covers from the date of publication - and unwittingly embarked upon a new hobby.
There are few things as side splitting as a cover that not only fails but plummets through a black hole to another realm entirely. My favourite is the early cover for 1984 , with the clunkiest symbolism and sluttiest Julia you're ever likely to see, but even that doesn't reach the heights (or depths) of idiocy of Chewitt monster dragons, David Cameron pursued by the Hound of the Baskervilles and a farmer looking at his livestock and proclaiming, "Everything I want to do is illegal!"
If ever you fancy a belly laugh, put "awful covers" into a search engine and marvel at the non sequiturs that come up. It's the gift that never stops giving.
