Iterative cover design: how my friends and readers guide the visuals

I have a confession to make: I design my own book covers, and they are, from reader feedback, pretty good. Nothing that will win design awards, but functional stuff that works, like this:

But I’m not a designer.

I cut my teeth as a writer, as a blogger and tech journalist, and now as a data-scientist-in-training. What I’ve come to realize, by hanging out and getting plastered with a lot of folks from the ad industry, is that drawing, design and art is a different ball game. Very few people k...