5 Ways a Book Cover Could Hurt Sales — And How to Fix It" bookbub article

[Quantum]

An incisive article! It also has references to vetted and reasonably priced designers.

A book’s cover is its billboard. Its only job is to attract the right readers for the book. So trying too hard to be artistic or unique can dissuade readers from purchasing if they have unclear expectations of the book’s content. The average reader probably won’t look at a unique cover and think, “That isn’t like any of the others. I want to check it out!” Instead they might think, “That doesn’t look like the books I usually read!” before passing it by.
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Because we misunderstood the fundamental promise of the book, our first cover featuring a zombie businessman felt spot-on. But the first launch bombed. The cover accidentally made a false promise: zombies. While the book technically had zombies, lovers of zombie fiction didn’t enjoy it because the story doesn’t contain any of the usual zombie tropes, like hordes and abandoned cities. On top of that, the thriller readers who’d have loved the book were turned off.

The cover failed in two ways:

The wrong readers bought the book and didn’t like it.
The right readers passed it by.
To fix the problem, we commissioned a brand new cover that looks much more like a biological thriller.
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4. Covers must show off a book’s most commercial side

Sometimes, books fall into crossover categories where readers’ expectations are dramatically different. In this case, you should work with your cover designer to present it in the way that appeals most to the largest number of ideal readers while continuing to make good promises.

https://insights.bookbub.com/ways-boo...

[Ian]

Interesting article, Alex! Thanks for posting.

[Nik]

I think with covers, similar to the content in between them , an approach may differ between entirely commercial and more artistic, or ideally - combine both.
Wonder whether authors here see a cover as mostly a sale instrument or want it meaningful for their own needs and feel?

[Vince]

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

[Graeme]

This is always a curious area for me.

[Quantum]

Graeme wrote: "This is always a curious area for me."

How so? Do you mean relative to Nik's point about commercial vs. artistic?

[Marie Silk]

Amazing how powerful the second images are compared to the first.

[Justin]

I agree with all of these however I highly doubt it's the sole reason behind lacking sales. Its not like when you change your cover the sales sill start pouring in. Chances are an author changes their cover because they botched it the first time. Also personally I like my covers and I know one isn't screaming poetry but I'm not going to change it just so it has a new cover with No sales because of it. I feel changing a cover is for those who really didn't try the first time.

[Leonie]

That was a fascinating read. I do think it's really important to get it right.

And I agree, Marie - the second images are so much better.