I’ve heard in another post of mine that a fair amount of fantasy fans want to see more engaging covers. I would assume this sentiment goes beyond just the fantasy genre. However, as fantasy is my main focus right now, that’s where I’m coming from for this post.
I recently saw the spray-painted editions of the Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros) books and they are quite cool. Perusing Barnes & Noble recently, I’ve seen a mix of both interesting and what you might call “dime-a-dozen” covers. For me, the cover is what gets me to pick up a book and read its blurb. If that sounds decent, then I’ll usually give it a try.
Are you like me, or is your hunt for new authors/books a bit more involved? Do you have any covers as examples that are your favorites? What stands out the most to you when looking at covers?
On a side note, I heard from a reputable source that books published traditionally typically don’t get much, if any, author input on the covers, as the publishing company uses their resources to decide what will work best to market the book. As a future potential author, that’s kind of disheartening to hear. Of course, with indie publishing you can decide your cover art. Would love to hear if anyone has any thoughts on that…
Quite a bit. There’s a reason why people say first impressions matter.
There are millions of books out there. The spine & cover is the first chance for a particular book to stand out among the rest. If the publisher/author doesn’t believe in the book enough to make sure it has an eye-catching cover, why should I care enough to give it a chance?
Say I’m interested in a horror novel. A cover like this is far more likely to catch my attention than something like this.
The former is a work of art that tells a story in itself while giving you clues as to what happens in the book. Meanwhile, the latter is boring, generic, and doesn’t tell you anything beyond what the words say.
My money, and more importantly, my time is limited. I’m going to go with books where effort & time was put into grabbing my attention.