The old phrase as the title of this blog states, “Judge a book by it’s cover”, has been around for a long time. According to Google, since 1946, I would have figured longer... but anyways, often times people do. Whether an actual book or even a movie poster, people need to feel a connection to what they see in order to be interested in the said item. How many of us spent a lot of time wandering around Blockbuster, checking out the VCRs or DVDs on the walls where the primary reason anyone would pick up a movie is what they saw on the cover. Imagine if they had turned around each of the movies where their customers would only see the back blurb? It would be even harder to find a movie. This same goes for books often times but then again, bookstores often show the binding of the books only so that’s when a title makes the book stand out. The same goes for people... so many people say that looks don’t matter (aka judging a book by its cover) and that it’s what’s in the inside that counts but truly, that’s just a small percentage of how interest begins. So whoever says don’t judge a book by its cover, think of how you use this saying on other aspects of life besides books.
With all of that jargon being said, one thing I’ve learned
through the years after being first published is a cover does matter. I’m in a
lot of Facebook groups as well as other social media groups and see a lot of
bad covers. I hate to bash the book based on the cover but a lot of readers won’t
even read the blurb if the cover looks “cheap” or unprofessional. I’ve worked
with publishers where sometimes they had great ideas (such as Soul Hunters)
while others did not. Since I’m not writing any more books at the moment, I’ve
focused on re-doing my covers to make them look professional. I’ve studied
numerous cover artwork amongst the top selling books and I’m not that good nor
have the know how to do that or even the software, I also looked at many
so-called cover designers on Fiverr. I’m sure some of them are great, but
expensive and something I can’t afford at this moment, but some people’s
examples were not good. So, as a writer, be careful if you hire anyone as well
as to artwork and studying other covers to make yours stand out. I’ve worked on
a few of mine and continue to re-do a couple of others so please check them
out! Any feedback please let me know!
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