The stigma of self-publishing and assisted publishing (in which you pay a publisher to produce your book) is long gone. Many good and successful books have been self-published both traditionally and as ebooks. But one thing that seems to have persisted is the tradition of terrible covers.
People DO judge a book by its cover. If the cover is not inviting, they are unlikely to check out the rest of it.
I hope I'm not being cruel by including these three examples. Just to be clear, I'm not saying these books are bad in any way other than their cover design. Their content may well be brilliant but I find the covers a turn-off. Let's take a look:
Any idea what this one might be about?
No, me neither.
It's actually a science fiction thriller.
Less can be more, but in this case, it's less.
It reminds me of the joke, "Not only is the food terrible, the portions are way too small." In this case, not only is the type boring, it's way too small.
At least the title of this one gives you some clue as to the genre, but since the protagonist is an 11-year-old boy I assume it's geared to young readers. Do you think they'd be curious to turn to the first page?
Could the designer have made the secondary print any smaller? It says, "A boy trying to find his meaning in the universe unexpectedly saves it." Not a bad logline. Too bad you need a magnifying glass to read it. Ditto for the line telling us this is "The First Book in the Secret Agent Series."
Didn't ANYBODY notice that the image makes it hard to read the title and the name of the author? Making the text white would have solved that, although it wouldn't have made it a good cover.
Based on the title ("To Slight the Jacket Blue") and image, what kind of book do you think this is?
My guess was poetry.
The blurb is, "When Ned is sent to the Caribbean to hunt pirates, he hopes to avenge the death of his best friend, Sam."
Pirates! Adventure! Danger!
Too bad all the cover says is, "Waves on a gloomy day."
These three are all from a company called fastpencil. Their design services include custom cover design for $299, Custom PLUS cover design for $599, and Premium Cover Design for $899. The covers of most of their books are case studies in what not to do. If any of the three authors above paid a penny for their cover designs they should ask for their money back.
