A Game, Give Your Opinion….

I need your opinions, folks.

It has been my experience that the New York publishers allow authors little or no opinions or suggestions on cover designs. Nor do they allow authors to have the cover art once a book has gone out of print. They own the cover art, you see.

Consequently, if an author self-publishes an out-of-print book in this brave new world of publishing, he/she has to come up with new cover art. So here’s the game. Below are the books I’ve self-published. I’m showing the original covers done by the art department of one of the Big 6 in New York, alongside the new covers I’ve designed or had designed by a cover artist. And I’m asking what you think.

This is an important question. The cover is one of the most important marketing tools for books. The object is for it to be so appealing, a reader will feel compelled to grab it off a book store’s shelf and look it over. Here goes…..

The first one is SWEET WATER. The cover on the left was designed by my former publisher’s very fine art department. The one on the right was designed by this wonderful cover artist I found. The art is great in both of them, but the question is, which would be more apt to make you buy this book?

The second one is SALVATION, TEXAS. The one on the left was done by the publisher’s art department. The one on the right was actually done by me, if you can believe that, in Photoshop. Same question. Which one would make you most likely to buy the book?

                                                                                     

And here’s the third one, THE LOVE OF A STRANGER.

And I’m saving the best for last. I have not yet uploaded THE LOVE OF A COWBOY to Amazon for Kindle and Barnes & Noble for Nook, but I have the new cover. And I’m unveiling it today, right here, right now, for the first time. I personally think it’s fabulous, fantastic and just downright beautiful. I’m so in love with it, I can hear orchestra music in the background when I look at it.   …..  Let me know what *you* think. Again, the one on the left was done by the publisher’s art department and the one of the right was done by the wonderful new graphic artist I found.

Don’t be bashful. I need your honest opinions. I have books to publish and books to write in the future and I need to know how to dress them up.

Thanks, folks.

Related articles

• Why e-books will be much bigger than you can imagine (gigaom.com)
• You Can Never be Sure (shirley-mclain.net)