We’ve heard the cliche, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” True. But you do “Buy a Book by its Cover.” We all do. That colorful billboard attracts the eye, disseminates information, and sells the content. Even when the billboard is the size of a postage stamp on Amazon.com, BN.com or iTunes…you make a judgement on the quality of the book based on its cover.
It is hard to find just the right image, texture, font and copy to make a book cover work. Mix in the fact that everyone has different tastes and you have a recipe for controversy. Back in my days at Bethany House there was one person on the cover design committee that didn’t like the color orange…so the head designer tried to work around that to avoid getting work voted down in those meetings!
Today I’d like you to take a quiz of the following books and vote A, B, or C as to which cover design you like best. Try not to peek at the one in print before you vote. Think like a marketer and not just your personal taste. Think about the book itself and which image reflects the content in a way that you might buy it. These are actual cover designs I have seen for the same book in the past. I’m sorry, the thumbnails are small and cannot be clicked to enlarge. That is part of the point of this exercise…teaches you to view a cover just like they are viewed online. And when you finish voting, watch the embedded video below to see that extraordinary cover variations for a recent general market novel published by Penguin Random House. (FYI, a couple of the images are a little more racy than I would like.) I cannot imagine the time and cost it took to create the final design.
A |
B |
C |
Place your vote below!