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 judgment 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, one person on the cover-design committee 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 on 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 only 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; it teaches you to view a cover like one is viewed online. And when you finish voting, watch the embedded video below to see the extraordinary cover variations for a 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.
I posted this quiz ten years ago on this blog, and over 50 readers voted. None got them all correct! Can you do better without looking them up? I will post the “correct” answers later in the day.
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Place your vote below!
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
If anyone’s interested in using it, here’s a copy-and-paste rating template:
Fifth Man –
Wings of Mercy –
Kingdom of the Cults –
Half Price Living –
God Who Justifies –
Stand-up Boy –
Prayer of a God-Chaser –
Fifth Man—B
Wings of Mercy—B
Kingdom of the Cults—C
Half Price Living—C
God Who Justifies—B
Stand Up Boy—B
Prayer of a God-Chaser—C
The Fifth man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half price living – C
God who Justifies – C
A Stand-up guy – A
Prayer of God chaser – C
Hahaha! I did mine before readying everyone else’s, so I didn’t see your template until I was done.
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half-Price Living – B
The God who Justifies – C
Stand Up Man – B
The Prayer of a Good Chaser – C
Oooh this looks fun!
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – A
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – A
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – A
Thank you so much for the template!
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – B
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man –B
Wings of Mercy –B
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –C
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – B
Half Price Living – A
God Who Justifies – A
Stand-up Guy – A
Prayer of a God-Chaser – A
Thanks for the template
Fifth Man –B
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –B
God Who Justifies –B
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –A
Fifth Man –A
Wings of Mercy –B
Kingdom of the Cults –A
Half Price Living –B
God Who Justifies –B
Stand-up Boy –A
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Fifth Man –B
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –A
Half Price Living –B
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –A
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Having so much fun with the quiz, I almost forgot to add a sonnet.
***
Please don’t judge by sonnet-cover,
don’t believe your ears and eyes,
for I am no smooth-talking lover
enamoured of hipster bow ties.
I have no place in small cafes,
with girls for when the lights go out,
and I do not go to plays,
for I’d rather hoot and shout
at rodeos and kick-box matches,
swilling beer and picking fights.
My jacket elbows have no patches,
so you’ve got me dead to rights,
and imposter of the first degree
in the land of poetry.
***
The image of poet as lover with bow tie is shamelessly lifted from a poem I cannot now recall, and having girls around for when the lights go out from The Caine Mutiny.
The Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – A
The God who Justifies – C
A Stand-Up Guy – B
The Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy –B
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – A
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – C
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man –A
Wings of Mercy –C
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –S
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser A
The fifth man-A
Wings of mercy – A
Kingdom of the cults – A
Half price living – A
The God who justifies-A
Stand – up boy B
Prayer of a God – Chaser-C
Fifth Man –A
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –B
Fifth Man –A
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –C
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –B
I’m doing this without looking at anyone else’s answers.
Fifth Man ~ B
Wings of Mercy ~ A
The Kingdom of the Cults ~ C
Half Price Living ~ A
The God Who Justifies ~ C
A Stand Up Guy ~ B
Prayer of a God Chaser ~ C
Well, that was not easy! I kept wanting to put down what *I* liked. haha!
Now, I’ll watch the video.
Totally surprised at the final cover. It’s pretty, but does it give an idea of the story?
*going to Amazon now*
Now that’s interesting. The Amazon cover has the chest of a man wearing a white button down shirt. Which actually fits the description of the book.
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – B
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living –C
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –C
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – A
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – A
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Fifth Man –C
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –C
Prayer of a God-Chaser –A
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
I finally found someone in this list who voted exactly like I did. 🙂
The Fifth Man-B
Wings of Mercy-A
Kingdom of Cults-C
Half Price Living-C
God Who Justifies-C
Stand Up Guy-B
Prayer of God Chaser-C
Fifth Man –B
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –B
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –B
I expect to have the worst score. I recently contributed a chapter to a 12 chapter book. All the contributors were asked to vote for one of 3 covers. I said either #1 or #2, but I hate #3. Of course #3 was the favorite by far, and was chosen.
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – A
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Can we ask when these books were published? Because my guess will vary depending on when they were published. For instance, in the first one, I like A more because it looks more professional, however from noticing book covers of similar genres from 1990s and early 2000s I know that the last two were closer to the popular style of the day.
Personally, these are my preferences out of the cover picks
Fifth Man – A, because I like the font and composition of the cover and the contrast of the yellow and blue. I can guess at the genre (thriller/suspense?) easily and it looks similar to other good books in the genre.
Wings of Mercy – A, because it has the most “devotional/inspirational nonfiction” look of the three. The colors match and it has a nice simplistic feel. The other two make me think “bird guide” or “art book” because of the drawings of the birds instead of the photo.
Kingdom of the Cults – I was going to say A, but the longer I stared the white neon on the green and black background made my eyes hurt. If I’m truthful I dislike all of them XD. I suppose my preference is C because the background contrasts nicely with the font and makes it easy to read.
Half Price Living – I dislike all of these books XD they are very 1990s nonfiction look which always feels more clunky and unprofessional to me. If I had to choose I’d say B or C, but they’re all awful by modern standards.
God Who Justifies – A, definitely. It’s very simplistic and modern and the font pairs well with the book. The red spot is in an excellent place and it looks like several of the other books similar to it on my Christian nonfiction shelf.
A Stand-up Guy – Oyyy all of these are also bad, the first and last one are SO self published look and I’m not a terribly big fan of the font of B, but I will choose that one because it is the cleanest of the three.
Prayer of a God-Chaser – I also dislike all of these colors. I’ll go with A, but I think if the text was a lighter color it would look nicer, the gold doesn’t look right with that shade of green and the text blends into it.
On this note, I’d be curious to know how everyone’s choices are affected by what era of fiction and nonfiction they read. Someone who grew up reading 1990s Christian fiction may not be bothered by the weird neon letters and brilliantly colored backgrounds XD
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –B
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Guy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Fifth Man –C
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –C
God Who Justifies –A
Stand-up Guy-B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –B
Fifth Man –A
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –A
If I can just use one letter once I’m going with “C” pretty much all the time.
The book cover is (unfortunately) critically important these days.
Fifth Man –C
Wings of Mercy –B
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –B
God Who Justifies –B
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser B
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – A
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – A
How’s that?
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – B
Kingdom of Cults – B
1/2 Price living – C
The God who Justifies – A
Standup Guy – B
Prayer of God Chaser – B
Okay, I’ll play this game! 😉
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – B`
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
One of them I knew, because it’s on my bookshelf, but regarding the others, I’m clueless, guessing.
B
B
B
A
C
B
B
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – A
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Fifth Man – I prefer A, but for some reason I don’t think it made the cut. Maybe C?
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Thanks for the template, Andrew!
A
A
A
C
C
B
A
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
A
A
C
C
C
A
B
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – C
Kingdom of the Cults – A
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
A, A, A, B, C, C, C C
Fifth Man—B, the colors give it the feel that it may have something to do with space.
Wings of Mercy—A, simple beautiful; the others are too busy.
The Kingdom of the Cults—B, while the font style makes it look dated, the red color and the blurring of the letters give it a creepy, messy vibe.
Half Price Living—C, colorful, attractive to moms.
God Who Justifies—C, simple, bold.
A Stand-up Guy—B, ironic and intriguing.
Prayer of a God Chaser—C, colors indicate a heart on fire, and running feet give a visual to the motion indicated by the title.
Fifth Man –B
Wings of Mercy –B
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –B
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half-Price Living – B
The God who Justifies – C
Stand Up Man – B
The Prayer of a Good Chaser – C
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – A
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – A
Prayer of a God-Chaser –
Fifth man:C
Wings of mercy: A
Half price: C
God who Justifies: B
Stand up Guy: A
Prayer God chaser: B
Fun way to kill time in a surgery center waiting for my friends surgery to be over.
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half-Price Living – B
The God Who Justifies – C
A Stand-Up Guy – B
Prayer of a God Chaser – C
Fifth Man –C
Wings of Mercy –A
Kingdom of the Cults –B
Half Price Living –C
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
A
B
C
C
C
B
A
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – B
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living –C
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – B
Kingdom of the Cults – A
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – A
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults –A
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B (Great cover!)
Prayer of a God-Chaser – I like them all so I’m going with “D. All of the above.” 😉
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half-Price Living – C
The God Who Justifies – B
A Stand-Up Guy – B
Prayer of a God Chaser – C
I’m afraid the only book cover that drew any attention from me was B for Wings of Mercy. It had enough interest to catch my eye, unlike A. The other cover did nothing for me. I’m very particular when it comes to covers. When I see a cover it has to catch my eye first. Then it must interest me as something the story or content is about. I can’t stand cookie-cutter covers.
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Pressed return before I was done. The other book covers held no appeal for me, including the finished covers. And I can’t stand seeing the author’s name larger than the title of a work, as if the reader should pay more attention to the author than the story or information. Just my opinion.
Fifth Man – c
Wings of Mercy – a
Kingdom of the Cults – c
Half Price Living – b
God Who Justifies – b
Stand-up Boy – b
Prayer of a God-Chaser – a
Fun to see the variety of responses. What a headache of a job to make the final pick!
C
A
C
B
C
B
B
The middle 3 I had a second choice. We’ll see whether my gut was right or not.
A, A, C, A, B, A, C
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – A
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – A
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – A
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – A
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-Up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
What is it about a guessing game that makes it so irresistible to play?
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – B
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Guy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – C
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Ooo, I love this challenge, Sir!
The Fifth Man: B
Wings of Mercy: A
The Kingdom of Cults: C
Half-Price Living: C
The God Who Justifies: A
The Stand-Up Guy: B
The Prayer of a God-Chaser: C
I just checked myself and I got three wrong blast it! This was fun though—and I understand the basic idea why the ones I got wrong had a different cover chosen to the one I thought they were likely to have.
Fun game!
Looks like we have had 63 respondents to our fun exercise as of 4pm EST.
The Answers to Today’s Quiz
B-A-C-A-C-B-A
Not one person of the quiz takers got them all! That is amazing. A few were so close!
Imagine all of you in a cover design meeting giving your opinions and trying to convince the others that you are right. !!!???
Note many were published over 20 years ago and design tastes have changed. I would have liked to have more current examples, but publishers these days will often show one iteration to us as their “final” and go from there. Harder to gather all the variations for a blog like this.
FIFTH MAN – Cover B (published 2002 by Bethany House Publishers)
Picked because it is a science fiction novel and reflected the genre. Cover A was far too literal and had nothing to do with the genre.
WINGS OF MERCY – Cover A (published 2003 by Bethany House Publishers)
Meant to be a devotional for bird-lovers/watchers. Cover A is clean crisp and easy on the eyes. Unfortunately, in retrospect I think the title was wrong. You may not have realized it about birds which is a problem! It is a lesson all authors should learn: if your title has to be explained, the consumer has moved on to the next book.
KINGDOM OF THE CULTS – Cover C (published 2003 by Bethany House Publishers)
It is bold and dynamic and easy to read. Note that this book is about the Cults, not the Occult. In fact there is another book by Walter Martin called THE KINGDOM OF THE OCCULT. I had the privilege of being the editor for both the 1997 and the 2003 edition. Now in its sixth edition (the latest published in 2019), the book has been continuously in-print since 1965 with next year being its 60th anniversary!
HALF-PRICE LIVING – Cover A (published 2007 by Moody Publishing)
The bold price tag look is visually arresting. And the colors stand out dramatically by comparison with the others. One early design idea was to actually hole-punch the front cover, just like a real price tag. But then the publisher thought better of it due to the manual labor costs and the danger of a machine missing the target on hundreds of copies!
THE GOD WHO JUSTIFIES – Cover C (published 2001 by Bethany House Publishers)
Authoritative. Easy to grasp. The colors divide the title perfectly to emphasize the topic of the book, “Justification.” This was a hardcover in its first edition which lent even more gravitas to the presentation. The other idea is clever, but there is an “ick” factor with the blood stain that we wanted to avoid. This was a close decision between B & C. Note the font does not really change, only the coloring. There is more “weight” in the title font in B, but that is about it.
STAND UP GUY – Cover B (published 2011 by Zondervan)
No competition here. The novel is about a stand up comedian. Thus cover B is perfect. The publisher originally showed us cover C as the final with no other choices. If you could see it enlarged you would know why the author and I objected vociferously. The cartoon man looks stoned. For our Christian readership? It proved to the author that having an agent was key to getting things changed. Cover A is weird because of the surveillance camera in the upper left. Not sure what that has to do with anything in the book or the concept.
PRAYER OF A GOD CHASER – Cover A (published 2002 by Bethany House Publishers)
I actually have at least 12 different cover designs we went through on this one. It was tough to pick. Cover C is too literal with the running feet and at that time this was a common visual. In defense of its being hard to see, this book was published years before e-books were on the market and the Amazon thumbnail cover now has much influence in cover design. In hardcover this cover was gorgeous because they used a treated foil to create a shimmer effect on the jacket. It was rather beautiful as a piece of art.
Today this would not have worked as well as it breaks the rules of current covers with a very busy background with a font placed on top of it. There should always be a good contrast with a drop-shadow behind the font if you do use this type of photography on your cover.
It is fascinating to look at books published in the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and this decade to see how both non-fiction and fiction cover designs have changed.
This was interesting to read! The ones I got wrong were Half-Price Living (I thought cover C looked more appealing to mums, but I understand that having the price tag is a very bold and eye-catching visual.) The God Who Justifies: I thought design A was very clean, modern, and easy to read and I liked the cover scheme and simplicity of it. I did think that cover C was just as likely though. Oddly enough for that one I never considered cover be because the blood stain (I thought it was a red wax seal) being placed asymmetrically bothered me. XD
As for Prayer of a God Chaser, I got that one wrong because I thought cover C looked very similar to other covers of Christian books published at the time so I thought it was likely that one because of having seen so many covers from that era like that. Out of the other two, my favourite was actually cover B.
Ha. Just realised you put the answers up already but these were mine all the same. Like everyone else, I didn’t get them right but I’m actually pretty happy with how close I got 🙂 And I totally judge books by their covers. For better or worse 🙂
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – A
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – A
Fifth Man – C
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B
Fifth Man –A
Wings of Mercy –B
Kingdom of the Cults –C
Half Price Living –A
God Who Justifies –C
Stand-up Boy –B
Prayer of a God-Chaser –C
Fifth Man – A
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – C
God Who Justifies – C
Stand-up Guy – A
Prayer of a God-Chaser – C
Nearly all my choices were colored (no pun intended) by how large, visible, and legible the title, and/or the author name(s) were. It seems to me that whether one is browsing, or looking for a book mentioned word-of-mouth by someone, it’s the title or the “latest (such-and-such author) book” that catches the eye or is being looked for. The two birds on “Wings of Mercy” cover were a prettier graphic, but two birds squeezed the title smaller. The only graphic that really conveyed much of what the book might be about was the fallen-down feet and standing microphone, but I chose A because the fallen-down guy looked, how can I say it, like a self-published piece? Finally Half Price Living, the subtitle was clearer in the one I chose, and the variegated lettering of the title seemed to imply the catch-as-can-do lifestyle of the person living with a houseful of bargains.
Are there right answers?
Fifth Man – B
Wings of Mercy – A
Kingdom of the Cults – C
Half Price Living – B
God Who Justifies – B
Stand-up Boy – B
Prayer of a God-Chaser – B