How much does a book cover matter to you?
Well, it took me about five days to just brainstorm and illustrate different cover ideas for my second book. The picture I am attaching below is one of the first few doodles I scribbled while trying to figure out a cover concept for “Love, Loss, Lockdown”.
After I was done with it, I thought to myself “Ugh, too juvenile and abstract”. Every concept had some flaw. And as a new independent writer with limited resources, there came a point when I was tempted to go for the “plain book look”. Just a simple template background with the title. But research clearly pointed at this – PEOPLE DO JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER.
I fall into the category of people that judge the book by its blurb. But if I see a free stock photo on a novel, it does make me think “okay, this author was lazy”. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just too exhausted after writing the book to bother about the cover. But readers are not going to think that.
When I started asking for opinions, everybody had a different perspective on the cover ideas. Some loved it, some just didn’t dig it and each one had a completely different suggestion to give. It almost got frustrating at one point. You have to go with your gut feeling in the end. And make peace with the fact that – some are going to like it, some are not.
If you like reading general fiction, please get a copy of ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. Following are some links (both ebook version and paperback is available in these countries & is also available for kindle unlimited members) –
If I’ve missed your country, look for it on Amazon or on your kindle store.