Can you tell a book by its cover?

[bionov]

To explain about how I came up with the design for my cover for the previous reply post, I thought I would give a brief synopsis for this novel - "The True Virus".
After the main CIA computer is hacked into, John Brookfield a CIA computer specialist, travels to Israel to work with Sarah Stein the Co-developer of DNA computer technology to find out if the DNA component of the CIA system has been compromised. John is shocked when the cell phone of a fellow CIA agent in Israel is hit by a bullet and explodes in his hand. Soon after an epidemic breaks out and the agent dies. With Sarah’s help, John discovers that a Hamas bioterrorist is the hacker who programmed the CIA’s system to produce the real live virus that caused the epidemic.

[christinamartine]

That cover would work as fiction. Maybe change the font of your name... that's the only thing that threw me. Just seems not as professional as it could be. Something neater would be good, but just my opinion. It's up to you.

[bionov]

christinamartine, I agree with you in regards to the font I used for my name. Here's my latest version of my cover. What do you think of the subtle changes I made? See URL below.
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/285556432597060423/

[Bob Whitely]

Sadly, I just found this forum, so I'm a newb here, but hopefully I can be of some help as I poke around and see what everyone's up to, and of course I'm hoping to learn some things too!

I too thought the original cover that you got rid of was a non-fiction title. As a pro commercial artist, maybe I'm too fussy when it comes to covers, and frankly I'm still learning how to make great covers. I do feel that your cover should go through quite a bit of brainstorming and likely be handed over to a book cover designer. Some of the graphics look too low res or like clip art. Also, your eye is being driven all over the place. You want to force the viewer's eye to go on a particular path across your book. I don't mean to offend. I really don't. I know you probably worked hard on it, and money doesn't come easily. Doing a great book cover isn't easy and just for the record, I'm not trying to offer a service here. I'm extremely busy. I've got my own Kickstarter for a fiction anthology going right now, I'm trying to publish through my company, QT Games LLC. I'm still learning how to do great covers. I freely admit that being a great cover artist, is not the same thing as being a great graphic artist or a great illustrator. There's a lot that goes into a great cover.

Just remember that in most cases, the first thing people are going to see is your book cover. They WILL be judging a book by its cover. Maybe not as much as I would, or another pro artist. I'm picky, so I wouldn't even buy a book if I didn't like the cover. Art is a big deal and I've paid lots of money for art (and I have little money to spend). Remember, I'm a pro commercial artist and yet I'm still paying someone for art. Your book also needs to be somewhat understandable even at a small size like you might see on Amazon. At full size, it needs to have high-quality graphics. Better no graphics, than less than high-quality.

Here's my concept, layout and logo design, but the actual sketch behind the cover matter was done by another artist, as I'm not nearly as good at painting people. In my Arcane Synthesis: A Blended-Genre Anthology Kickstarter, I'm allowing people to vote on which of these 2 covers they want me to use and then I'll pay the artist to paint the one that wins. Anyway, while I think we're starting with fairly decent designs, I may very well make more modifications once the painting is complete. I won't give a link to the Kickstarter because I'm not posting this to advertise in your thread, but to give you an example. I'm just saying I'm a pro artist and I'm still paying another artist, and I have very, very little money. That's how serious I am about the importance of a book cover.

Bottom line, while you can't tell a book by its cover, if you don't have a great cover, you might not be able to sell many books. Hope that helps. Take care and best of luck with your books everyone!

[bionov]

I’ve presented my cover for “The True Virus” on other forums. A couple of critiques mentioned that there wasn’t anything to do with computers on the cover. I agree and since the epidemic is the result of a CIA agent’s Blackberry exploding, I redesigned the cover to incorporate this important element. What do you think?
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/285556432597088403/