The “Quality” Writing Group (“Q”WG) and I have had an interesting discussion this week. I’ve considered a redo of the cover art for The Fifth Kraut (TFK), and it got me to thinking about covers. In life we’re told you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Of course, that’s a load of schmutz. We always judge a book by its cover. Books and other things. If someone doesn’t smack us in the face as being attractive, we don’t walk up to her and say “hi,” we don’t go out, hang out, get married, and spend the rest of our lives together. Covers are important. Sorry.
So, I’ve been reexamining TFK, wondering if it does what it needs to do.
Since I published TFK, I’ve gotten good feedback about it. It’s received honorable mention in two book contests, and the reviews have been good. People like the cover, but, you know, it is what it is. It’s a photo of a tree. There are words there that proudly state TFK is a novel (why, I’m not really sure) and who wrote it: me. The photo itself was taken at Allerton a few years ago. I liked the photo and thought I’d slap it on the cover of TFK.
I wish I could say I struggled for hours with the selection. Sure, I thought about it, but mostly it came down to preference. To me, the tree cover represents choices in life. The twists and turns, the forks we face growing up. It’s meant to be reminiscent, to bring back images of fall, the season that opens the story. That’s my interpretation of it anyway.
The “Q”WG thought differently. They said it doesn’t reflect what the story is about, a group of guys moving through their last year of high school, a troubled youth, and the bad decisions kids make when they’re growing up. I agree, maybe it doesn’t do that.
It got me to thinking about other book covers I’ve seen. Do they really say what a story is about?
I’ll start with an oldie like Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. It’s had so many covers it’s hard to keep track of which one is “contemporary.”
Do these covers tell you that the book is about war? Maybe the title is image enough. That the cover doesn’t need to reflect the story. Or, because it’s Hemingway, you don’t need anything more than his name.
Or what about something more recent, like Fifty Shades of Grey, by E L James? I admit that I know nothing about James’ novels other than people have said they’re soft porn, or porn for soccer moms. What does the cover tell me? Does it speak to romance? Sex? Laundry? I don’t know. I suppose it makes me think about why a tie would be knotted and lying on a table. Because, really, what man does that? Even in an act of passion, the easiest way to get a tie off is to undo it, not slide it over your head. But, then again, maybe it’s not the untying so much as the tying up that’s at issue here. In any case, I’m not sure the cover tells me what the story is about rather than giving me a sense of attraction. And maybe that’s all that it needs.
Audience is important in a cover, too. We can assume that an audience for a Hemingway novel is probably different from, say, that of E L James. The local author of Tempest, Julie Cross, has an interesting book cover. Her story is about a time traveling teen who sees his girlfriend fatally shot. Her cover is geared towards a teen audience. It shows a young man and woman, there’s lightning, and the appearance of falling.
Does my cover play to a teen audience? Maybe not, but that also assumes that teens are the primary audience. Yes, it’s a Young Adult novel, but its audience is probably someone older, of a certain generation, where big hair and Joy Division ruled the day.
I’ve read that authors, generally speaking, don’t have much say in what their covers look like. That’s probably for the best. Authors write. They’re not graphic designers. Even if they were graphic designers, who is to say they could distance themselves from their work to design a decent cover? Publishers hire people to be unbiased and know industry trends.
In self-publishing, the buck stops with you. You can design whatever you want, and a lot of times, you design something very poorly. I’ve seen my share of self published covers, and some of them are bad. Terribly so. Is mine one of those? God, I hope not.
With 20/20 hindsight and an opportunity to do it over again, I would probably hire a professional graphic designer with some experience in books to create my cover? There is a cost involved in its production and in finding someone that fits that bill. We judge books by their covers. My cover isn’t bad, but it could probably be better, darker, more representative.
My cover is what it is, and for now, I’ve decided to keep it the way it is. Maybe that will change.
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