Which Book Wore It Best? A Redesign Critique

Lessons in Book Cover Designs for Writers

Two of my book covers were redesigned only two weeks after I uploaded them on Amazon. Some of you have said that the originals were good, but good isn’t enough — not when I want my audience to think they’re great. For that reason I focused on editing my covers. Here’s a few things that I’ve learned since redesigning the cover for Haunted Loop.

Cover: Haunted Loop

Original Cover

If you found Haunted Loop during its first launch, you may recognize the book by this cover. Some of you had said that the cover was fine. The title is large and legible, even in a thumbnail. The subtitle, in white, tells you what kind of story is inside. You have a winding path through eerie, unnaturally glowing woods at night — and is that a ghost waiting for you in the distance? — which sets the spooky tone of the story. I suspected that the deep blue was a perk. Blue is one of the most popular colors in the world.

Key takeaways:

• When it’s title legibility vs. fancy stuff, chose title legibility.
• Use the cover to set the correct expectation of what’s inside.
• Know what your audience likes; use it to design a cover they’ll love.

During the time this cover was in use, the majority of downloads for Haunted Loop were from readers in their teens to early 20s. Haunted Loop found a place on Amazon in the Teen and Young Adults subcategory of the paranormal genre.

These mental notes were quickly made:

• The book cover is as important as the contents. Perhaps the story simply appealed to young adults, but due to the nature of ebooks, I contend that readers aren’t able to give the inside of a book a try without first making a judgement call on its outside. Are you in your teens-20s? Younger? Older? What do you think of this cover?
• Certain colors, fonts, and images appeal to certain demographics, while putting off other demographics. A book cover should appeal to your prime readers. As long as they like it, it’s ok if others don’t.
• The book cover has to look as good in color as it does in black and white. Some of you are reading on full color tablets, others on black and white e-readers like Kindle Voyage. The book cover needs to be appealing and legible on all screens.
• It’s not terribly necessary to follow the cover measurements of the market on which you’re selling it. I followed Amazon’s measurements, but others in the same market didn’t. Those covers work just as beautifully, if not better.

Thank you to everyone who has been reading Haunted Loop! It was wonderfully unexpected that my ebook found you at only about a week on Amazon, from an unknown new writer on the block no less. Yet I harbored a nagging feeling that my book cover could be better. I didn’t want to risk ruining a good thing, so I left the cover untouched — until I took the plunge a few weeks later.

Haunted Loop: New Cover

If you found Haunted Loop after the second half of February 2016, then you might know the book by this cover.

I lost the beautiful deep blue for an almost-black blue. I may have lost some legibility on black and white screens, too. However, the high contrast looks colder, creepier. The ghost girl in your face, with only a pane of glass protecting you from her grasp, seems scarier than a ghost girl looking from a safe distance. Plus this cover sets a more accurate expectation: in Haunted Loop there is a little girl in the story. You can gaze upon this book cover and expect to read something about a little girl.

The byline, “Don’t get stuck in the loop,” is to tease onlookers with a little more information. So the loop is something that is bad, and I could fall prey to it. What is this scary loop and how do I avoid it? The words are meant to look like they were etched into the glass, perhaps by the ghost girl’s fingernails, for extra creepiness.

There was a decision to give the title the same “handwritten” treatment as the byline. Unfortunately, the title didn’t read as crisply as the fonts that you see in the final version. I’d like to think that the final version looks just as creepy as the “handwritten” version, but I leave this up to you.

The redesigns have been up for only a few days at this point. It may be too soon to tell what people really think about the new cover.

So what do you think of the cover choices? Did the redesigns get it right? The polls are open right now. I’d love to hear what you think. Please connect with me by signing up for my email updates, or follow me on Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter. I’ll start offering my #FlashFictionFriday stories for free on Wattpad, so tell your friends.

Thanks again to everyone who has downloaded my book — and for those who haven’t, I hope that you consider giving Haunted Loop a try. It’s the quickest creep-out that you’ll read all day.