#CoverLove – In With the New – Or Maybe Not

#Cover Love – we do love our colorful, eye-catching book covers! It’s the first, all-important impression of any book. A yea or nay. Pick up and investigate further or lay down and look for something else. Unfortunately, we are a “judge the book by the cover” sort of people. As with any artistic endeavor–we know what we like or don’t like.

And if you’ve been reading and reviewing for any length of time, you’ve seen the evolution of covers as they have progressed, usually denoting a new edition of the book. What sparked the change in cover? Colors? Fonts? That sense of “branding?”

We love beautiful covers, those that catch the eye, and as always, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” So it is, that I may be too close to the source, too emotionally embroiled in the painting that Diane Brown sent me that my grandfather painted for his story Sole Survivor, that fateful day the Marguerite wrecked off the Cape of Good Hope in 1890 and went down with all hands aboard.

It’s a wonderful painting and Diane’s family had taken excellent care of it from the time her grandfather received it from my grandfather, possibly in exchange for…well, only they will ever know. I’ve been wanting to update the book to include the story of the painting and use the painting for a new cover. Then I started rethinking that idea…

I’m not the only one to have been vaguely dissatisfied with one of my book covers. Indeed, I’ve redone Cocos Island Treasure at the suggestion of Paul Winer of Reader’s Oasis Books in Quartzsite, AZ. Paul may be naked, but having owned and operated his bookstore for over 20 years, he knows what cover will sell and what won’t. In fact, I also took his advice regarding another cover of the Stanley McShane books he generously bought to stock.

I’ve noted several progressions of covers lately in my review travels. Some I considered improvements; some not so much.

Most of the #ThrowbackThursday posts I’ve done recently have involved series authors and authors with multiple covers of their books. These authors are NY Times Bestsellers or otherwise of some note. Several have published books under their own banner and ergo possibly the cover page change.

Here are some great examples by authors you may know and recognize. I’ve enjoyed and used each already in my Throwback posts.

William F Brown – Ed Scanlon Cold War Spy Thriller, Winner Lose All

Amanda Hughes –  Ms. Hughes writes about bold women of the 18th, 19th, and (now the) 20th centuries including The Sword of the Banshee.

Alex Lukeman – The first in The Project Series, White Jade.

Bob Mayer – The first in The Green Berets series, Chasing the Lost. So far, my plea for opinions on the cover for Sole Survivor has run almost 50/50. Here’s your chance to give me your vote. A or B? I’d love your opinion!

©2017 Virginia Williams