Why a Strong Book Cover Matters
Last Friday, my new novel’s book cover was “revealed” by eighteen book bloggers on Instagram. By Wednesday, it was a Hot New Release, #5 on Amazon’s bestseller lists in two categories. Besides taking my astonished dogs for extra-long walks to process this dream come true, I realized cool new facts about the publishing process from this (astonishing-to-me) event.
For one, the importance of your choice of book cover.
Months ago, my talented designer Jeenee Lee sent me four options (shared below, just for fun). Comments on those Instagram posts confirmed why the design we chose worked: I learned how they “saw” my cover, what they got from it about the story, and what attracted them most and why.
So, what is it about book covers that makes them so important?
A book is words. But its cover is its face to the world. It has three jobs.
It must communicate the main message of the book.
It hints at the plot, the characters, the setting. Or it uses a graphic to metaphor that.
It attracts your ideal audience. Not always, but that’s one goal.
As this article in Lit Hub says the cover is “the book’s skin.” And, as this BBC article on best book covers adds, book covers stay with us long after we finish our reading.
So when my book’s words were finally edited, typeset, proofed, revised, and proofed again; when the acknowledgements were written and the book club questions added; when all the legal stuff was in place; that’s when the book cover design process began.
Designer Jeenee Lee was new to me, but she came highly recommended. She would work from the ARC (advance reader copy) of the manuscript. But we focused on the book description to hone in on what the cover needed to communicate:
Framed for the brutal attack on her manager, indie rock legend Red Nelson flees to the only family she doesn't yet know: her estranged sister, Kate Fisher, a Search & Rescue pilot working the remote mountains of upper New York State. When Kate's daughter, Molly, decides to hide Red on their property, concern over Molly's safety forces Kate to face past secrets and present dangers, stage a rescue, and begin to repair the broken but longed-for family she comes from. A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue explores the unexpected gift of found family in times of loss and tragedy, the forging of a new relationship between two related strangers, and the discovery, by three women of different generations, that by saving each other, they save themselves. One of the struggles: my novel doesn’t fit neatly into a single genre. Literary thrillers are a fairly new cross-genre group. My book crosses thriller aspects (someone is fleeing from a crime and someone dies) with strong female characters (two sisters become “found family” as they reluctantly reunite during the Search & Rescue), as my Kirkus Review says. I loved this complexity; I believed it lent intrigue and charm to the read. I wanted fast pace and women’s relationships, between my book’s covers. As another reviewer (Independent Book Review) said, my book “Deftly balances the tension and danger of a crime thriller with the emotion and compassion of a family saga.”
I was relieved that these outsider “takes” by the trade big boys didn’t shy away from what I was trying for.
Jeenee came up with four sketches. At first, I loved them all, so I knew I needed distance. I asked for votes. Which one most accurately showed both sides of my story, the thriller/plane crash/fire/running from a crime and the estranged sisters finding their “family”?
My voting team worked hard. Cover #1 got a big yes from younger readers; they loved the font used on the title, the active figures. Cover #3 and #4 appealed to those looking for edge, danger, drama. But also they confused some—was the story about a house fire? Was fire the key message? Nope.
Cover #2 garnered the most votes, hands down. But after a week of studying and thinking, I wanted some revisions. I wanted to combine cover #1 and #2, to bring in more tension and movement in the two figures (the thriller aspect). They felt static in #2.
I also wanted the metaphor to show up more clearly: the Search & Rescue mission focuses on solving the mystery of Red’s opening chapter plane crash, but it’s even more—to me—about the two sisters becoming found family. That’s the literary part. I wanted an important secondary metaphor to show up as well: the two women both struggle with an urge to run, to fly away, from their lives, as did their father, but all are forced by circumstance not to flee this time, to rescue each other instead.
Using cover #2 as the basic sketch, Jeenee inserted the more-dynamic figures of cover #1—the hair is blowing, the postures leaning as if about to move—and tweaked several other aspects to create the final cover, below.
Here’s what I want you, the reader, to immediately get from it: the book is about relationships (two women), in a rugged mountain landscape (the mountains at sunset), with something about flying (the plane they’re looking up at), danger, and risk (the women are silhouetted and the background is dark).
So that’s my cover reveal. I couldn’t be more thrilled. And Caroline Leavitt’s blurb doesn’t hurt, eh? (Thrilled about that too!)
From the cover, those Instagram followers may have gotten the point of my book, or maybe not. But I know their preorders tell the publishing world (libraries, booksellers, review sites, and other readers) that a story about women heroes, women finding the strength to persevere in the worst of circumstances, matters. That readers want to find a positive outcome and upliftment, humor, and love in a book today, despite the world and all the other sides of that equation that exist around us.
If you want to join the fun and say YAY! to a fellow writer lend your support by preordering too. Thank you from the bottom of my writerly heart.
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
About covers, what else?
Design yours! When I began writing A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO SEARCH & RESCUE, I spent a lovely day at the dining-room table making a mocked-up book cover. I like playing with papers, colored pens, cut-out photos, but you can also do this online with any graphic or paint program. What’s the essence of your book? What images would most express that essence?
And if you’ve published and love your book cover, post it below in the comments with why you love it. What went into the design? I’d love to hear.