The author says:

Q: When trusting your baser instincts threatens to strip your hold on sanity, who do you turn to?

A: A turkey in the woods.

A primal force awakens in Tommy after learning of his mother’s impending death. She’s all right, not in the hospital on life support or anything, but her days are numbered. Returning to Buffalo made all kinds of sense, but Tommy’s efforts to “take care of” his mom faceplant when she refuses to let him help around the house. He teeters on the cusp of crashing into old patterns – but this canine has learned a few tricks since leaving for LA. Tommy engages his writer-brain in passing the time concocting elaborate plots, second-guessing his cousin’s livelihood – certain something more nefarious is brewing. And yet, who is he to point fingers when waking up covered in dirt with no memory becomes a regular “thing”. Amidst a neurotic, potentially psychotic, break Tommy is forced to face a past ready to plow right into his future.

Reminiscent of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, I Animal immerses you in the head space of a Xennial neuroses.

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

This cover certainly isn’t as guilty of “false flagging” as the last one was.  Bravo!

I’ll let others weigh in on how appropriate it is to the novel, since I hate The Catcher in the Rye and am therefore definitely not your target audience.  I’ll just weigh in on a couple of design choices:

• Where did the comma in the title go?
• I appreciate the use of negative space as a design element. However, I think you’ve taken it too far with how small the byline is.
• The same goes for the tagline, with the added problem of the ornate handwritten font. Rule of thumb: The smaller the type is, the more readable it needs to be.

Other comments?

The author says:

This iconoclastic book presents the Biblical case against the legitimacy of the doctrine of the “Christian Trinity”. It is designed to reach a broad cross-section of readers; Non-Trinitarians, Trinitarians, lay-Christians, non-Christians, “believers”, non-believers, those with an avid interest in the subject as well as those with only a passing interest. The cover, as it stands, intends to communicate the idea that the teaching that God is a Trinity is the product of faulty and deceptive reasoning. (My apologies to any here for whom the foto or the position of the book is offensive).

Nathan says:

Good gravy, no.

What you have here is a book that looks truly amateurish.

• The smart quotes are doing weird things.
• The fonts used look like they were chosen at random.
• The title cuts right across the main photo image, rendering part of the title unreadable.
• I have no idea why “Christian-Trinity” is hyphenated.
• The byline is so small, it’s almost unreadable.
• You’ve credited the cover photo on the cover.
• The photo isn’t professional to begin with, and then you’ve stretched/squished it.

This is important. No one will take your book seriously if your cover is bad, because readers will instantly assume that the lack of ability and self-critical awareness exhibited on this cover are also exhibited in the text. This advertises your book as a bad book.

At the very least, you demonstrate here that design is simply not in your skill set.  This is not a salvageable cover. You had best hunt out a reasonably priced cover designer (there are many listed here) who can give your book a better chance in the marketplace of ideas.

The author says:

Jack Hobbes is nobody special. His life is less than exciting. Daily routines rule his existence. Then, on his way to work one morning, he sees a car identical to his own. Being driven by someone identical to him. The first time is enough to make him think he’s going crazy. But when it keeps happening, he realizes that he’s getting a glimpse of himself in the future. That’s pretty cool, until he see what the future holds. Will the universe allow him to change his own future, or will he be a helpless victim of time? And what does Albert Einstein have to do with it? Part contemporary sci-fi, part historical fiction, JackSimile and the Phantom Fury is a fast and fun joyride toward “The End.”

Nathan says:

I think I can see what you were going for here, but the biggest problem is that the cover doesn’t point me toward the kind of story you describe.  I get “mysterious,” and I get “classic car”; I have to look at the cover at full size to notice the math, which is the only part which could sort-of, kinda relate to “sci-fi.”  I just don’t think that the imagery of this cover will attract the readers who would want to read the book.

We could talk about other design upgrades — the clashing angles of the two cursive fonts, the center alignment of everything except the math — but I think you’d be better off to start again with a fresh cover concept, one that says, “Hey! THIS is why this book if cool!”

(And I know that this isn’t “blurb critique,” but beginning the description with three full, if short, sentences telling me that the protagonist isn’t interesting… Yeah.)

The author says:

This book is for professional women, ranging in age from 20+ to 60+, who live with the challenges of men talking over them, passing over them, and over judging them. The book is also for these same women who tend to grapple with the self-imposed pressure to over achieve and over commit themselves. These experiences are described as O-Syndrome. The book is filled with stories, advice, and strategies from badass women who are overcoming O-Syndrome at work and in life!

The cover design is not a quick concept but the finished design minus any refinements. Thank you!

Nathan says:

At the risk of being accused on mansplaining… [That’s a joke. Stand down.]

The first thing I saw is the all-white background. As most online bookstores have white backgrounds to their pages, the cover image ends up not having any visual boundaries.  Even just a line around the border can help.

(Full disclosure: The full image send to me is below, and I trimmed it for presentation here. But unless the plan is to include that gray glow as part of the ebook cover when it’s uploaded, the criticism stands.)

Second point: The novelty term on the cover (and in the title) is “O-Syndrome.” A novelty term like this is intended to be something that catches the browser’s eye and makes them ask, “Huh — what’s what?” Not only is “O-Syndrome” in the smallest type of the three words in the title, the gradient makes it even less noticeable.  You can still have “Overcoming” in magenta, since it implies contrast/conflict with “O-Syndrome,” but you should make “O-Syndrome” the largest word in the title, and at least give the letters a solid border. (Given that it’s a neologism, you should consider placing it in quotation marks, signaling to readers that it’s a term you’ll be defining, not one with which they should already be familiar.)

Third: While the book as described is largely about assertiveness, the general feel is not overbearing, and that’s good; the way to overcome at work is to hold your own while not making enemies, after all. But the “Real, Raw, Unapologetic” line drags it into overbearing territory — that’s the kind of wording one uses on placards and Facebook where the the goal is to sharpen discord.

Third-and-a-half: You’ve got one too many fonts here; the elegant cursive of “Women” clashes with the casual cursive of “Real, Raw, Unapologetic.”

Fourth: Maybe it’s just me, but the insertion or erasure of incidental gender terms into other words — “HERstory,” “womyn,” and in this case, “CollabHERators” — seems to me to be more of a hallmark of the strain of feminism which focuses on highlighting and winning systemic gender conflict.  I don’t understand this book as principally being about fighting the nebulous “patriarchy,” so I think that’s a bit of a false flag.  And putting “TM” after the word is unbearably cutesy.

Other comments?

NOTE: Tensions have run a little high among commenters over social hot-button topics of late. Please don’t wade into either criticisms or defense of feminism, “the patriarchy,” etc. any further than I’ve gone, i.e., only bring it up in the context of how connotation of terms affects the possible perception of the cover’s audience.