A special twofer!

The author says:

This literary novella is the first of a 3-part novella series.

Jacob Alderdice is the son and heir of the prominent San Francisco family. Although dearly loved by his sister Vivian, his philosophical and artistic lifestyle has made him a pariah to his tyrannical mother, Larissa.When the Alderdices take their yearly summer vacation to the prominent resort town of Waxwood, Jake meets Stevens, an older man with an obsession for leadership. He befriends Jake and introduces him to The Order Of Agrios, a group of misanthropes who have rejected the commercial and conventional luxuries of their former lives to live in the wild. Seduced at first by Stevens’ powerful and charismatic demeanor, Jake comes to realize that behind the man lies something more brutal and sinister.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

The author says:

This literary novella is the second of a 3-part novella series.

Gena Flax, abandoned by her mother at a young age, has built her life around caring for her guardian Helen, whose physical illness and mental peculiarities have reduced her to a childish, neurotic, and clinging woman.One summer, she gives her aunt a gift of the sea. She takes a room at the exclusive Waxwood Inn in Waxwood, California with money she has scrimped and saved from two jobs and her aunt’s disability checks. But the gift reveals the depths of mental deterioration, betrayal, and family secrets.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Nathan says:

I put both of these books in one critique, because series branding is a big deal, and they should thus be considered as one unit.

I’ve joked before that “literary” fiction covers go out of their way to look like they’re about nothing in particular. That’s obviously hyperbole, but the fact remains that lit-fic covers eschew anything which looks like an obvious pointer to a specific genre: No planets, no silhouette figures running down dark alleys, no half-naked headless couples embracing, no wolves. By that metric, the first cover especially succeeds: The art (public domain — Google Image Search tells me that it’s by Vilhelm Hammershoi, d. 1916) is both exquisitely accomplished and understated, and is quietly intriguing for readers who avoid the “crowd-pleaser” elements of popular fiction.

Using the first cover as the lynchpin of the series, then, we move to the second cover, and we run into some problems:

1. Part of series branding isn’t just typeface, it’s type placement. Even though the position type on the first cover is largely dictated by the layout of the artwork, it’s also a good arrangement on its own. But to continue the brand, the same type placement should be used on the other covers in the series, which obviously limits the images you can use — you have to have something that will fit behind the predetermined type layout.  In eyeballing the second cover, I can see that mimicking the type layout of the first cover would put white letters across the lightest parts of the image — a liability for readability. But that’s okay, because…
2. The image used for the second cover both isn’t good when considered by itself (it’s obviously a low-resolution image blown up to cover size with attendant problems, and the hues suggest that it was either poorly photographed to begin with, or it’s a print that hasn’t aged well), and doesn’t relate well to the image used on the first cover (a photograph instead of an antique painting).  Wouldn’t it be better to use another obscure antique painting — either another Hammershoi, or something that shows similar age and quiet reserve?

In short: The first cover looks deliberate, while the second cover looks desperate.  Make the second cover appeal to the same readers who are drawn to the first cover.

Other comments?

The author says:

Will the plane crash that killed her husband two years earlier also claim Genny Stevens as a victim? When the insurance company demands their money back she hires Taylor Coleman to prove her husband’s innocence and protect her and her two small children. Someone else has a different plan for Genny, one that doesn’t involve her staying alive. She wonders if help from an unexpected source can possibly manage to arrive in time.

Guarding Genny weaves suspense, intrigue and fantasy into a modern day romance while straddling the worlds of the mystical and reality. This is a draft for the first of four books in the Moonlight Magic Series. It can be considered a Clean and Wholesome romantic story but with enough suspense, intrigue and mysticism to appeal to the YA through the senior citizen set. At this time we are leaning towards the Romantic Suspense category but are still researching which option is best. The book is finished, we just need the cover to publish. Thank you for any input that will better the cover.

Nathan says:

I have to tell you, if I saw this cover on Amazon I’d seriously consider putting it up on LousyBookCovers.Com.  Why?  Here’s what I see:

A bear’s butt.  In a moon.  With a smiling woman. But mostly a bear’s butt.

Does this tell me what the genre is?  Who the intended reader is?  What kind of story I’ll find behind the cover?  No, none of that.

And your description takes it further afield. You’re describing a suspense thriller, but suspense thrillers aren’t marketed with smiling people and gentle color schemes and bears’ butts.  Suspense thrillers are marketed with bold fonts and ominous shadows, and the people definitely aren’t smiling. Heck, you even mention a plane crash in your synopsis!  Plane crashes are exciting and dramatic! So why am I staring at a bear’s butt instead?  (And if your answer is, “It makes sense once you read the book,” you’re doing it wrong.  Nobody reads the book so that the cover will make sense to them.  The cover needs to appeal to readers before they know anything else about your book.)

The thing is that suspense thriller covers, especially “woman in jeopardy” covers, are really quite simple.  Go to Amazon and look at Tess Gerritsen’s covers, or Tami Hoag’s covers, or Lisa Jackson’s covers.  These are the readers you’re going after, so you need to catch the readers’ eyes by marketing to them in the same way.

Other comments?

The author says:

Face Lift is an urban fantasy set in a near future where there’s still a bit of magic in the shadows. Gregorios, a rare facetaker, infiltrates an island medical compound in search of his missing wife. The “doctors” claim to possess the scientific secret to eternal youth, but Gregorios discovers instead old enemies, old magic, and a plot of astronomical proportions.

Nathan says:

Zzzzzz… Sorry, what?

Okay, that was uncalled for. But it seems that everything about this cover is intended to be innocuous and deferential.  The color, what there is of it, doesn’t stand out from the monochrome image, which is all shades of gray instead of having any clear blacks or whites.  The fonts are thin and indecisive.  There’s nothing here which tells me what the genre is, who it appeals to, or whether this book has any adrenaline or “juice” to it.

You could take several corrective actions here — add a color overlay to the background image after you’ve played with the levels, make the fonts bolder and more decisive — but this cover could probably best be served by going back to square one.  Really, you could go to a free image site like Pixabay.com or Deathtothestockphoto.com, find the first image that captures your attention, and work from there to create a better cover… because “captures your attention” is what this cover is lacking.

Am I wrong? Anyone else?