The author says:
Waiting for You is a contemporary Women’s Fiction novel set in Charleston, SC. Shortly after Kylie Lewis meets Adam, an aspiring musician with a history of his own loss, her mother is diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Stricken with the fear of her inevitable loss, she struggles with her budding relationship with Adam, despite his empathy. This novel is aimed at women, mainly aged between 25-35.
Nathan says:
With the caveat that I’m not the target audience, here are my comments:
- Any time you wrap, distort or otherwise modify text, it adds as much emphasis to it as bolding it. Thus, your title comes across as “Waiting FOR You.” It also renders the hourglass less immediately recognizable as an object, because it pulls the lower bulb into the mental space of reading the title while leaving the upper bulb in the background. My advice would be to let the “FOR” be in the same unaltered font as “WAITING” and “YOU,” and don’t worry about it exactly overlapping the lower bulb.
- The title font has a problem: the capital “I” has cross-strokes on the top and bottom fully as long as the top of the “T,” rendering the latter harder to read. I’d experiment with using the font’s lowercase “L” in place of the capital “I” both times.
- Your byline is hard to read even at full size, and in thumbnail it’s utterly invisible. I don’t know how married you are to that font, but at the very least I’d enlarge it so it rivals “WAITING” in width, use uppercase for the start of both names, and maybe play with making it bolder.
I’ll leave other comments to the rest of y’all.
I agree with Nathan completely. This cover comes really, really, really close to nailing it. I think it would take only a few small refinements to make it work.
One thing I might add is the suggestion to lose the grayed inset box. This really adds nothing to the cover other than to make it appear very unsaturated and colorless as a thumbnail.
The cover could do with a bit of centring. Everything is a bit off, and it is throwing off the composition.
I also agree with Ron, that gray box is only making this look washed out.
Otherwise, it is very close. 🙂
Howdy:
I get the feel that you want, from that font. But I’d say to you that there are a number of commercial fonts that can get you the FEEL, without the concomitant problems (like confusing the I and the T). Aracne (poss. Aracne Soft, or Condensed); Bloem Sans (n.b., all caps only); POSSIBLY Italo (I’d have to see it on the layout–my gut says no); Mozzart [sic] Sketch; or…hmmm, what about Buckley, by the One True Font Queen, Laura Worthington? One called “Baron” might work.
Anyway…I also agree that your modesty, vis-a-vis the byline is really hurting that cover. And–I don’t mean this personally, at all, but the handwritten (font) aspect for the byline feels one step too precious for this cover. There are a number of ways you could go–use the same h/w or font that you used for the subtitle, and go all l/c (that’s possible, although it’s not what I’d do), or a VERY simple sans serif, something Avenir-ish. Keep it crisp and readable. I might even try Averes Title, with some of the special characters. Normally, I wouldn’t suggest mixing two specialty fonts on the same cover, but it might–MIGHT–just work.
I also typically suggest some various gradients or blends, in terms of font colors…but for this, I think white is the only way you can really go. You can try some shades of yellow, but I suspect white will carry the day.
I agree that the greyish box is not serving you well, and it could go. Make for a better cover, I think.
Good luck! Very nice job with this.
It’s a good concept and it fits your genre. So yes, mainly tweaks.
Aside from the other problems with warping, it bugs me that “for” is behind the hourglass while the rest of the title is in front of it.
The white box is an odd choice; you usually do that so a dark font will be more visible, but it makes a white font less visible while also washing out the image. Lose it.
The byline font with circles for tittles is too cutesy for anything aimed at adults. I’d just use the same font as your title and byline.
Agreement all round, except where Nathan sees the FOR as jumping out, I see it as receding. I had to search for it to figure out what it was. In either case, it should probably go. Along with the grey box. And the cutesie author font.
With all that gone though… I’m left wondering what is that thing holding the hour glass up? It kinda looks like a camera stand. The question is rhetorical really. I’m just suggesting it might be better to “zoom in”/crop closer/scale up so that the only thing visible is the hour glass frame and just a smidge of the background. At the very least, edit out the distracting hardware.
Otherwise, nice cover.
Hard to add much to what everyone else is saying here. Yes, the gray-box needs to go; and if you’re going to have a physical version of this book, be sure to go for the glossy finish in order to show the picture’s colors to the best advantage. A matte finish would only dull the shot the way that gray-box is doing now. Hitch is also right that whatever fonts you pick, you need a much bigger byline; don’t be shy!
That tagline might not be necessary at all, considering that the title already brings to mind a certain wistful 1980s love ballad and the picture of the hourglass recalls the Days of Our Lives intro. I can see how you might want to balance your byline with it, though, so maybe something a bit less generic and more intriguing? Just to throw a few out here:
“Listen to your heart.”
“Teach us to number our days…”
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
“Every new dream is born from a dream that is dying…”
“Are you lonely tonight?”
“Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on.”
“You can’t be happy while your heart’s on the roam.”
“Learn to fly again.”
“The time has come for us to start living.”
“Do not awaken love before its time…”
I also agree that you should lose the grey box. That was the first thing I noticed, actually. I also agree about not doing anything different to the font for “for”. I didn’t have a problem with the “I”s.