The author says:
This cover is done and ready for publication.
Genre: Young Adult
Target Audience: Teens and young adults
Synopsis: Blake is the biggest — and most hated — nerd in Rosewood. Not only is his only friend his pet beagle, but there’s a holiday centered around his demise. Meanwhile, his older brother Phoenix is fighting to keep his cool after his lifelong rival steals away Keira, the mother of his would-be firstborn. Their only refuge is Mirallegra, a city where miracles are brought to fruition. Blake is eager to start fresh in a city where no one knows his name, but is horrified when he meets someone who knows his past. In the meantime, Phoenix resumes his previous work as a “piano tutor,” leaving debauchery and destruction in his wake.
Nathan says:
I… cannot figure out from your synopsis what the book is. Is is some kind of magic realism/urban fantasy? Humorous, maybe? Or just plain weird? What “past” does a big nerd have to be horrified about? How did “debauchery” get into this?
Given that I have absolutely no idea who this novel would really appeal to, I have no complaints about the cover, I guess. Which is okay, because by saying, “This cover is done and ready for publication,” you’re pretty much saying that you’re not looking for constructive criticism for another draft.
To me, the empty cover and the font reminds me of The Fault in Our Stars. Is it a romantic tragedy like that? Is it a comedy? Is it fantasy or a stark urban story? It sounds kind of schizophrenic— as if it has two separate plots, one funny, one… not. What is this book about? Is it about brotherhood? Do the two heroes’s stories have anything to do with each other? These are things your customer is going to want to know. The cover will need to reflect that, and if it’s not something like Fault, it needs work. But I haven’t a clue in what direction.
I think the cover matches the blurb exactly, and potential readers who would like this book will love the cover too.
If this is a breezy-humorous YA contemporary, then the cover is fine. I would tinker with the byline, the series name, and the smudge marks to see if you can fill the space a little better, but it conveys the genre just fine.
On the other hand, if this is a tale of miracles, debauchery, and destruction, this cover says NONE of that. If it’s some kind of urban fantasy, then you need gritty-looking people on a dark background. If it’s more magical realism, you need lush colors and decorative elements.
It’s just a cover.
It doesn’t convey any sense of what the book is about, what sort of book it is or what any of its themes may be—or even its target audience. The only information a potential reader has is the title, the author’s name and the fact that it is a novel.
It’s possible that someone may stop long enough to read the blurb and perhaps appreciate the cover (though I fail to see anything that remotely suggests anything in the description), but that is putting the cart before the horse. People are going to see the cover first…it is the cover that should get the potential reader to stop and read the blurb. If they don’t do that, then the cover has failed to do its job. You should not need to read what a book is about in order to appreciate or understand the book’s cover.
I think the best possible suggestion would be to go back to square one and rethink the cover from scratch.
All right, so I see a title, a subtitle (which incidentally is too small to be read in thumbnail), a byline (likewise too small) and some marker squiggles against a background of aged paper. To be sure, the title sounds a bit like the opening line of a joke: “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before; there’s this nerd, a baby, and a toothbrush…” Other than that, the cover offers no clue as to the book’s contents; and for that matter, even those of us who have the privilege of reading your synopsis (which your prospective readers do not) are not doing much better at making any sense of what kind of book you intend this to be.
Over on Lousy Book Covers, this is what we would typically call mystery meat: a cover we can’t even accuse of lying (known as false flagging) because we have no idea what (if anything) it’s supposed to be saying from the start. Short of any other identifying factors, I see little choice but to go with the assumption that this book’s story is some sort of screwball comedy entirely based on extending to some absurd length the one joke implied in its title. If that’s what this book is, then this cover might be just barely adequate (though I’d recommend at least boosting the size of the subtitle and byline to make them legible).
If not… well, your prospective readers are going to need something more than an intriguing title and some abstract squiggles to convince them to buy your book. If it’s not a screwball comedy, any customers who do buy it will feel cheated and start demanding a refund. Basically, if this is not a screwball comedy, I’d recommend a complete do-over; and even if it is, it could probably do with something more comedic than just the funny-sounding title and bizarre squiggles you’ve got on it right now.
In one respect, I have to give this cover its due; I have said here, more than once, that your cover has one job, and one only; it’s click-bait. Period. That’s the only job it has. In that respect, this cover might be an efficient job.
BUT…that’s only going to work, assuming it does, for those human browsers that have nothing better to look for. I’m not trying to insult your work; my point is that if someone is looking for a romantic comedy, or tragedy, or fantasy, or urban paranormal fantasy, they’re not going to stop for YOUR book. Because they can’t tell what it is. If Betty Buyer is idly browsing, without a specific type of book in mind, well, then, yes, they may very well stop and look, out of idle curiosity.
I get the sense that you’re relying on that–the curiosity of the joke-ish title. That people will stop and look, just because the title is so odd, and the cover is as well. That can work to some extent–but unfortunately, absolutely not to the extent that most people think it will, when they decide to go with a rather outre cover. There’s a reason that covers are frequently tropes–it’s because that’s what works.
I mean, let me put it this way–do you know why episodic TV works? Or why book series work? It’s because while people claim that they want something utterly new–they really don’t. What they mean, when they say that, is that they want something with a new plotline, or a new story–but they want to know what to expect, week-in and week-out. They know that, for example, Detective Bobby Goren on L&O: Criminal Intent isn’t going to be killed off. While people rave about GOT, GOT would KILL to have the ratings of any L&O show. So, while folks like to enjoy the titillation of a show that, well, titillates and that kills characters off willy-nilly, in far, far larger numbers, they tune in to L&O, NCIS, and other regular, ongoing TV series. It’s because knowing what (and who) they’re going to get matters. (There’s an entire theory about this–the “Savannah Theory,” promulgated by Miller and Kanazawa. Makes perfect sense, once you look at it from their perspective…)
And the same thing is true with books, and their covers. YA Fantasy novels have People featured on the covers, and magical “stuff.” (Artifacts, tools, magical objects, swords, yadda). Along with very specific color schemes, etc. As someone else pointed out, urban fantasy has dark schemes, and typically a wizard or witch or whatever supernatural being in a commanding pose. SciFi? Try, just try to find a sci-fi book without something extraordinarily recognizable like a planet, a spaceship, a spacesuit, etc. Steampunk? Well, of course, you have the ubiquitous wild-ass machinery.
But…there’s no way of telling what genre–if genre indeed it fits–your book belongs to. It makes me think that you are trying to say that this is Literary Fiction.
Is that what you’re saying? If so, it’s entirely possible that this cover will work–but be prepared to market your ass off, because Literary Fiction is a serious uphill slog, sales-wise, for self-pubbed authors (for any publisher, actually). I honestly don’t even know if there’s a YA category in LitFic (Sorry, that’s a bit off-topic.) And, if that’s the case, then, yes, this “cover about nothing” will be entirely suitable. I don’t mean that in a snarky, or mean sense; I mean it quite literally.
BUT: if you think of this as a YA sub-genre; magical realism, or fantasy, or, or, or…then I fear you will face an uphill battle, because YA novels have very narrow channels of cover design, in their specific categories/genres. Without more input, I don’t know if anyone here can be more helpful.
Of course, like Nathan, my takeaway from your submission is that you’re not really looking for critique–but hopefully we’re misreading it. 😉
What Hitch said.