The author says:
Title: Enchanted of Angels. It is a recently published work on KDP and so far, I am doing an awful job with the cover. I’m using my own drawings. I wish that I could pin down an audience but really not sure but had fun writing it. Perhaps not a totally serious attempt at issues of the day but leaves room for discussion.
Description: This story (originally written and in the 1980s), is a somewhat sci-fi leaning more fantasy about an appointed “mediator” — a mortal turned immortal after receiving his gift of guiding earth through its cycles as he prepares to be granted his own world at the end of the five-year term. The duty requires him to stay hidden from the earth’s people as the job of keeping everything in sync is a task of immense proportions. As it turns out, he does become involved with the earth’s people, especially globally known model and entrepreneur who has just witnessed the suicide of her best friend.
Nathan says:
If you don’t know who your audience is, then there’s not much we can do to help you to appeal to that audience with your cover. You need to put on your marketer hat, figure out who would want the book, and then figure out how to flag those people. You already mentioned that it’s “somewhat sci-fi leaning more fantasy,” but there’s nothing about the cover that conveys that, or tells readers that like that kind of book that THIS IS FOR YOU.
You might want to get an opinion from someone you trust (i.e., someone who will tell you the truth, not just kind falsehoods) who’s read it, or is willing to read it; after he read it, ask him, “What do you imagine for the cover of what you just read?” or, at very least, “What authors’ audiences to you expect this to appeal to” — that can give you a beginning point in discovering how your potential readers are used to being marketed to.
I certainly never would have guessed sci-fi. My best guess was “Christian inspirational romance.”
There are a lot of technical problems here: All the boxes around the edges not lining up, the pixelation on the silhouette, the clumsy shapes of that vector vine–but the main thing is that nothing about this looks like sci-fi or fantasy. So this is a do-over.
It’s nicely done, but…
I see absolutely nothing at all that would suggest to the uniformed reader what your book is about. There is nothing that says “sci-fi leaning more fantasy,” nothing that suggests anything about “a mortal turned immortal after receiving his gift of guiding earth through its cycles.”
When I first saw the cover, the first think I thought (like Katz) was Romance, and probably Christian Romance at that.
The images you used may be meaningful to you, but you have to remember that you are intimately familiar with the book…an advantage the potential reader does not have. You need to try to come up with an image that unambiguously conveys the basic idea, subject or theme of your book.
For a simple romance novel this is better than the usual shirtless fashion model formula, but for scifi/fantasy it falls short.
What about a silhouette of an angel filling the background with the silhouette of the women smaller and in the foreground?
A bit like this: https://i.imgur.com/hSnhiMU.jpg
I’m going to depart from the usual discussion here, about the cover, and talk for a moment about the bigger problem, upon which Nathan already touched.
You’ve made an extremely typical first-time author mistake. You wrote a book that you liked. You never sat down and gave a moment’s thought to your buyer, your reader–and now you’re reaping the results from that oversight.
The first thing you learn, in CW101 (Creative Writing 101) is: decide who you’re writing for, and write for that person. It sounds simplistic–but I wish more writers would follow that simple maxim. The most successful do–ask Dan Brown who his reader is; ask John Sandford, etc. They all know. An exercise that you’ll do, if you take a CW class, is literally sit down, write out a description of your ideal reader, and then write to that person. If you do that, you’ll have a much better idea of how to craft and tailor that cover. After all, if you wrote a cozy, targeting little old ladies with knitting needles and cats, coming up with a cover that appealed to her wouldn’t be tricky–right?
But here you have sci-fi/fantasy/romance/???. That’s a huge number of potential readers. And while that may sound great to you–Oooh, boy, lots of readers!–it’s not great until you have a bigger name, and they come looking for you, rather than you looking for them.
If it were my novel, I’d definitely be targeting sci-fi readers, but only IF it’s really sci-fi, and not romance disguised as sci-fi. I know that I, personally, start to grind my teeth when I pick up a sci-fi or sci-fantasy novel…and by Chapter 10, I’ve run into the “girl meets boy/girl hates boy on sight” plotline. If it’s a romance, then rock the romance vibe, but as someone else said, you need to amp that up, as romance, with a sub-genre of sci-fi or sci-fantasy. (If your immortal is doing his job via some type of undefined magic, that’s fantasy. If he’s using something remotely scientific, that you can kinda explain, that’s sci-fi.)
Good luck, but you are right, you need to ditch that cover and consider a completely different tack. Is there no way that you can manage a commercial designer? BL’s attempt is quite good–you might want to consider it. Want to go a little bit less literally “angel”? What about this: https://pixabay.com/en/fantasy-light-mood-sky-beautiful-2861107/ and cropping it to the right dimensions? It’s probably not perfect, but at least it conveys “not of this world.”
Good luck. If you come back with a new submission (lots do!), I’d love to be able to critique something with possibilities.
Apart from the great axiomatic “Show, don’t tell” rule of writing, the other great axiomatic rule of writing is “Know your audience.” Whether you’re a mercenary just looking for a quick dollar or you’re an artist for art’s sake looking to inspire all humanity with your brilliant insights (hint: if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re probably more the mercenary type; purely artistic writers with brilliant world-changing insights are extremely rare), you need to figure out who your target audience is. If you started off writing this book just for yourself (which is fine; I’ve done that too), the question merely changes from “Who’s my target audience?” to “What kind of a target audience am I?”
Your trouble discerning the genre of your own book is reminiscent of the difficulty people have had classifying the Marvel comic book universe, which is even messier than its cinematic universe: on the science fiction side, Spider-man, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four are all pretty solid entries; on the fantasy side, Doctor Strange, Dracula, and the Ghost Rider have all clearly landed themselves in the supernatural camp. Somewhere in between are characters like the world-eating Galactus from the Fantastic Four comics (treated as both a supernatural eldritch abomination and a highly technologically advanced space alien), Mirage of the New Mutants (a gal whose rather mystical “mutant” powers enabled her to do battle with Death personified on occasion) and Scarlet Witch from the X-men (another character whose allegedly “mutant” powers seem more supernatural than scientific). DC has all the same diversity and difficulty being classified as well: basically, stories set in universe with a lot of superheroes in it tend to span the entire spectrum between fantasy and science fiction.
For discerning whether your story is more fantasy or science fiction, the question to ask is whether the powers of this “mediator” seem more scientific or supernatural in their initial appearance. Basically, if his immortality and “gift of guiding” comes from signing a contract with Heaven or rubbing a magic talisman or praying to a tree, this is fantasy; even if we’re going to find out somewhere late in the novel that the council of “Heaven” is actually a bunch of really technologically advanced space aliens, or that the talisman or tree are really just highly sophisticated touch-and-voice-activated supercomputer interfaces, it’s still fantasy. In the same manner, if his immortality and “gift of guiding” comes from cutting a deal with some space aliens on a flying saucer or having the use of a cloaked space station with rejuvenation technology and cameras monitoring the entire planet or just having a special app installed on his cell phones and home computers that allows him to tap into an extraterrestrial shopping network via hyperspace relays, that’s science fiction; even if the space aliens or space station or extraterrestrial shopping network later turn out to be gifts that Zarthogg, Demon Lord of the Underworld magically transported to our universe from his mystical dimension in order to ensnare entire sentient species into subservience to his galactic death cult and drag our souls into Hell (with humanity being his latest intended victim), the story is still science fiction.
Complicating matters further is that your story clearly is intended to have some romance in it; otherwise, what would the importance of telling us a bit about this “model and entrepreneur who has just witnessed the suicide of her best friend” be? The question as to whether it’s more a romance or more of a fantasy/science fiction novel also complicates the classification of certain superhero comics on occasion: the long-running Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane comics series, for instance, or the newer Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane comics. Even when set in an established fantasy and/or science fiction universe (such as in Harry Potter fan fiction or the Star Trek franchise), a romance is a romance; so which is the primary genre?
Again, the answer lies in the initial appearance. If Lois Lane and Mary Jane are the viewpoint characters, but the main focus is on their curiosity about and fascination with their respective love interests Clark Kent and Peter Parker, then those superheroes-in-their-civilian-identities are the respective protagonists and the stories are primarily science fiction (or fantasy if the superhero-in-civilian-identity in question is Jim “Specter” Corrigan or Johnny “Ghost Rider” Blaze). Conversely, if the main focus is on Lois Lane and Mary Jane and how they deal with daily life in a world where handsome superheroes like Superman or Spider-Man regularly appear on the nightly news and how creepy country bumpkins like Clark Kent or awkward geeky nerds like Peter Parker are always hassling her for a date for some reason, then the love interests are the protagonists and the superheroes secondary characters in service to the plots of these romances.
Oh yes, I was supposed to be talking about the cover? As it stands, your current cover is simply too generic; not only does it only vaguely suggest “inspirational” (i.e. religious) romance, but only a generally “spiritual” romance rather than one connected to any specific religion (e.g. Christianity). Obviously, regardless of which you discern your book’s primary genre to be, you’ll have to start from scratch and work toward producing something that unambiguously points to that genre.
Since you’ve only given us some of the bare-bones details of your story, I can’t be too specific about what should be on your cover, but here’s a short list for what I’d generally put on the cover depending on its primary genre:
Science Fiction:
The handsome “mediator” guy is dressed in shiny space armor, optionally with metallic wings on the back or (if those would be too impractical for his line of work) a sleek futuristic-looking jumpsuit with a logo depicting angel wings as its insignia. He’s either standing or seated at a console, and looking at that model and entrepreneur love interest of his on one (or several) of the monitors.
Fantasy:
The handsome “mediator” guy is dressed in a robe or a toga, and optionally has flesh-and-blood wings with actual feathers sprouting from his back. He stares at that model and entrepreneur love interest of his through a crystal ball or a magical mirror or a mystical mirage of some kind he knows how to conjure.
Romance:
The lovely-looking model and entrepreneur love interest stands or sits front-and-center on the cover in the middle of her office, optionally staring at a portrait she happens to have on her desk of the handsome “mediator” guy. In the background, a giant figurative spiritual representation of him in full dress (space armor or jumpsuit or robe or toga, depending on the source of his powers) looms over her in a protective stance.
I am so glad to have come back here to view the comments. Very thankful for the suggestion to check out the site.
Nathan: Yes, another set of eyes from the beginning… I definitely should have done that.
Absolutely NOT Christian/religious romance! Indeed though, I saw how it might come across that way but was not quite sure of how to fix it. I just updated the cover (not yet showing on Amazon) before getting back over, now looks that I’m… please excuse the phrase …back to the drawing board. I’m rounding up all these comments and taking them along as I continue working on cleaning up this mess.
Katz: Again, not at all Christian/inspirational. Now I’ve unfortunately probably ticked someone off. And the vine… yes, I agree. I wasn’t really trying hard enough. Could have done a far better job of it.
Ron Miller: I totally agree with you on images conveying the basic ideas. I’m still struggling with the category. All I know at this point is that it’s not, as mentioned before, NOT religious romance. I would probably say more sci-fi leaning, more fantasy, adult–but probably not enough “sax and violins” to call erotica.
B.L. Alley: Thank you again. That cover mock-up is amazing. It is eye-catching – really supports the story theme. Just a few things I would change as well.
Hitch: I’m going to go a bit rogue here and say that I do write for myself, mainly because I would never want to write a story that I would not want to read. I say this without disregard for writing for an audience, and you are correct about deciding who it is I’m writing for. The thing is, your feedback and others have actually allowed me to get a better grasp of why I write and why I lean toward sci-fi/fantasy/romance. I should say “light” on the sci-fi, heavier on the fantasy, and perhaps a mix of romance with its “relationships/emotions.” As an Air-Force brat, I grew up around lots of men and women in uniform among military planes, machinery, and artillery. Guess I should admit to even though growing up on bases all over the country (U.S), I am not all that knowledgeable about militaries and world matters but have always been an observer of people and their interactions and it is the main reason I began writing so many years ago. I also wonder if there is an audience wanting to see sci-fi from a different perspective than what’s already out there?
The cover idea in your link is good… somewhere to start.
Thanks for your feedback. I will more than likely be back here with another cover if not this one!
RK: I would say his powers are supernatural but then would require a great deal of scientific knowledge.
“Basically, if his immortality and “gift of guiding” comes from signing a contract with Heaven or rubbing a magic talisman or praying to a tree, this is fantasy; even if we’re going to find out somewhere late in the novel that the council of “Heaven” is actually a bunch of really technologically advanced space aliens, or that the talisman or tree are really just highly sophisticated touch-and-voice-activated supercomputer interfaces, it’s still fantasy.”
This certainly puts it in fantasy.
So now I have more of a fantasy novel than sci-fi. Hmmm. Lots to reconsider here.
Thank you Nathan, and thanks again everyone!
LQ
Don’t forget the image I used is temporary and I do not have any rights to it. However, there is plenty of amazing art on DeviantArt, much available without royalties or even fees.
Oh yes, I understand using artwork without permission is very bad. I was about to contact you about it before I managed discovering it on DeviantArt. I have already sent a message to the original artist and hoping to hear back. If not, I’ll have to keep up the search. It really is an amazing find and I think would work perfectly for this cover.