The author says:
Inspired by escape rooms, Puzzling Escapes locks the reader in a fascinating and rich scenario full of riddles and clues. You and your friend Astrid decide it would be fun to investigate an abandoned spaceship. But as soon as you’re inside, the doors lock and the power fails. Can you find all the clues and solve each puzzle?
Last time I submitted a cover for this book, I leaned heavily on the space aspect. After much back and forth, I wanted to try a cover which looks much more like a typical puzzle book. Some of the tropes I tried to include are bold solid colors, simple font treatment, a more descriptive title, and the simple geometric design.
[original submission and comments here]
Nathan says:
The only thing I’m going to say is that the green-yellow color (“puke yellow”) doesn’t work for me — I’d be a lot more attracted to the cover if it were a brighter, cheerier yellow.
I’ll leave the rest for our dependable commenters.
I don’t care at all for the colors, either. And I would like to see at least the starfield fill the entire cover.
I think it looks great! The only thing I don’t like is the clunky title.
Much better! Personally, I like the colours.
Only thing I’m not a fan of is the title having to have that shadow around it to be legible – it covers a lot of the image. The previous title was shorter, and so would be easier to fit without all the fuzziness behind.
Gosh, I hate to say this, but I also really don’t love that limey-green yellow. Any chance you could go a bit more bananas and a little less key limey-lemon?
I agree with the comments about the length of the title–I realize that in response to our last comments, you’re working hard to make it clear what this is, and that’s good. What about “The Missing Spaceship Crew Mystery” instead, maybe? Or something roughly equivalent? Or “The Spaceship’s Missing Crew Mystery?” (Or just the Missing Crew, since the spaceship seems implicit based on the cover design.)
To me, though, overall, it’s much better. Now…personally, I’d like a bit more oomph in the fonts, but you have a lot happening, so a nice simple font might be the better choice.
All of these strike me as equally clunky. I think it’s a mistake to try to fit everything about the concept into the title (especially since “spaceship/station with a missing crew” is a stock story premise, Tacoma being a recent example). That info can always go on the back.
Mostly I’d just like a title that isn’t just a completely factual statement of what’s inside. Like if you pick up a cozy mystery, the title is never “The Mystery of the Man Who Was Murdered in a Bakery,” it’s always “Eclair and Present Danger” or “Caught Bread Handed” or “The Crepes of Wrath.” (Don’t do a pun. But you know.)
Oh, I dunno, I kinda like Crepes of Wrath or Caught Bread Handed, lol.
I agree, those suggestions of mine are pretty damn clunky, but…my thinking is that at least they’re shorter than the current novel-length title, y’know?
I have certainly noticed that self-pubbed authors on the KDP definitely lean toward using keywords/descriptives as titles. I’ve never bought one titled like that (they’re offputting to me)–but they’re incredibly hard to miss. How many LBCs have we seen with “The One-Handed Billionaire Bachelor’s Mail-Order Sweet Innocent Bride Wholesome Christian Romance” as a title? (Too many is the correct answer to that.)
(I think we’re on basically the same side here, title-wise.)
DEFINITELY.
Here’s an idea – very roughly cobbled together.
I’ve put ‘Space Ship’ as the title but added a tag line.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/syskeNMj6XwEkUYy8
If you have a series, you could use the same graphic but swap out the space background for something different, and change the colours.
To my eye, that’s MUCH better. FWIW.
Not a bad layout, all in all, and it does tell prospective readers (players?) what they need to know about what kind of book this is. The only three nitpicks I see with it, others have already mentioned:
1. The colors could be more visually appealing; the sickly-blue-and-yellow color scheme looks like something a person with red-and-green color blindness might produce.
2. There’s no particular reason not to have the stars fill the rest of the cover.
3. The titles are awfully generic and wordy.
My proposed solutions:
1. Try several alternate color schemes, and do an informal poll among your friends to see which one(s) they find most appealing.
2. Fill the rest of the cover with those stars, of course.
3. Your current title’s a bit too omniscient and lacking in emotion; try imagining how you’d title the story from various different perspectives, such as those of the player, the missing crew, and even the ship itself. If I were the player stuck on an apparently abandoned spaceship, my title might be something like Adrift & Alone In Space or Where Is Everybody? A Space Mystery; if I were one of the missing crew, depending on our circumstances (alive, dead, abducted, or fled in terror?), my title might be We Hope You’re Not Reading This, Space Scavenger or Leave This Star Ship & Never Return or Find Us Before It’s Too Late: An Interstellar Mystery; if I were the (possibly anthropogenic) spaceship, my title (depending on my personality and opinion of the missing crew) might be So Alone: Find My Missing Crew or Whereabouts Unknown: My Missing Astronauts or In Space, Only I Can Hear You Humans Scream.
As is often the case when trying to appeal to a broader audience (such as the many different kinds of people who like puzzles and riddles and the like), it often helps to do a little informal direct market research, i.e. ask around among your friends and associates both in meat space and on the internet. While only you know what’s actually happened to that missing crew on that spaceship and what all the possible endings to the story are, you definitely need some input from your target audience as to what kind of appearances and titles would persuade them to give the particular stories in your puzzle book a try.
I think the simple colors of the maze cubes should be changed to science fiction textured metal wall or spaceship hull patterns. Do a image search to see some examples and generate some ideas. Using patterns like these would tie the puzzle and sci-fi elements of the book together more.