The author says:
It’s story of two era when two women rise up against the nemesis to protect the civilization
Nathan says:
People, make it easy for us. Send us the cover so we can actually SEE it — I don’t need to see your desk and headphones. (You have editions bound on both the left and the right, or you just didn’t bother to composite it right when making your mockup?)
And send me a description that SAYS something; I can’t tell from the seventeen words above whether it’s some sort of fantasy of science fiction or historical; maybe it’s time travel? What I CAN tell is either the author didn’t bother to write with his brain engaged, or he’s an ESL writer; either way, I hope more care was paid to the English in the book than in the description.
Sorry, I’m not in a mood that suffers fools gladly. Merry Christmas.
This is a bit off topic, but added to the mix is the poorly executed mockup of the book on the desk.
It’s a terrible way to present cover art, but not so much that it hides the fact it’s a convoluted mess.
I get the distinct feeling they were seeking blind praise, not helpful critique. This isn’t Wattpad.
+25!
Wattpad is criminally responsible for the escape of dreck into the wild.
H.
Well…I’ll wait, mostly, until the covers(s)actually show up, for review, but there are a HOST of bleed and live element margin issues here that would stop this cover dead in its tracks at KDP or Ingram or a private printer. I can tell that a trained, experienced cover designer hasn’t worked on it yet.
The fonts are nearly unreadable–for example, that subtitle looks like it says “The Spirit of Woman Pod.” That’s partly because someone thought putting a sword over the text or under it was a good idea, but also because the font doesn’t encourage readability.
The byline font should be nuked, completely. There’s no salvaging that. The title font makes the book title appear to be Yoddham. The…IDK, “series name” or something at the very top of the cover, also unreadable.
And yes, the rear cover text doesn’t make sense. The grammar errors are pretty bad.
I’m not commenting on the artwork because I’d like to see it more clearly before so doing, but my initial impression is not positive.
I wish I had something positive to say here, but at the moment, I don’t. I feel that a lot more actual publishing thought needs to go into this. There are many elements that need rethinking and redoing.
I commented on this cover when the author posted it to the Writer’s Forum FB group. It mainly concerned the fact that he had compressed the image vertically—and it was too obvious that this had been done. I think he fixed that. That leaves the typography, which really, really needs to be rethought.
Oh, dear…
1. In case our esteemed host’s initial complaint needs any clarification, allow me to paraphrase it: we here at Cover Critics want to see your book’s cover(s), and only its cover(s). We don’t care about how a physical copy of the book will appear as a three-dimensional object on somebody’s desk or at any other location; we only care about what’s going to be printed on the front cover, and maybe what’s going to be printed on the back cover. Do not waste your time or ours trying to impress us with such superfluous background displays because they do not impress us.
2. Maybe “everyone knows of Mata Sita” in India, which appears to be your homeland. Here in the Anglosphere, almost nobody has ever heard of her or anyone else in the Hindu pantheon, any more than you or anyone you know in India has ever heard of Cuchulain from the Tain Bo Culaigne. If you plan to sell your book anywhere outside of India, your back cover needs to have a completely different summary on it, one properly localized to make the context of your story comprehensible to your target audience here in the Anglosphere.
3. English is rather obviously not your native language. As such, you should not be attempting to write any part of your book in English, let alone the captions and summary on its cover; write everything (yes, including on the cover) in your own native language (whatever that may be) instead. Then, if you are truly determined to sell your book to an English-speaking target audience (and I do not fault you if this is your ambition; we native speakers of English are quite a massive and potentially lucrative audience indeed), the only way you can possibly hope to succeed at this is to hire a professional interpreter who understands our culture and speaks English as a native language to translate your book.
Bottom line: before we here at Cover Critics can even start to critique your book cover, we need it (and your story pitch) in a form we can both see and understand. Give us a full view of your book’s cover(s) and a complete concise story pitch in your own language; even we have to use a machine translator and the English in the translation we receive gets a bit broken, it will at least be more comprehensible to us and therefore more capable of receiving a proper critique than anything you’ve given us so far.
I think that the artwork and fonts, particularly, are particularly skewed to appeal to the author’s own cultural knowledge and background and that’s hardly surprising. If this book is intended to be released in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the like, I think that the artwork, at least, is probably fine. The fonts should still be fixed, as I suspect that they are just as awful in Hindi, etc. as they are in English, but then again, I don’t know.
I do think that the heavy skewing, in this case, makes it a tough sell in the US and Euro markets. It could very well appeal to a large number of Indian-culture immigrants, families etc. that are here, in Canada and in Europe/UK. Sure. No argument. But if the author intends to go wider, to try to appeal to a wider audience…I think that the artwork needs to be slightly adjusted. Honestly, not sure how, but at the moment, it screams Asian/Indian Subcontinent, to me in terms of art, style, colors, and the like.
And yes, as I’ve already mentioned, the fonts GOTTA GO, no matter where it’s being marketed or what language is being used.
RK already spoke to the very very difficult texts shown that really need English translation by a native English speaker. I fear that if this is the level of translation on the cover–arguably one of the most important sales elements–that the text on the interior might be rough, too, but…then again, e’re not BookCritcs.com.