The author says:

When Mavis Grace inherits her aunt’s manor in the country, she thinks she’s received a chance to clear her family’s reputation. But her luck takes a turn for the worse when she discovers that the manor is haunted. Together with Alois Muscio, the mysterious village curate, Mavis must figure out how to banish the ghosts that walk the halls of Blackwood Manor. Between exorcism, dealing with her husband’s antics, and her budding interest in Reverend Muscio, Mavis’ life has never been stranger- and, when the light of the full moon strikes the Manor’s tower, things get much, much worse. The Secret of Blackwood Manor is a Gothic paranormal romance, aimed at, say, fans of Crimson Peak or Edgar Allen Poe. It’s set in an English manor and the countryside around it in the late 1800s.

Nathan says:

It’s a good thing I have a reputation for being brutally honest, or people might think I’m being particularly hard on this cover.

The brutally honest assessment of this cover is that it’s not very good; it’s got many more problems than good points.  Hopefully by pointing out the problems specifically, you’ll see better how to get your intent on the cover.

Problem #1: Type color. Red on shades of gray is hard to read and hard to see. Even in the larger version above, you can see how “Blackwood Manor” blurs into the images behind it; even though the colors are distinct, the contrast (the brightness/darkness) is too close.  Now imagine looking at it if you had only moderate color blindness, or if you’re browsing on a monochrome Kindle.  The problems are exacerbated in the thumbnail; not only is the print hard to read (which is not in itself a deal-killer), but the lack of contrast practically demands that your eye ignore it.

Problem #2: Type placement. Wedging both the title and the byline “out of the way” is a bad decision even in the best of cases — and by “best of cases,” I mean that the designer doesn’t want to cover up or interfere with the art.  That’s really not a consideration here (see below); there’s nothing that demands not to be obscured by type.  Instead the type seems like an afterthought instead of an integral part of the design.  (And the off-center placement of the byline seems pointless.)

Problem #3: The image.  I look at your description, and I see historical-paranormal-suspense-romance.  All that I can see of that from the cover is historical (because the images are old) and maybe romance, or maybe just pin-ups.  But there’s nothing there to entice me to read.  The straight grays — not even sepia tone — is dull and off-putting.  The images seem to have no relation to each other; no one component or image is central, either spatially or in terms of visual interest. Technically, the hard edges to image parts (like the headless man’s suit) and the inconsistent contrast in the various image parts make this, very distinctly, several images instead of one image.  And none of it seems to relate to the story: Is Mavis Grace a wasp-waisted dancing girl?  Is it so darned important to show a man in suit with a hat that he needs to intrude on the cover?  (If this were over on LBC, it would have earned the “photobombing” tag from the way that the headless man just seems to stumble into our field of vision.)

If I were you, here are the either/or options I would follow:

a) Start over, deciding on a color scheme and type layout first. Find a pattern — maybe Victorian wallpaper or wood paneling — and play with the contrast and color so that it conveys both age (yellowing works well for that) and suspense (high contrast, with shadows at the edge, is what I’d start with).  Let the type take up enough room that it has space to breathe — I’d probably let the title take up at least the top third.  Use drop shadows and/or subtle beveling to make the type “pop” from the background.  Then decide on a single central image to place on the background, in between the title and byline.  If it’s going to be that woman (or not — that particular picture might be appropriate if your heroine is a charming seductress, but not so much otherwise), then color her in such a way that she seems to be part of the cover, then do something distinctive to her.  I don’t know your story in depth, but find something either from the story events or the general theme that you can add. Maybe a blindfold.  Maybe a big chain instead of those drawstrings.  Maybe a birdcage over her head.  Whatever it is, remember that a cover’s first job is to entice the kind of reader who would enjoy the book, not to depict any single setting or event from the story.  Play with it all, until it looks good at first glance both at full size and in thumbnail.

or

b) Turn it over to a professional designer.  If your writing is good, it deserves to be represented by good design, and if your design skills aren’t up to snuff, you need to do what’s best for the book.

Other comments?

The author says:

In an ancient medieval fantasy-esque world, Ahliss, a would-be hero travels in search for fame and fortune with a great sword of intimidating proportions at her side. The sword has a tendency of remaining bandaged up due to the smallest cut being an exercise in murder. It’s an epic fantasy serial covering the travels of a quasi-mythological hero, inspired a great deal by the shounen-genre in the way its lore is built. It would likely appeal to males 13+, but featuring a strong female protagonist as its principal character, I’d like to think female fans of epic fantasy 13+ will enjoy it as well.

Nathan says:

I think the first problem here (which is actually two separate problems) is the sword.

Problem #1a: I can figure out that we’re looking at a sword hilt, but my first impression is that it’s a… hammer? Casket on a pedestal?  You can see how it’s hard to make out.

Problem #1b:  There are a lot of fantasy books, mostly indie-published, that feature swords on their covers.  It’s much less impressive than most of them think. According to your description, the sword in this book is visually distinctive because it’s usually wrapped up; think of how much more compelling the cover would be with a sword (not just the hilt, but most of the sword) partially bandaged, with a gleaming edge showing through where it’s unraveling!  I doubt you could find a pre-existing stock image like that, true; but if, say, you contact someone who has posted stock photographs of swords on DeviantArt and asked how much to get a custom shot of a wrapped-up sword, I bet you’d be pleasantly surprised at the price.  (I’m not saying the wrapped-up sword is the only way to go; I’m just trying to work with the cover ideas you’ve already decided on.)

The second problem (or third, depending on how you’re counting) is itself a multi-part issue: The type.

Problem #2a: I think the outlined title is a bad decision.  Calligraphy already can present a hurdle to easy readability; the hollow outline only  makes it worse.

Problem #2b: The “#1” seems more appropriate for a comic book or K-Mart flyer.  Fully spelling out “Book One” or “Episode One” or whatever seems more in keeping with the epic character.

Problem #2c: The spaceless all-caps byline.  As I’ve said before, the more unusual a name is, the more clearly readable it needs to be.  If your name were Bob Smith, you might get with “BOBSMITH” for the byline.  But with a name as long an uncommon as yours is, the byline is just a hopeless jumble.

Problem #2d: The layout of type around the central image.  If your cover art were custom-made and fascinating right down to the details, you might — might — be justified in squeezing the words out of the way so that art wouldn’t be obscured.  There’s no such justification here.  I’d say that your title here should be broken onto two lines, and all of it (including any “Book One” subtitle) could take up a full third of the cover at the top, and your byline — again, broken into two lines — should take up a quarter at the bottom.  You’d still have plenty of room for a simple but arresting central image (such as a bandaged sword) in between.

So there you are. Two problems, or maybe six.  Math is hard.

Other thoughts?

The author says:

A time travel adventure novel about a top Temporal-agent (female) forced to drag a hapless man through time. Much danger ensues. Written by her boss, the head of the Temporal Agency, Blog Glatnek.

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

Definite improvement!  You managed to be a lot more confident in your font use, while still maintaining the feel of the original (as opposed to my more “novelty”-style fonts in my mock-up). Here are a couple of things I would still look at:

1) I think there’s still a lot of wasted space at the bottom — I mean, it’s not like you need to make sure that the reader has an unobstructed view of her left sock, right?  I would tighten it up by cropping it a bit, making the top of that solid area behind the byline the bottom edge of the cover, and in compensation cropping a little from the left side.

2) While it’s good artwork, it tends to blur into a blue murk in thumbnail, or when glanced at (and remember, every book cover is first glanced at — it’s only after that first glance that a browser comes back for a second, longer look.) How can you make it “pop” more? I’d place with the contrast and/or the saturation — it doesn’t need to be garish, but a more dynamic contrast of light/dark or blue/red would make it more arresting.  Remember, your book cover’s first function is to work like a highway billboard, grabbing the attention of someone who could just as easily concentrate on something else. (Like the car in front of him.  Maybe you shouldn’t follow this comparison too far.)

3) The byline.  As you said in comments to the original submission,

I (Tanya Park, female) am the author. Blog (male) is the futuristic narrator of the book.

So where’s your name?  Because as it stands, there’s no reason for anyone to think anything except that Blog Glatnek is the honest-to-Elvis author.  This book will get filed under “G.”  If you’re trying to establish a pen name, that’s one thing; but if you’re instead trying to establish the identity of the narrator on the cover, I’d suggest something like:

4) Commas. I’d take as many as possible out of your tagline (i.e., all of them). “A Long-Distance Time Travel Romance Novel.”  If you feel really naked without some more punctuation, you could hyphenate “time-travel.”

Anybody else?

The designer says:

This is the description I received from the author:

 

“An unforgiving fog from the nation’s most polluted river rolls over a small Indiana town one Friday night in October of 1993. For those who were caught in its path, a new day has dawned onto who, or what they have become. Their bodies have changed and their diet has become “inconclusive,” until dead bodies surfaced at their docks on the inland river channel. For police chief Linton Derr, living in Fogstow, Indiana was a real dream. There was little to no crime. Everybody knew everyone else’s name. It made his job just a little bit easier and helped make the community one of the most desired places to live in the small riverside county that was once desolated by coal mines. But all it took was one big tragedy to put things into perspective. To bring all the skeletons out of the closet and force him to see that even in small towns, evil can walk amongst them. It could hide its deeds in the shadows and when the time was right . . .”

 

The author received some feedback saying the text was too bright and that the red needed to be toned down, but I think that makes it too murky and impossible to read at thumbnail size. I’ve also tried using white text, but that makes the cover look bland and colorless. It was also suggested that the hand be centered, but that didn’t look good at all. I was pretty confident with the cover until the feedback from other writers started coming in. But they’re not designers, and I put more stock into what you guys say.

Nathan says:

Thanks for making my job easy! This is 90% of a good cover, and it’s a lot easier to pile on that last 10% when the majority of the heavy living has been done.

First, regarding the type color: Remember that you’re not limited to all-or-nothing on either red or white.  I pulled your picture into Photoshop to try something, and:

I’d play with the width of the red border (which I made darker so it wouldn’t be so garish), and with using an off-white instead of pure white for the centers.  I also added a bit of a drop shadow, which is always a quick fix if you’re worried the type still isn’t distinct enough.

Second: The hand. I think an easy fix there would be to tip the hand on the diagonal — say, maybe 20 or 25 degrees counterclockwise. You could thus center its main visual mass while avoiding the “wine glass” appearance of having every cover element centered on the same axis.

Third: You didn’t ask, but I have some issues with the font (Freebooter, yes?). It looks fine for the title — the matching over-extending descenders of “OF THE” is a bonus — but it looks awkward in the byline, where the Ts just seem out of place.  Maybe using upper-and-lowercase instead of all caps would solve that problem.

Anybody else?