The author says:

A man leaves his planetary defense system in hopes of joining the planet’s police force. What he finds out changes the course of his life and the planet. This is a SciFi novel set on a planet in another galaxy. The target audience would include Star Wars fans.

Nathan says:

I’ll be painfully honest: If I had seen this for sale on Amazon, I’ve have posted it on LousyBookCovers.com. It’s completely underwhelming, especially for a genre as slam-bang as space opera. The font, Times New Roman, is the most common one in the world. The moons are dull and featureless — and the upper one is visibly “stretched,” instead of being spherical.  Even the starscape is boring.

What would I do? I would awesome it up!  Use a mechanical or futuristic font, and then add flares and rivets! Texturize the moons! Add a rainbow nebula to the starscape! (Did you know that every photo on the NASA website is free for public use? They’ve already been paid for with your tax dollars.)

If you don’t feel at all confident in your abilities to use PhotoShop or a similar program to get the results you want, the other option is simple: A quick search for “space opera” on DeviantArt.com gives me over 6,000 results. Find some pre-existing artwork you like (it shouldn’t be hard, as the cover you already tried had very little content that related specifically to you book), message that artist and offer him/her fifty bucks for the use of their art on your book. They might even put in the title and byline for you.

Good luck!

The author says:

OAK POINT is commercial fiction for readers who experienced the sixties, or would have liked to. It is the story of two girls coming of age in 1969, one of whom has an affair with the neighbor of Countess Mona von Bismarck. It also explores the world of French haute couture, especially Balenciaga, and Long Island society as it stood in those free-wheeling days. A “Roman à clef” based on real people and events, the cover is a map of Oak Point, which I grew up next door to in the 50s-60s. Other parts are set in Paris, NYC, & KY.

Nathan says:

I think the main problems are immediately apparent if you look at the thumbnail: The title isn’t very readable, the byline is completely obscured, and the map — which is always an arresting image — barely looks like a map, thanks to the color treatment.

Here’s what I would try:

• Put the map in “map colors” — either its original color scheme, or a beige-and-coffee color scheme that looks like well-used paper. Overly a texture of crumpled paper (not too strong, and stronger at the edges) to map it look like an honest-to-goodness used map.
• There’s no design reason to have the title shifted to the left; centering and enlarging it makes it look less like an afterthought.  If the background map is in for-real map colors, the color you have for the title should stand out better, but I’d still look at other fonts — something that does better at evoking either the time or place.  Find some old paperbacks or fashion magazines from 1969 for ideas.
• Separate “A Novel” from the rest of the byline.  Put “A Novel” under the title, and your name someplace separate like at the bottom.  You can then increase the size of your name, making it more readable. I’d play with the font here, too, to give it some of the flavor of your setting. (Those fonts are especially important on your cover because, without cues given by the fonts, the old map might make it look like a pirate adventure.)

I get the suspicion that, even once those changes are made, the cover will still want something else, but I’m not foresightful enough to know what that would be.

Other ideas?

The author says:

It’s a young adult fantasy. Leya has two different coloured eyes and is chosen to attend the Sphere of Vision, even though one eye may be too weak to fulfill her potential. She develops power over both water (blue) and plant (green). THIS IS NOT MY BLURB. It needs work.

Nathan says:

The face is a good, striking image. Is there any reason that the top and sides of her head aren’t there?

Neither the title font or the byline font really strike me as being right. I want to see the title be bigger and less “hesitant”; you can reduce the size of the series title to make room if you want.  And adding a lighter highlight to the title will make it pop with more contrast.

The thin letters of the byline get lost against the energetic shape of the flower.  I’d find a way to separate those two elements so they’re not competing directly against each other.

More ideas?