The author says:

It’s an autobiography on how I survived a brain tumor in the year of 2014. Would love to get some feed back on my cover. I already know that the Paragraph that is on the back needs work on.

Nathan says:

Congratulations on your victory!  Book publishing and any other activity pales next to that.

I think the biggest question for you is who your audience is.  If you expect that most of your readers will be family, friends and acquaintances that already know you, then the cover is fine.  If, however, you expect it to be read outside that circle, you need to look at it like a marketer.  An advertiser.  A filthy capitalist. 🙂

Think of someone who doesn’t know anything about you coming across this cover in a bookstore or on Amazon.  What do they see? A generic picture of someone they don’t know.  Where’s the appeal?  Where’s the hook?  What catches their eye?  Answer: nothing.  They would already have to know you and your story to be interested in the cover, which is opposite to the way it needs to work.

The generic but dramatic images you see on motivational posters (the real ones, not the snarky “demotivational” posters) are actually what you want here.  Sunlight peaking through heavy cloud over mountains, flowers springing from a log in an old-growth forest…  These images are common but popular because they portray the universal theme of blessings through adversity.  There are plenty of those images available for free (try FreeImages.com or Pixabay.com for starters).  Remember, your cover needs to appeal to readers before it can inform readers.

Good luck.

The author says:

Mordrak has been commissioned to find a wizard to enlist his help. The wizard he finds is not quite as expected and has his own agendas which cross over with the personal ambitions of Mordrak. The tower here is the abode of the wizard he finds. Thank you for your time!

Nathan says:

Oh, dear.

I hope you want me to be brutally honest, because that’s the only flavor I come in:  This looks completely amateurish.

The painting itself, while adequate in a “My aunt Bernice did it and I’m hanging it in my living room” sense, lacks the technical skill to appear on the front of a book.  On top of that, you’ve missed every opportunity to make the tower — the only distinguishable feature in the painting — eye-catching or dramatic. (See any of these covers for how to do it right.)

You also having a boring typeface that doesn’t communicate “fantasy setting” or stand out in any way from the background.

And to top it off, the square proportions don’t look like a book cover.  CD cover? Audiobook? Maybe.

Listen: THIS IS IMPORTANT. Readers will see this and not only think, “The author obviously isn’t much of an artist”; they’ll also think, “The author is completely unaware of his inadequacies and shortcomings, and that probably applies to the book itself.” YOU WILL HURT YOURSELF IF YOU USE THIS COVER.

There are plenty of accomplished semi-professional artists out there, and fantasy towers are common subject matter.  Do a search on DeviantArt, pay the artist $25 or $50 to license his/her artwork, and throw in some extra to have him/her design your type.

Don’t give potential readers any reason to skip over you and concentrate on the next book on the page or in their feed.

The author says:

Colden Frost, nineteen years old gaming genius has always day dreams of ‘better’ worlds, like the ones in his games he plays – and wins. When he finds himself transported to a different world in a different persona, he is elated. But is it the world he has always dreampt of or a dark reflection of his own world encased in ice. A reflection that holds something much darker, much deeper? Will Colden be able to clear this game? Or will he be consumed by his own personal Ragnarok?

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

I like it — it builds on the strengths of the original cover. The only thing I would recommend is to brighten the “up” side of the wolf so that it shows up better in thumbnail.

Other comments?

The designer says:

This is the cover I designed for my husband’s first book. No Quarter is a chase thriller set in LA in present time. People who like the Reacher novels or Bourne Identity might like No Quarter.

Nathan says:

Is this the final or a mockup?  I’ll assume the latter, so I won’t dwell on things like odd resolution and inconsistent edges.

Obviously, the problem with designing a cover meant to appeal to fans of blockbuster authors like Lee Child and Robert Ludlum is that the most important cover elements for either of them are the names “Lee Child” and “Robert Ludlum.” However, their current covers are also firmly in the current tradition of covers for thriller novels: Bold type that fills the cover, with anything else as a secondary feature.

Here’s my five-minute redo, which also changes the proportion a bit (since Ludlum’s and Child’s books always seem to come as tall paperbacks). I also added the “Series Character” placeholder — since both of those authors are famous for their series characters, that’s probably the same thing you want to promote.

Now, this still has plenty of problems — I think the original gray-dominant color scheme probably causes more problems than it solves — but I think this gives you a good starting point.

(Also: Lose the map texture.  It doesn’t really add anything, and it actually adds confusion.)

Other comments?