The author says:

The Belief Algorithm – How to be the Alchemist of Your Life

Belief _ how what you believe can determine you success and if you believe in yourself you can win and succeed

Environment – how your environment and the people you hang out with can determine your level of success

Law of attraction – how what you focus on can determine how successful you are.

Ikigai – your why and motivation. How to use this to be successful in your life.

Emotional Intelligence – how emotional Intelligence can lead to success. It is a better predictor of success than iq as per the research

Focus and failure – how to use focus and failure to achieve duccsss in your life

All the letters of belief stand for a way to achieve success in an area of your life

Next chapter is bridging the gap

Bridge the gap between beliefs and achievement through hard work, dedication, persistent, passion, etc. This chapter discusses other areas to work in such as discipline, etc to achieve succsss

The book is a self help, personal development/self improvement book intended to show people how to be the alchemist of their own life and create the life they always desired. I hope that makes sense. I can answer any questions you have related to others parts of the book. I discuss gratitude and perspective as a way to achieve success and how my beliefs around not wasting time, implementing with a sense of urgency and taking action with uncertainly can ultimately lead to success. Thank you for your feedback Looking forward to reading it

Nathan says:

While acknowledging that I’m not the target audience, I think this has winning elements. My only two recommendations:

1. Add either a border or an off-white background so that the edges of the cover are visible against a white webpage background (as most ebook vendor sites have).
2. Strengthen the word “Algorithm” (either make it darker, or add a dark border) so that it’s readable in thumbnail.

Good job!

Other comments?

The author says:

This is a non fiction how to business book geared to entrepreneurs who want to create online businesses.

Nathan says:

The biggest problems are those you can see in the thumbnail — or rather, that you can’t see: The entire cover is unreadable and unintelligible.  The fonts are too neutral and unassuming, the orange-vs-teal color scheme doesn’t contrast in value enough for the subtitle to be distinct from the background, and the stock graphic doesn’t seem to have any relation to the topic — it certainly doesn’t draw in potential readers who would want to learn about online businesses. The entire effect is definitely not a passionate one.

There are a lot of online business how-to books out there.  Your cover needs to be aesthetically appealing and easily understood, or else the eyeballs of your target audience won’t even pause on your cover before being drawn to the covers to either side of it in their Amazon search:

These are the covers that come up when I search for “online business” books on Amazon.  This is your competition.

My advice would be to start again from the concept up.

(And as an aside, I have no idea what a “PMP” is, or why that designation improves your credibility.)

Other comments?

The author says:

Michael Greyson awoke one morning feeling better than he had in years. Unfortunately, he soon learned he felt so good because he had died the day before. The upside to being dead was he made it to Heaven. The potential downside was he didn’t believe in Heaven, or God. Although Heaven is the last stop, Mike has one other option. This is a thoughtful story about being dead and Mike’s first ten days in heaven; helped by his guide Pete, no relation to the famous saint. Audience is baby boomers seeking a better understanding of the meaning of life. It’s literary fiction.

Nathan says:

I often joke that literary novels go out of their way to look like they’re about nothing, but in this case I think even that has been done to excess.  I understand not wanting to go “flashy” on the cover, but even with a muted and understated design, you could at least make the font a touch more eye-catching.  (And thicker; there’s no reason that the byline and accompanying credits need to be so hard to read.)

I’ll let others suggest font upgrades if they so choose — as far as I’m concerned, ANY clean, sedate typeface which is more easily read is an upgrade.

Have at it, folks!

The author says:

Dirty Snow is a contemporary erotic romance retelling of Snow White set in a made-up Kingdom. Target readers would be those who enjoy the stories of Madison Kaye and Nikki Sloane.

Nathan says:

It’s a good cover, but I don’t think it would appeal to what you say is your target audience.  I couldn’t find Madison Kaye on Amazon (probably some funky variant spelling), but this is what came up for Nikki Sloane:

…which is pretty much what I think of when I hear “erotic romance”: people gettin’ it on. And yes, a couple of the covers crop out most of all of the face to concentrate on the bodies.

If you search “erotic romance fantasy” on Amazon, the covers are a little different: most of them concentrate on male torsos, not female figures (and yes, almost all of the men’s heads are cut off).  They also go bolder on the colors — bolder than your misty pastels, and the direct opposite of the monochrome images on Sloane’s covers.

So my takeaway here is: If I were to design the cover of an erotic fantasy romance that appeals to Nikki Sloane readers, I would use an image of a couple in an intimate position, but use deep, engaging colors.

Other comments?

The author says:

This is for the first book in my YA urban fantasy series. I’m trying to go for a more urban fantasy/paranormal feel than the current cover. It’s set in the city and follows a teenage girl who has the power to control water and who is being chased by a Demon (she finds out later in the series that she’s an angel). It’s pretty comparable to the Mortal Instruments in tone and content.

Nathan says:

Having read the description, I can therefore make the connection that what I’m seeing around her is water.  However, for people who see the cover before they read the description, 98% of them will wonder if that’s some sort of bio-luminescent ectoplasm… and won’t click through to find out if they’re right.  Confusion does not equal interest.

I think you’re probably heading in the right direction overall, but you’re not there yet.  The model pose isn’t dynamic or active, the water doesn’t looks like water (as mentioned), the title font is a terribly dull Times-New-Roman-esque filler font (there’s only so much that filters and ornamentation can do to make a fundamentally boring font less boring), and the color scheme doesn’t look planned so much as discovered.

If I were hired to make a cover from this concept, I’d use stock photos of actual water that come up from the bottom as if the waves are magnetically attracted to her hands, find a font with just a titch of antique feel for the title (and extend it from side to side), and use the actual Mortal Instruments covers as a model for overlaying a consistent color scheme.

(Apropos of nothing: Chrome’s built-in spellchecker doesn’t know the word “ectoplasm,” but is just fine with “titch.”)

Other comments?