An open embrace

OK, battle of the clichés. Which is truer: “You can’t judge a book by its cover” or “A picture is worth a 1000 words”?

Well, please pick your preferred platitude – but when it comes to book marketing, then the thousand-words cliché beats the can’t-judge cliché into a cocked hat. A cocked hat with gold frogging and a generously sized rosette.

The fact is that, whether a reader is looking on Amazon or on a bookstore table, they start with only two really key bits of data. (I’m assuming, of course, that you don’t happen to have a name like Margaret Atwood or Dan Brown. If you do, I’d say that potential readers have three key bits of data, and the name wins out.)

The two bits of data are:

1. The book cover image

2. The title.

There may be shoutlines or puffs or subtitles on the cover too, but a reader doesn’t really grapple with those until they’ve assessed the first two items. And the hand doesn’t reach for the book, the cursor doesn’t move in for the click, unless those two things intrigue the target reader enough.

So how do you get the click? That is, probably, the most single important moment in the entire marketing chain.

This is a complicated question and every book and every situation is different, but my guidelines would be as follows:

Communicate genre

Take a look at these two images: 

Which is better? The first is the current book cover, the second one is from the movie DVD. Assume that the book is newly launched and can’t yet sell itself on name and reputation alone.

And the answer, surely, is that the actual book cover does a very poor job. The book is a dystopian fantasy involving an all-action teenage heroine. The readers you want to attract are young adults who want a dystopian fantasy featuring an all-action teenage heroine. The first image is … what? A historical novel? A lament for vanishing wildlife? A literary meditation of some sort? It’s entirely unclear. (That’s not a criticism of the 2025 cover, though. The book has become iconic, so it can afford a purely iconic cover.)

The DVD cover on the other hand does everything it needs to do. Dystopian? Yep. Fantasy? Well, probably, because most contemporary teenage girls don’t mess around with flaming arrows. Tough teenage heroine? Uh, yes. And the font says “speculative / future-set” not “Roman / classical / literary / boring.”

So, that’s your cover’s first job. Communicate genre. Establish an immediate link with the reader you’re targeting.

Communicate niche

Within any genre, there are any number of sub-genres. Cosy crime has a different vibe and a different readership from mainstream police procedurals… and both of those feel very different from gangland, mobster-type crime.

Your cover needs to find the niche within the niche. Your target reader needs to become curious with her very first glance.

Ignore your book

OK, you don’t have to ignore what actually happens in your book, and if the image in the cover relates to the text itself, then so much the better. But the worst self-made covers I’ve seen all fall into the trap of trying to interpret, over-literally, the story and settings of the actual text.

Perhaps those covers would be satisfying to people who had already read the novel and understood the allusions. But this is a marketing tool! People don’t know what those allusions mean. The cover has to attract people in – not provide an after-dinner mint to people who have just enjoyed your offering.

Here’s a cover that has effectively nothing to do with the text of the book:

The book is – duh! – not about moths and windowpanes. But who cares? It’s beautiful. 

Layer your messages 

Clare’s book cover also nudges a further point. The title has an opportunity to convey a message (or messages) of some sort. The cover art gives you a second opportunity to do the same. 

So don’t repeat yourself! Set up an interesting reverberation between the two. 

Suppose that book cover had shown an open hand and a moth flying away – that would have repeated the message of the cover… and produced something utterly bland. 

As it is, the cover here says, “Trapped.” The title says, “Released”. What’s going on? It’s that sort of question which invites further investigation. That’s the question which makes you read the shoutline. (“A tragic accident. A past you can’t escape.”) 

In effect, the reader is being led along like this:

1. Beautiful image (of the right sort of mood) attracts the eye

2. The title and the image kind of fight each other, prompting curiosity

3. The shoutline (and the title, and the domestic image) confirms your hunch that this is a psych thriller and that there are interesting mysteries to explore

4. You pick up the book and turn it over. 

Step 2 – the layering of the messages – is absolutely crucial to the whole sequence. 

In effect, the title and the cover are dancing a tango – but in loose (“open”) embrace instead of close embrace. You feel the linkage, but you also feel a distance.           

The open question 

For the same kind of reason, the title / cover needs to invite a question. That’s why the classic romance cover (woman in big dress, man with very open shirt) invites derision. It’s so single note: a tune played with one finger. 

The best covers – even in the romance aisle, where readers are seeking a relatively simple happy ever after story – all play with two hands, a full range of notes. Books like these: 

Those covers are beautiful… they talk about romance and they intrigue. 

That book about summer yells about happy summer days – but then strongly suggests them ending. Huh? What happens to this happy, splashy couple? 

And a book offering a love story shouldn’t talk about endings, surely? So what’s going on with the pair in the Yulin Kuang novel? 

“Isabel and the Rogue” has a rather more typical romance title – naming both parties and suggesting the guy has some growing up to do – but the image subverts that. The yellow-dress woman looks very much in control. The nice chap sitting next to her looks very mannerly and not at all rogue-y. So what’s going on? The same title with an image that just repeats the ‘girl + rogue’ meme of the title would be killingly bad. 

In every case, it’s an open question which intrigues the reader and prompts exploration. I think it’s probably true that EVERY good cover creates that intrigue. 

Work at thumbnail size 

Whether you’re working with a trad publisher or whether you’re commissioning your own self-pub cover, you will find that your designer presents you with your cover image at the hugest scale the internet can deal with. Ideally, a designer would like you to view the cover at monster size in the comfort of your own home cinema. 

Which means that the first thing you should do is shrink that damn cover down to Amazon-thumbnail size and see if it still works. Every test I’ve suggested in this email needs to work at diddy-size as well as at full size. As a matter of fact, I always think it’s helpful to superimpose your draft cover on a screen grab of an Amazon search page to see if your cover holds up against the competition you will face.  

Make a fuss 

My last command is for you, not your book cover. 

And it’s this: I know you are a very nice person. You’re like the gentleman seated next to Isabel, very nicely mannered, always ready to pass a bun and apologise for any crumbs on the carpet. 

But if your cover is weak, say so, say so, say so. You have a pram, I hope? Throw toys out of it. Throw your sticky bun on the carpet. You wish to hurl, not throw? Then hurl away. Hurl hard.  

Do not accept a mediocre cover. I’ve done that too often in my career (publishers coax you into acceptance), but do not do it. 

Make a mess. Yell. Scream. Get yourself a decent cover. That’s easy to do if you’re self-publishing. Harder to do – but just as essential – if you’re trad-publishing. 

You can go back to being nice again afterwards. 

Feedback Friday is all on titles this week. Anyone can have a go. I’ll be around, offering feedback, but my feedback is only for Premium Members, so if you’re not a PM, you have a sad life ahead, unless you Do What Needs To Be Done. 

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FEEDBACK FRIDAY

We’ll do titles this week. Tell us what your book is about in 2-3 sentences, and tell us the title you’ve chosen. If you have a subtitle or shoutline in mind, then tell us that too. 

We want to feel a ripple of intrigue – a question we need answered. 

Once you’re ready, log in to Townhouse and share your work here.

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Til soon,

Harry.