4-20 cover design

[Unimportant]

My 2 cents:

I know what a gumball machine is (dispenses random gumballs after you put a coin in the slot). I know what a vending machine is (dispenses your selected drink, candy bar, bag of chips, whatever after you pay via a credit card). I would not call a gumball machine a vending machine.

I have seen marijuana buds, dried, several years old. They were green. I assumed the brown things in the image were either chocolate chips or rabbit turds.

The only time I ever purchased marijuana was when I was a uni student over 40 years ago, but even back then a single joint cost more than 25 cents.

So, for me, this cover image makes no sense whatsoever and tells me nothing about the type of reference text/story inside.

 

[TeresaRose]

You have to keep in mind that, when you design your cover, what you want people to notice isn't the same as what sticks out. Also, people don't spend nearly as much time watching your cover as you do.

Designing a cover is similar to writing a book. You can perfect every little detail, but if the overall view doesn't support it, it won't work.

There's no problem with what you chose to represent on your photo. It's everything else that needs work.

One trick designers use to improve their covers is to squint to make the design blurry, so instead of focusing on the little things that you love (the idea of a vending machine, the sticker...) you see the cover the same way your readers do. With yours it looks like this:

As you can see, at first glance, it's very square and rigid. Because of the low contrast and the small size, the product, sticker and everything else are not eye-catching. They fade into the background. That doesn't mean they're not interesting, it means they're not what potential readers notice. Readers notice: faded photo pasted over a dark green background, blocky title.

Which is why it's so important to start with your comps and subgenre. You need to identify the general shape and colors readers expect for your kind of books.

But that doesn't mean you need to let the gumball/leaf vending machine idea go. You can even keep this photograph (provided you own the rights) and fix it to make it look professional. It's like with writing: if people say your opening doesn't work, it doesn't mean your story is bad. It only means you need to work on the opening.

I see a turtle...

 

[bunny hugger]

If a cover is failing specifically due to embarrassment or reluctance to have it publically seen it will tend to differentially affect the print version over the ebook, e.g. sales more extreme than 1:10 in favor of the ebook format on Amazon. If both are suppressed, well, it's just not grabbing attention in general.

 

[Maryn]

Bunny hugger makes a good point. It's one thing to be reluctant to have a book with weed on its cover sitting around in your living room or on your desk at work. Since covers of ebooks are not going to be visible to the casual observer (regardless of the device on which they're read), when sales of both versions are lower than expected, it's not due to the cover alone.

 

[CMBright]

The gumball machine in the art is obviously a gumball machine. The brown part becomes an interesting Rorschach test. I see it as pet treats. If it isn't obvious and given the range of impressions it isn't, I suspect that part of the cover art is not successful at selling "hey, this book has a plot that features cannabis" as well as the green gumball machine and leaf do.

In my opinion? It looks like an inexpensive non-fiction book on either growing or using cannabis. Possibly a cookbook with cannabis recipes for homemade edibles. Which is at odds with the title. I have seen you mention that illegal sale of cannabis is a major plotline elsewhere, I do not get that impression from the cover art. I do not necessarily see crime thriller from either the cover art or the title.

 

[Ergo]

Reply in error. Deleted.

 

[Ergo]

Reply in error. Deleted.

 

[Ergo]

Reply in error. Deleted.

 

[Jean P. R. Dubois]

Are you intentionally trying to bump the post? Why are there three deleted posts "in error"?

 

[Ergo]

Are you intentionally trying to bump the post? Why are there three deleted posts "in error"?

No, so sorry. I've been trying to delete them. Even reached out to Maryn. My futile attempts just keep me getting deeper.

 

[Maryn]

How about we leave this thread be? I get deciding you should not have posted what you did, but as writers, we also own our words.

I'm going to lock it, since the discussion of the cover seems to be complete.