I hear a lot about amateurish and professionally designed covers and how different effect they have on buyers. It would be nice to compare actual covers (same genre, approximately similar subject/theme/idea of the book) of the two, just to get a better idea what to do and what not to do. Any ideas? Perhaps, with links to both books that are compared?
Professional and Amateur Cover Comparison
- Thread starter GreenTea
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Tricky. I'm not comfortable criticizing amateur covers (done by people other than the people asking me to look at them, I mean). 1. It's too easy. 2. It's mean.
That's not to say I haven't snarked about some. It's a guilty pleasure. But it's not really helpful.
May I suggest comparing good and bad versions of professionally done covers? That way you're still bringing up points of good design without taking it out on someone powerless.
Good design is, after all, the point, and common errors can be found among professionals as well as amateurs.
That's not to say I haven't snarked about some. It's a guilty pleasure. But it's not really helpful.
May I suggest comparing good and bad versions of professionally done covers? That way you're still bringing up points of good design without taking it out on someone powerless.
Good design is, after all, the point, and common errors can be found among professionals as well as amateurs.
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My suggestion is to use the artist for hire's portfolio as a basis for comparison. That's what it's for after all.
For example, I don't think this one is that appealing. At least, not to me. But that isn't even a self-published book. I really don't know what the publishers were thinking.
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For example, I don't think this one is that appealing. At least, not to me. But that isn't even a self-published book. I really don't know what the publishers were thinking.
Anything to detract from Woolf's name would be a bad design. The simplicity and huge amount of whitespace is a good thing for sales, IMHO.
I love this!!!
But then I would probably cry if I ever saw one of my designs on there.
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Me too, proably. OTOH, check out the good sense of humor displayed by the cover artist of "Written in Time" at the top of http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/page/35/
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