New covers replacing the old ones. Feedback?

Gregg Bell

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Hi. Some of you convinced me to try covers that (hopefully) add menace. (And since posting I really think my book (One Slip) is more in the literary genre than the child endangerment thriller one.) Still in the book, the child dies. Here's a rough blurb that will give you an idea of the story. Thanks.



Life’s not easy, but Connie Silverstein is making it work. She’s a fourth year medical student in Chicago. She’s has an apartment on the lakefront, a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle and a hunky Iraqi war veteran boyfriend. She’s lined up a coveted residency at a prestigious hospital after she graduates. All her effort is finally paying off.

But then one day she gets a call from her good friend, Miranda. Miranda’s daughter has been in a terrible accident and is in the emergency room. Can Connie take her four-year-old son, Todd, so she can deal with the doctors? Despite it being not the best of circumstances, Connie feels like she can hardly let her friend down. She races to the hospital.

Todd’s a sweet kid, a charmer, who calls her “Aunt Connie.” He asks if they can go to the beach. Connie hesitates—it’s windy and the waves are rough—but then takes him there.

She wished she hadn’t.

Todd’s drawn out in one of Lake Michigan’s notorious rip currents and is rescued but only after he’s suffered considerable brain injury that may be permanent.

Connie tries to help Todd—she has contacts with world-class brain injury doctors—but Miranda is bitter and shuts her out. Traumatized by her thoughts that Todd’s injury happened while he was in her care, Connie quits going to classes and takes to drink. Soon her life is spiraling out of control, and so her father forces her into therapy, but it’s no use. Connie can’t forgive herself. Over and over, friends and family assure her that accidents happen to everyone and she shouldn’t be so hard on herself, but only Connie knows the terrible secret that what happened to Todd wasn’t an accident.



Here's one of the old covers:

One-Slip300-X453-NEWtestdarkerest.jpg


And here are the new ones:

1)
One-Slip-First-Mockup-No1300-X465.jpg



2)
One-Slip-First-Mockup-Grayscale300-X465.jpg
 

veinglory

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I think the first one with the child (the old one) hits the anxiety button but you could work more with the colors
 
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starrystorm

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I like the new covers. If I had to pick between the two I would say the all color one (the first of the new ones).
 

Curlz

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repeats
 
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Curlz

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I like the new ones. There's a story in there. With the first one, it looks too much like a holiday snap. But the abandoned bucket just makes you wonder who dropped it and why. There's an immediate drama there. Maybe the black and white one, with the focus on the red bucket is spot on. Altough it's a bit too grim. Depends on what you're selling really. If it was in a brick and mortar store, I'd prefer the colorless one, it says "literary". If it's going to be a thumbnail online, then the second one with more colors would stand out better.
 

-Riv-

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I like the bucket ones, but would like them even more if the tracks in the sand also led toward the water rather than only to the left. It would be much more ominous, IMO.
 

Gregg Bell

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I think the first one with the child (the old one) hits the anxiety button but you could work more with the colors

Thanks vein. It seems the cover with the little boy really gets to the moms who have seen it. Thanks for the suggestion about the colors.
 

Gregg Bell

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I like the new ones. There's a story in there. With the first one, it looks too much like a holiday snap. But the abandoned bucket just makes you wonder who dropped it and why. There's an immediate drama there. Maybe the black and white one, with the focus on the red bucket is spot on. Altough it's a bit too grim. Depends on what you're selling really. If it was in a brick and mortar store, I'd prefer the colorless one, it says "literary". If it's going to be a thumbnail online, then the second one with more colors would stand out better.

Thanks Curlz. The plan for right now is it's going to be online, and I hadn't thought about the colored one standing out more as a thumbnail.
 

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Funny because I looked at the pictures first and had the reverse reaction. A kid wandering into the sea means drowning and makes me worried. A bucket in the sand means happy holiday.
 

Gregg Bell

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Funny because I looked at the pictures first and had the reverse reaction. A kid wandering into the sea means drowning and makes me worried. A bucket in the sand means happy holiday.

I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder. Regarding the bucket in the sand meaning happy holiday, that's why I went with the
grayscale to--hopefully--disabuse the happy holiday notion. Along with the title and the big waves I hoped that would be enough
to convey that something bad had happened.