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When the Cover You Want Isn’t What You Get

January 22, 2010 by Susan Wenger, Designer

You check your email inbox, and your heart leaps into your throat. It’s a draft of your front cover. You’ve been waiting for this since before you finished your manuscript. With trembling fingers you open the attachment and ... your heart sinks.

The cover doesn’t remotely resemble what you had in mind. You’re not sure you like it.

Actually, you’re pretty sure you hate it.

Now what?

Don’t fire off an angry email. Instead, take a deep breath and step away from the computer. The first thing you want to do is figure out why you don’t like the draft. What course of action you should take depends largely on the answer to this question.
 
The design misrepresents the book in some significant way

Say you’ve written about a group of twentysomething friends living in New York. Your characters are snarky and cynical, and there’s an element of dry humor throughout. Now imagine that the stock art on your cover shows a happy couple sitting on a bench in Central Park, holding hands. The art makes it seem as though the novel is a sappy love story. That’s a real problem from a marketing standpoint.

Regardless of how beautiful the cover is, it won’t work if it turns off your target audience.

In this case, the only solution might be a total redo. You are within your rights to ask for one.

The design misrepresents some minor detail in the book

Say you’ve penned a memoir about the eight-month cross-country road trip you took after your husband died. As requested, your image contains a winter scene with a winding, narrow, tree-lined road.

The stock photo is very pretty, and it evokes the feel you were going for. The problem? The trees are aspens. You only saw pines.

This is, as they say, not a hill worth dying for. A book cover is supposed to convey a sense of what’s within, not depict each detail literally. Your readers won’t demand their money back because the tree wasn’t an evergreen, or the character’s sweater was supposed to be blue instead of green.

It wasn’t what you saw in your head

Sometimes it’s hard to articulate what you don’t like about the design. All you know is that you had a picture of the cover in your head—or maybe just a vague impression—and this isn’t it.

The best decision to make when this happens is ... no decision. At least not yet. Stare at the cover draft for a while. Carry it around in your mind. Become familiar with it so you’re no longer shocked by the disconnect between what you expected and what you got.

Once you’ve attained that familiarity, try to judge it on its own terms. Is it a good design? Does it evoke the themes and feel of the book? Would it appeal to your target audience?

If yes to all three? You may have a winner.

Tags: design, cover
Filed Under: Design

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