‘Don’t judge a book by the cover’ as the old wisdom goes, unfortunately, however, in the real world everyone does. There is going to be some harsh unforgiving honesty with myself in this post, but sometimes that is required.

A week ago I took out my phone and showed a group of friends three cover designs for a book I am in the process of vaguely writing. This is to say it is not the book I should be writing but the book I am writing while I need a break from the book I should be writing. The reason for this was a couple of evenings before while while avoiding writing the book I was writing to avoid writing the book I should be writing, I faffed on with cover ideas and came up with three different ones*.

*You should note here that none of these are final designs, they are scribbles on the page… no more than that. They are far from finished.

Well actually two as I had a cover design already from a pervious procrastination. I was not entirely sold on the first one though it used a technique I had used before with Maybe, in that the character on the front was facing into the book with her back to the reader. There is phycology at work here, but also practicality

The practicality is once you use an image for a character you are stuck with them to an extent. You are going to need more than one picture in case you go back to that character. Show them looking into the book and you avoid that and allow the reader to project whatever image they want onto the character.

The phycology is it invited mystery, who is the shadowy figure she is looking at? Who is she? There is an implied sinisterness to this situation as well, something bad is going to happen.

The other covers I made are based on both main characters in the novel, which could be described as a Victorian version of the men in black ( The Men in Dark Tweed), but also shades of the avengers (the 60’s the British TV show not the American comic book superhero team) Mr Chapman is very much and allegory of John Steed and Miss Bradshaw is equally an allegory of Emma Peel. It is all set within a Victorian secret government department dealing with occult threats and other weirdness, while keeping the general populous unaware that strange things are going on. It is my distraction novel because its is just plain fun to write and does not take itself seriously.

Of the small select group of friends I asked, the opinions I got back was almost entirely universal. Everyone was intrigued and interested by the first cover. Liked the mystery and invitation to discover more it held. And none of them cared much for the other two, which felt forced and uninspired. So that was an evenings procrastination avoiding writing the book I was writing to avoid writing what I should have bene writing wasted…. But at least I got opinions. Opinions are good.

Also, it struck me afterwards that the single most successful novel I have written, the sequel to which is the book I should be writing, in case your wondering. Maybe, has a very similar cover in that the female main character is facing into the book. The cover of Maybe captures peoples imagination, possibly because of the title as well, but certainly the cover works in a way some others don’t.

To offer another example I have a couple of small anthologies the most recent of which is Auguries of Euryale. The most successful however is The Strange and the Wonderful which preceded it and was the reason I did Auguries in the first place as The Strange and the Wonderful sells well for an anthology and also does well at events. The cover just works and draws people to it. It is often the book people pick up first.

Yet it has a simple cover, a cloud scape with a pagan, witchy, skull thing I just liked when I stumbled across it and bought the art. Auguries by contrast has a cover design I really like, but it has not sold as well as I could have reasonably expected, which as its an anthology was not a great deal to start with as anthologies are really books people buy if they have bought your novels and want more, which has happened. What hasn’t happened it Auguries hasn’t found a audience beyond that in the way The Strange and the Wonderful does, nor does Auguries draw attention at events the way the other book does. As much as I love the cover, it isn’t doing what I as an author need the cover to do.

It doesn’t matter how good the stories are, or even the blurb, if no one gives the book a second look due to the cover. Covers are a dark art in that respect.

This brings me to the cover another novel, and one both written and published, one for which I also adore the cover design…. Lucifer mandrake: The Esoteric cricket Ball.

The Lucifer, Luci cover tells you a lot about the book without telling you about the book. Its a very pretty cover, I am very fond of it. But here in lays the rub… The novel, which those who have read it are fairly universal in praising, just has not sold. It just hasn’t managed to grab peoples attention and that unfortunately may have a lot to do with the cover.

I had a conversation about the cover, and covers in general, a few months back while working an event with fellow authors, and asked for candid opinions. Candid opinions are exactly what I got. The summery of which is the cover at first glance suggests the book look like something other than it is a fantasy/supernatural romance. That was not my intention, its not what I write in general and certainly isn’t the case with this novel. So readers who are attracted by the cover are not ones that would be inclined to read the novel once they read the blurb. The pitch is wrong. The cover is therefore by extension wrong.

When I say the book has not sold, that is exactly what I mean. While it has done reasonably well at events, where I can tell people about it, online it has sold less than a quarter of what I could have reasonably expected based on how other books did in the first 16 months of their release. A book I have been told be several readers is the best I have ever written*, is utterly failing to find readers, even among people who have read other books of mine. It just isn’t finding its market.

*They are wrong, the best novel I have ever written is Passing Place, but Lucifer is up there with my best in my opinion.

Cover designs are a discussion that comes up a lot with the Harvey Duckman Anthologies, as recently as yesterday I was in a discussion between several of us, and the chief, about the cover of the forthcoming Dark Urban Fantasy anthology Feral and Fae which is due towards the end of the month. The discussion was long and complicated and I shall not bore you with the opinions. The main font for Fae is being changed and some other minor things, But these were the choices of cover presented to us by Harvey resident cover designer, the lovely Nick Jenkinson (Klaus) who Gillie keeps locked up in her cellar and feeds on scraps of bacon, allegedly…

My own favourite of the three, the middle one, is not the one being used, indeed it the one no one else seemed to like. But as you may have realised by now, what I like does not always make for a good cover…

A good cover being he cover that finds readers.

Which brings me back to Lucifer, the novel that no one reads, with the cover that does not work. Having decided this is the case I have started putting together a few possible replacements, the first of which is a minimalist design, meant to stand out, and attract attention in the way the Strange and the Wonderful cover does. I will be making more before I fix on anything final. It is designed for impact, it is designed for people to say, what is that? A couple of versions of this first idea are below.

I am not yet convinced I have this cover right, and I will make some more designed before I make any changes. But I do like the simplicity of this one. It has impact and intrigue to it, which is sometimes the secret, to finding the answer to the question ‘what cover will work best’.

Lucifer Mandrake: The Esoteric Cricket Ball is good novel. It deserves to be read. Covers matter and the current one just isn’t working. Which is a shame, but the point of a cover is not to please the writer but to find a book readers.

Sometimes you have to kill your darlings, and sometimes reinvent them.