The Cover Question - Which One Would You Buy - Need Opinions

[K.L. Brady]

Cover #1 Above

 

Cover #2

 

As I prepare to release my debut novel in paperback, I hope to get opinions on which cover is the most marketable. I personally love cartoon covers but not everyone does. I notice the trend seems to be toward photo covers.

 

Assuming you'd buy one or the other, which one is most appealing?

 

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

 

(BTW: For anyone interested, it's available on e-book)

 

[Stephanie Haefner]

I like both!!! But the second does give the reader a better idea of what the theme of the story is. Good luck!

[Kari Boardman]

#2  I like that one much better.

[K.L. Brady]

Thank you for your input everyone!

 

I made a few changes to cover #1 to make it more fun. But every time I ask the votes seem to split right down the middle. Half and half.

 

[DG Publishing]

The third, definitely. Here are the reasons why:

 

On all of the other novels, I didn't know it was a series. At first glance I now see it's called The Jane Series. Many people love series and many people don't. Being able to get it up and out on that front cover is honest and clear.

Second, your name looks so much better now. Even when you blew it up, I still would say 'nay' because an authors name needs to be on there, big and familiar like the title. You want people to see that cover and see your name. It isn't very big but the heart is covering not only the name, but the call of the book. Even without the name, it looks really good.

The characters are no longer squished, which is a major improvement. Also the 'A Romantic Comedy' strip at the top is perfect, the reader doesn't even have to second guess the cover. The title in connected clouds brings the point across even more. The contrasting red and blue come together also.

 

The only thing you would want to change is By K.L. Brady. Pick up a published book and see if any of them put by.

 

K.L. Brady. Loud, proud, you need no By:

 

Last but not least, your cover looks decent in a small size, and if you distribute it through online retailers, small covers that look nice can make or brake sales so great great job.

 

Good luck with your book!

 

[K.L. Brady]

Thank you, DG for your insights...and for the tip about the "by" lol.  I'm old! :) I appreciate the well wishes too. 

[Christy Pinheiro]

I like cover #2. It's cuter. But I also like cover #1, except that the font looks suspiciously like it's Curlz MT. That would be bad. Google it and see what I mean.

[K.L. Brady]

I didn't see any negative controversy in my google search. What's the deal?

[Christy Pinheiro]

I follow a lot of professional book designer's blogs, and it's always at the top of the list as one of the worst fonts of all time-- the last link talks about the worst fonts to use in design.

 

http://lmnop.blogs.com/lauren/2006/10/americas_most_f.html

 

And another:

 

http://www.heyokadesign.com/news.asp?post=top-ten-worst-font-choices

 

And another:

 

http://modernl.com/article/5-terrible-fonts-that-you-should-not-use...

 

I don't design my own books anymore (I use Marin Book Works). But I have mistakenly used a few of these fonts in the past.

[Jennifer Kitchens]

I'd pick #1 over #2

[K.L. Little]

I kind of prefer the top cover, if the focus is more on romance, as the cover's book description would indicate. If it's more of a romantic comedy, then the cartoon cover would reflect that.  The second cover also seems to reflect some conflict of romantic interests, but the photo cover does not.