What are book covers for?
Everyone knows you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover. But we all do it anyway.
It’s human nature! It’s way too much work to flip through pages of some rando’s prose, trying to figure out if they’re a good or bad writer. But it’s dead easy to glance at a cover, quickly gauge its quality, and use that as shorthand for the quality of what’s inside.
As readers, we use book covers in this unconscious, judgy, and convenient way. There’s a simple binary outcome: looks good, or doesn’t look good.
But as an author, your book cover is not there to look good to you. Though it probably should.
Your book cover is there to grab the attention of the right readers, who will then skim your blurb, buy your book, and go on to enjoy it and tell their friends.
If this is gonna happen, your would-be reader needs to be able to look at your book, and know the genre, mood, and basic plot at a glance. Let’s look at some examples from my bookshelf to show how it works.
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
The castle in the background clues us in that this is a fantasy book. Then you’ve got the serious facial expressions and moody lighting setting the tone, letting us know this won’t be a lighthearted romp. The wizardly robe implies magic. And the dog and the ferret tell us that animals will play a big role in the story. So if you like serious fantasy stories involving animals, this cover has done its job. I read all 15 of the books that followed this one, and it all started with a glance at this picture by the great Michael Whelan.
How about this one?
Hella by David Gerrold
Thick jungle with a terrifying, caiman-like creature lunging out: check. Its scaly tail is wrapping behind a small, youthful figure who’s walking into the mist, clearly on a journey of some kind. The color palette is dark and dangerous, and the sans-serif title and author name fonts hint to us that this is science fiction, not fantasy. This book’s intended audience can see everything they need to know about the story, right there on the cover.
OK, just one more.
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
A stylized flying dragon, wrapped around an old-fashioned ship’s compass, containing a locket-like picture of a warship from the age of sail, flying a British flag. No points for guessing that this story is a fantastic re-imagining of what a classic Master and Commander-type story would be like if there had been dragons in the British Navy back in the time of Admiral Horatio Nelson.
This kind of analysis may seem obvious. But that’s the whole point! You want people to know what your book is about, so they’ll know to buy it. And they’re not going to start by reading your blurb. The cover has to hook them in.
Your book cover is not the place to defy convention. Save that for your story. If you flub the cover, your intended audience won’t recognize you. Even worse, the wrong audience might buy your book, be disappointed that it’s not what they expected, and leave bad reviews!