Sunday, April 29, 2012

The importance of book covers

Book covers. I guess they can sometimes be taken for granted, but when it's the first thing a prospective reader sees, their importance cannot be underestimated. A good cover should entice the reader to pick the book up, or in the case of eBooks to progress to the second stage, which is reading the blurb to see what the story is about. That's why I've never been happy with the covers I used for The Kult. It's been through a few incarnations, but none of the recent ones have felt or looked right. I mean for one thing, when you look at a cover, you should instantly know what genre the book is. The problem with The Kult was compounded because it was part of a series with Killers, but put the books side by side and you never would have guessed it.

I had been struggling to design something myself, and I'd seen a couple of covers by Karri Klawiter that I liked, so I hired her to design a new cover, and over a couple of days and a few emails we came up with something I'm more than happy with. I think both covers now give a hint of the story but they also create a sense of foreboding. I hope people agree:


The books can be purchased from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

And you can check out more of Karri's work on her website: http://artbykarri.com/tag/karri-klawiter/

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