One of the delights of ebook publishing is the ease with which updates can be made. It’s not like having a warehouse of paper volumes to discard in the process.
Recently, while preparing a new book for release at Smashwords.com, I revisited my novel, Hometown News, and wondered if the cover might work more effectively than it did.
I liked the cleanness of the current design and the graphic impact of the elements but questioned whether it might convey a better sense of being about the news business itself. The typeface on the cover conveys the title but nothing else. The story does play out in a moderately-sized industrial city, which also needs to be hinted at in the design.
The photo delivers on the idea of hot news and impending disaster as well as a working-class, blue-collar neighborhood, but I was curious to see if it might have more punch if it reached both sides of the cover. Or “bled” off the page, as we’d say in the trade.
The previous version of the cover did just that, but cropping the photo to accommodate the title and author type was another matter. Remember, ebook covers are essentially thumbnails to be viewed on a cell phone, laptop, or tablet computer screen.
The photo here is cropped less tightly than on the later cover. Does including a portion of the porch roof below add to the message or does it lessen the immediacy? Does the placement of my name detract from that?
There are good reasons this one went back to the drawing board.
The first cover, below, played on the idea of bucolic small-town America and fit into the series of covers of my other novels, but as you can see, there’s no promise of the coming drama within the book itself. So much for brand identity.
While this one was produced by a professional designer at low cost, I must ask myself what an artist would do as an alternative to a photo as the key graphic element. Perhaps a roll of newspaper reaching out across a steel mill and downtown? Downplaying color might allow for the title and author’s name to float over the artwork and still be readable, something that simply wasn’t working with the house fire photo.
Few newspapers have managed with a feel-good approach to community, no matter what many critics would wish. Everybody hates a fire, right? With a morbid fascination?
Returning to the design challenge, here’s where the book stands now:
The key to the redesign was having the name in a single line, like a newspaper nameplate. Thus, a different serif typeface in the new cover. Admittedly, it is harder to read as a thumbnail, but I am going with the tradeoff. I’m venturing that it will reenforce the type on a Web site’s pitch rather than run alone.
The photo, once again, bleeds off the page, delivering maximum visual impact.
More and more, I’m looking at an ebook cover as a poster than as packaging for a commodity.
What do you look for in a book cover?
These blasts of alarm and rage, 1976-2008, are an emotional mirror of events leading up to today, a not-so-distant past that’s been intensifying toward devastation. Let them stand as a call for personal honesty and engagement, too.
Jnana's Red Barn 