Book covers telegraph a great deal, and as much as I wish for the good old days of not judging a book by its cover. More than ever, we need to judge and categorize books based on their cover.
Three days into a book idea – I decided to try out the title – Moving Target on a book cover.
That sounds very early, and it is, but it also helped me focus on the book’s theme and what it was really about.
Like trying on a dress or suit in preparation for a big party, the first one may not be the best one. As was the case with my nacent cover.
For graphics I love Canva, and it was quite easy to plug in the working title and ask their AI to make suggestions.
Or I could have asked graphic AI to create a cover based on the title.
And what I discovered – nothing worked. No cover expressed the themes I had in my head.
So I addressed the theme.
What was the theme of the book? Why didn’t it translate into a workable image?
I changed the title and purpose to
Out Loud – A writing adventure for women.
I sent that idea to a graphic artist – not AI – a real person with real talent and insights. She returned three different interpretations of the title and theme.
The one that worked was the boat featuring all the equipment a person needs to write including lipstick and wine.
Such a lovely cover inspired me to do my best to make sure the book lived up to the cover’s promise. An aspirational graphic from which to draw inspiration and encouragement.
The cover becomes the goal.
If the first ideas for a cover (and go ahead and start with AI, but I recommend finishing up with a human professional) don’t work, or don’t fit or are somehow just “wrong”. use that information to consider the themes of the work.
is the cover of your romance too sweet?
is the self help book cover too corporate?
is the history book cover too whimsical?
A book cover suggests themes, ideas and even an underlying narrative. Once you have that, now you can write up a book worthy of its cover.
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