Do you even have a favorite book cover? That will be one the image of which remains crisp and crosses your mind more often than, say, the name of your high school Latin teacher. Late in life you will spend months online trying to find that book with that cover, and may pawn your entire collection of Mary Kay coffee mugs in order to buy it.
Or is it the story you remember, the cover being irrelevant? (I mean, you know, covers change from edition to edition and who cares?)
I ask because, having finally completed a new Bo Bradley mystery, it’s time to repackage all six titles in the series with new covers that look like books in a series. The cover for the new one, Stork Boy, is done and waiting for the final manuscript edit. That cover is nicely evocative, I think. But now it’s necessary to do the previous five. And I’m stuck on the first one, Child of Silence.
There are several hundred online how-to articles addressing this topic, all stressing the monumental importance of the cover. It must, like Aristotle’s definition of tragedy, “arouse emotions” in potential readers while clearly identifying genre while appealing to a target audience with a typeface of which that audience is fond. The “emotions” to be aroused are Suspense, Intrigue or Lust, which right away aren’t actually emotions, but I get the idea while remaining unsure about my target audience.

Intrigue

Suspense
I think my audience is basically people who like novels with long sentences, but what is their taste in typefaces? I don’t even know what my own taste in typefaces is; I just get a kick out of the names. Like “Skeleton Antique, Highway Gothic,” and “Bastard.” But the designer will know, won’t she? And Lust appearing nowhere in any of the Bo Bradley mysteries, do I go with Suspense or Intrigue? What’s the difference?

Lust
Child of Silence has had many covers already, none of them suggesting Suspense or Intrigue. The book is set in Southern California with a lot of desert stuff and has one secondary Native American character.
The original has that cool typeface but the artwork gets lost online and the cover copyright belongs to the publisher anyway, even though the book doesn’t.
The British editions of all the Bo Bradley mysteries use a model that just doesn’t look like Bo, at least to me. She’s too coy and sexy or something. The rock-artish images are okay, but what looks like a huge slice of lime is puzzling.
The French editions are all gorgeous but focus exclusively on Native American images. This is because the French just love all things “Indian” and Southwestern from watching old American movies on TV when they were kids. But this cover features a Navaho and the book’s Native American character is Paiute.

Two German editions, the first with sort of rock-arty figures, the second with a cat. Bo has a fox terrier named Mildred. There is no cat anywhere in the book.

A Danish edition – snow-capped mountains somewhere colored pinkish-orange to look like a desert? I fail to see Suspense or Intrigue in any of these, although most might make me sufficiently curious to read the flap copy. But then almost anything will arouse my curiosity, so really, does the cover even matter as long as it’s interesting? Do you remember the cover of any book you’ve ever read?

I cant even focus I’m so excited!
I am delighted beyond measure to hear there will FINALLY be a new Bo Bradley mystery! I’ll buy it in any cover. So happy to hear about this!
Thanks, Carolyn!
Looking forward to your new book in this excellent series – The first edition Green Fairy Book by Andrew Lang has an extraordinary cover…
Loe the one with the dragon!
I’m thrilled about your new book, Stork Boy.
It will be available soon. Hope you like it, Lisa!
I’m sure I will. It’s not on Goodreads yet.
It’s not anywhere yet, still in final edit.
Great advance advertising.
Byw: As for font, the original Child of Silence is great. Others are all typical, common looking typefaces. I think spaces separating lines in a single letter, as in the original Child, suggests things out of sorts, odd, yes, even mysterious.
I’ve always loved that font, but I think it was designed specifically for that book by the publisher’s artist.
Maybe an image of a Native child in the desert with a lot of turquoise and Native symbols. Can’t wait for the new book, I recently reread all 5,Christine van Gemert
Thanks, Christine!
What wonderful news!!! I like covers in a series with a similar style (color, typeface), but the books sell the covers rather than the other way around. I _notice_ covers with cutouts (below) and extreme situations, but think: ‘what a waste of money’, and ‘you can’t blame the author for the cover: I’m sure the book’s not like that’. My mother memorably taped over an abstracted couple on a cover because she– an artist!– thought it too racy for the grandkids.
The only time I believe the cover did sell me the book/author was on the Soho crime series. And it really wasn’t the cover. At one time they published all their authors in the same unusual size. With a few of their authors on my must-read-all list, and the book screaming that this was the same publisher, I had to try it. I like the German edition cover without the cat, but anything will work. Looking forward to Stork Boy,LaurieÂ
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Thanks, Laurie –
I love your mother taping over the abstract couple even though the grandkids would probably have found it tame compared to what they’re exposed to these days! I get it about similar style and typeface, but right now I’m trying to decide if “similar style” means all landscapes with no people. I think it does. The designer of course does the designs, but I get to pick the central image for each book. She pointed out that there are references to crows in nearly all of them, so I said great, stick a crow somewhere on every cover. Crows are good, an apt symbol for Bo. STORK BOY will be available on Amazon and other digital sites in a week or so, print editions later. Good to her from you!
Oh yay! I have been missing Bo all these years. Thank you, thank you. I have the Child of Silence with the first cover you showed. I like it because it looks…..you know……serious. The Intrigue in comic bookese is just plain stupid as is the Lust one. Not Bo Bradley at all. As you can see, I have strong opinions about this, which I can happily keep to myself. Miss you, Bea
Miss you, too, and Bart! Hard to believe the dismal swamp our country has become since our NIA days. We must get together in a graveyard somewhere for a nice political talk over hemlock. I go to a Silver Sneakers dance class at Towne Square W-Th-F that’s sort of like NIA, not too far from you guys. You should come some time and we can have lunch. Email me at padgett812@gmail.com.
Hi Abbie, I remember being told by my elders, “You can’t tell a book by it’s cover!”. Since then Marshall McLuen suggests that “The media is the message”. What you see/think is what you get. So the image certainly can predict what is behind the cover. Miserable content may ‘hide’ behind a great cover. I guess the key would be making sure there is integrity in the marketing and that the image (cover) is a valid and authentic representation of what’s inside. Plastic makeup and a hair piece can make an old man/woman appear younger. That probably means that it’s difficult to trust what we see on a Facebook photo as being a true representation of the ‘real’ person. Sharon reminds me that I need to read the first 50 pages of a book to determine if it holds promise of being what I want. Terry Groski writes that it’s important to hold off making long term committments in a relationship until you’ve had at least 30 different expeirences over an extended period of time and in many different ways. Any movies looking interesting? I didn’t renew my Movie Pass subscription which means there’s much more freedom in choosing what I want to see. Warm regards with a loving hug, Glenn