Jane Dixon-Smith now does all the covers for my e-books. A Most Unusual Governess and A Mistress for Stansted Hall are the next two novellas that I will be putting up on Kindle. My latest book from My Weekly (and possibly my last) House of Dreams has an excellent cover. Certainly this book sold really well because I was unable to buy a copy for myself – they had all gone in both Tesco and WHSmith.
I have a feeling that the drop in sales for pocket novels could have been because of the dreadful covers.
This is a classic example: all my books are Regency – heaven knows what period this is! I can remember that one cover had a man on a horse waving a sword, dressed like a Royalist in the civil war and the girl, riding pillion, was in mediaeval costume.
The books I first published with Amazon had home-made covers – they weren't too bad but obviously not professional. However, when I got Jane to redo them my sales jumped by 50%.
There was a lively debate on another blog about the kind of covers that seem prevalent in the US – you know the ones I mean – seminaked, musclebound men with long flowing hair, clutching maidens to their manly chests. The contents of this sort of book might be acceptable and a good read, but I would never buy a book with one of those "bodice ripper" covers.
(I apologise for the huge size of my covers - for some reason I wasn't given the option to make them smaller.)
Until next time
best wishes
Fenella J Miller
.
Jane Dixon-Smith now does all the covers for my e-books. A Most Unusual Governess and A Mistress for Stansted Hall are the next two novellas that I will be putting up on Kindle. My latest book from My Weekly (and possibly my last) House of Dreams has an excellent cover. Certainly this book sold really well because I was unable to buy a copy for myself – they had all gone in both Tesco and WHSmith.
I have a feeling that the drop in sales for pocket novels could have been because of the dreadful covers.
This is a classic example: all my books are Regency – heaven knows what period this is! I can remember that one cover had a man on a horse waving a sword, dressed like a Royalist in the civil war and the girl, riding pillion, was in mediaeval costume.
The books I first published with Amazon had home-made covers – they weren't too bad but obviously not professional. However, when I got Jane to redo them my sales jumped by 50%.
There was a lively debate on another blog about the kind of covers that seem prevalent in the US – you know the ones I mean – seminaked, musclebound men with long flowing hair, clutching maidens to their manly chests. The contents of this sort of book might be acceptable and a good read, but I would never buy a book with one of those "bodice ripper" covers.
(I apologise for the huge size of my covers - for some reason I wasn't given the option to make them smaller.)
Until next time
best wishes
Fenella J Miller
.
I think a good eye-catching cover is essential whether it's for a paperback or an e-book.
ReplyDeleteFor an e-book a potential reader may be skimming through thumbnail size images only, and you need something that will stand out from the rest to get someone to stop and look at the details.
I do like your e-book covers now. :-)
Thanks, Carolb, Jane is worth every penny.
ReplyDeleteLove the new covers, Fenella, and how interesting that your sales increased 50per cent when you changed the old ones. Good luck with the new books.
ReplyDeleteHi I actually find the quirkiness of the old pocket novel covers quite endearing and I think the new ones are much more modern and hopefully will result in increased sales from the old style. Certainly, my observation is that they go as soon as they arrive in the stores whereas I think they used to be there a bit longer. Your new covers are great, good luck with them. Cara
ReplyDeleteInteresting that changing to newer covers increased sales.
ReplyDeleteAll the best!
A cover is the first selling point for a book and is always the first thing that takes my eye when looking for a new read. An enticing attractive cover is vital and ideally should reflect genre and storyline of course. With ebooks now though we have to also be really careful that beyond that front cover the interior is as perfect as we can make it. So many times I have downloaded an ebook to find formatting is all over the shop, grammar and proof reading are shabby and even basic justified text is not used. So while the cover is important so is the story inside.
ReplyDelete