Editio Self-Publishing discussion

Is there anywhere on Goodreads in general or in this group in particular for self-publishing authors to post prospective book covers and get comments on them? I've found two sites online that will post covers, but one garners very few comments and the other is primarily for the person running the website to provide comments. I'd love to get a wider sampling!

Excellent question. I wouldn't mind knowing the answer to that too.

I have yet to find anything like that. The best thing to do is ask your "author" friends and prospective readers and see what happens. I have done that for several different covers I was considering for my latest title Life of Death.

Let me know if this helps.

Nicholas.

I think it would be pretty cool to have a thread for that here. I have lots of opinions about covers so I'd be happy to offer them to people in this group ;)

For what it's worth, my covers are up on my website and sometimes I do a Twitter shout out with the link, asking people what they think. You could do the same via a thread here on Goodreads.

Good idea! I need to figure out the best way to put the cover up temporarily, and then I'll try that. Thanks!

OK, I've posted two versions of my current cover on my blog. Please drop by and give me your comments! Here's the link:
http://looking-around.blogspot.com/20...

On three of my covers I used photoshopped type photos and on the other 3 I used with permission these beautiful watercolors: www.francenehart.com

Karen, I like the second one better too. The first one is definitely too creepy for me. (Though neither of them make it look like a book I would read--just my genre preferences--so take my words with plenty of salt.) But I'd be concerned that the second one doesn't have enough contrast to look good in black and white, as it would be on an e-ink reader.

Check out my three book covers under my author name (I don't want to spam up the thread). If you like them, e-mail me or DM me on Twitter and I'll get you the cover artist's e-mail. She's good, fast, cheap, and massively experienced. Books@RussellBlake.com

I actually prefer the first one, and it will also contrast better in black and white. The eye has something to look at up and down the page and the defined separation of the two babies makes it more obvious that they are different. It also makes it much easier to see that one of them has four arms!!

Karen wrote: "OK, I've posted two versions of my current cover on my blog. Please drop by and give me your comments! Here's the link:
http://looking-around.blogspot.com/20......"

Karen- I like the first one best. I thought this would be a good place to mention we just put up a post on our web site showing the 6 best free fonts for book covers.
http://editioselfpublishing.com/who-e...

Thanks! I downloaded several of these.

Those who have commented that they preferred one or the other of the covers I posted: do any of you think I should start from scratch, or at least make major modifications?

To be honest, without knowing what the book is about, it's hard to know. I think the first one is great, as far as it goes, but without reading the book (or even a synopsis) it's hard to say if it's right for the story or not, you know?

I'm mainly concerned with whether the cover looks suitably professional (as opposed to amateurishly self-published). But here's the teaser:

"After seventy years on Tofarn, the human colonists still know almost nothing about the native Tofa. Misunderstandings breed conflict, and the conflicts are escalating. Scientist Mara Cadell has a radical proposal: that host mothers carry fraternal twins, human and Tofa, who might understand each other better. Mara knows about the bond between twins: her twin Levi died in utero, but she has secretly kept him alive in her mind as companion and collaborator.

"Perhaps Mara should have expected that the enigmatic Tofa would have their own reasons to support her project. Perhaps the ever-cynical Levi should have warned her that members of the human government might use her twins as weapons against the entire Tofa species. Will the Twin-Bred bring peace, war, or something else entirely?"

Anne-Mhairi wrote: "To be honest, without knowing what the book is about, it's hard to know. I think the first one is great, as far as it goes, but without reading the book (or even a synopsis) it's hard to say if it'..."

In that case, you definitely want the cover showing the differences between the two - yes, it's creepy, but the book sounds rather creepy too. There isn't enough contrast on the second one for people to see the important details. The reason people are saying the first one is creepy is because you can see the four arms, but you want those to show, so...

I posted a blog today on how I created my book covers. Thought it might be helpful to self published authors who want to do their own (on the cheap).
http://dlmorrese.wordpress.com/2011/0...

I've started to look for cover ideas for a traditional non-cozy mystery that's just about finished.

Can anyone suggest a good cover artist?