Simple answer…no idea.
Confusing answer…everything, anything, and simply nothing on the cover.
Mad at me, yet?
I don’t blame you. When I started this idea of writing about what attracts to me to picking up someone’s book I knew this one item, the cover, would be my undoing. I’ve picked up books due to nothing but a blank cover with the title. I’ve noticed books with a picture that made me curious. I’ve noticed other books due to the scenes displayed, think along the lines of a snapshot of something that’s happened (crime scene, dinner scene).
People on covers don’t normally grab my eye. Unless it’s the main character image. Yes, I’m thinking Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys type covers. Someone…or something…recognizable to the series, a continuing visual link. If I say – cat paws – which author do you think of?
For my own cover, Midnight Find, I trusted my cover artist to pull the overall idea of the story…which she did. Yup, there’s a person there. Goes against what attracts me, doesn’t it? But, because I know the story and character it fits. And that’s where the author needs to trust their cover artist.
But, back to what gets my attention. I don’t like standard cookie-cutter genre-theme covers. They get lost in the shuffle. They all look alike, so you better have an interesting title, tag, and blurb…something to stand out from the pack.
I don’t like busy covers. The ones with multiple pictures that look like multiple pictures stuck together. Working in our industry I know a little more about covers than I ever did before and I realize, now, that those scene covers are mostly likely multiple pictures put together into one scene. However, cover artists blend these to look like one, two, overlapped pictures instead of stacked singles. These have a richness to them that stands out.
Then, again, I love simple solid colour covers with the title and author name in one colour…and a very readable font, of course.
So, what’s the answer? There isn’t one. And no matter what anyone wants to tell you…people sell; faces/no faces; this colour/no this one; overall story theme/no specific…trust your cover artist, work with them and your publisher. If self-publishing and doing your own cover, trust your gut.
And then, put the cover, tag, blurb, title all together in the best mix possible.