Wow, well I asked for feedback – and I got it! A critical step in improvement is to ‘ask the audience’, as without their input you could be wasting time and money on something that just isn’t resonating with your target audience.
My first attempts at my own cover design were met with varying degrees of ‘likeability’ or not and one person who commented hit the nail on the head;
It’s no good asking anyone for opinions, it’s only your target market that matters!
(However I did ask professional book cover designers and some great tips came out of that process.)
- Don’t ask anyone for opinions, only ask your target audience
- Make sure your book jacket cover is in keeping with your content
After looking at the 4 covers I designed (and taking my personal feelings out of the equation) I realised that my covers didn’t justify the content. And one of the main contributing factors for this was my choice of font.
Fonts are critical to the overall feel of the book, and for some reason, I was blinkered by a font choice that I really liked, BUT didn’t convey the right message. Take a look at what I mean by scrolling down to the images below. The first 2 are of the 4 designs that were completely off base, whereas the 3 cover is much more in keeping with the content of my book. And choice of font was a big part of that overall impression.
A huge lesson was learnt from this, and I can’t thank the people that gave me feedback enough.
And here is the total re-design…
So a big thank you to all that took part in my survey – which I have now closed and here is to my new jacket cover. If you are interested in getting a free copy of my soon to be published book, send me an email at alexa@thebookrefinery.com and I’ll put you on the notification list.
You will then be emailed a full PDF version (as well as a link to the Kindle edition) with updates when the paperback will be in stock.
Thanks again, and keep going!