With a Vengeance

Once I commit to a project, I tackle it with a vengeance; and thus I have now chosen new covers for all my books except one. I haven't uploaded them all to KDP yet because...I don't know...I don't want Amazon to think I'm doing something scammy, so I'm only uploading a couple each day. 

My selection process was:

1. Do the colors (and to some extent, the font) adhere to the accepted women's fiction genre?

2. Is the mood of the image misleading? (e.g., does it promise a story that doesn't relate to the actual narrative?)

Choosing new covers was a long, tedious process. I did not create my own, since font was a huge reason for switching my covers out, and as I've noted, Canva's selection of do-it-yourself fonts aren't conducive to book covers. So I scrolled and scrolled the pre-made templates; then started over and scrolled some more. I customized far more images than I ended up using, but having comparative versions for the same book was helpful in choosing the most appropriate one. 

No, I don't necessarily like all of the covers I ended up using, but I had to set aside my preferences. I ditched all my covers that featured women's faces (which was essentially all of them). That initial decision had been a bad one and I won't make that mistake again (if there ever is an "again"). I don't profess to know the psychology of covers, except that each genre has certain expectations. As for why it's bad to feature a woman's face, maybe readers want to imagine the main character themselves? Beats me; all I know is my previous assumptions were off the mark.

I don't know how well I succeeded. I did try to find abstract designs, but there were very few to choose from. I do know that none of the covers I chose have anything to do with the stories inside. I have come to learn that it hardly matters. What the covers need to do is fit in, and I think they do.

The covers I uploaded didn't magically result in new sales. Honestly, I think my books are too old to show up in the search results, and by "too old" I mean more than two months past publication date. You either strike right away or you don't strike at all. I really don't expect any more sales, which makes it all the more ironic that I just now decided to change my covers. It's a futile exercise, but it taught me a valuable lesson, at least. If I ever publish another book, I'll know better.

In my next post, I'll show the before and after.