Covers

The good, the bad, and the ugly

“We hope you love it as much as we do!”

I can’t tell you how many times I have read this exact sentence, or something very similar to it, in emails bearing cover mockups for a novel. Sometimes, I do love it as much as they do. And then sometimes…. well…..

Here, as an example, is the newly revealed paperback cover for A True Account: Hannah Masury’s Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself.

What do you think?

The first thing to notice is that this cover is wildly different from the hardback. The reason for this is that the hardback didn’t sell. I mean, it sold okay. But it didn’t knock anybody’s socks off. When a cover stays the same from hardback to paperback, it usually means that it is selling so well nobody wants to mess with it. When there’s a big change, it means something about the hardback cover wasn’t working.