Autopsy of a Bad Book Cover – Part 2

This is the second in a series of planned posts taking apart bad book covers for the edification and entertainment of all who bother to read this blog.

See Autopsy of a Bad Book Cover – Part 1 here

The book we’re going to talk about today is now out of print. Not that it was such a terrible book. It wasn’t. But it ran its course and the author didn’t want to update it.

The Single Parent Travel Handbook was an absolutely brilliant idea. I knew it from the moment the author’s daughter queried me for distribution. This is what we all want – to be the first in a niche, and to fill it well. A few sample chapters convinced me it was well-written and researched – filled with lovely tips for single fathers (an absolute first) and mothers.

Then I saw the cover.

This was back when I was slightly less sure of myself. I told the publisher I did not think the cover was up to snuff. They assured me they knew best. They’d hired a “famous New York billboard artist” (Note: not an experienced book designer. The skills are vastly different) and wanted to go ahead. If someone did this to me today, it’d be a deal breaker. This cover – no way ’round it – sucks.

However, it was a niche groundbreaker (there are now several titles on this topic). Library Journal recommended it for all public libraries. It was a BookSense 76 pick (does that take you back, Mr. Peabody?). Single Parents quickly became our most successful title. And so we shipped a lot of books the first year. The second, not so much. The third… erk. Stopped dead. Didn’t move any. The curse of the cover had caught up with the book.

So, let’s put on our rubber gloves, face shields, and rubber smocks and crack this thing open.

ARTWORK

I am not against author branding (picture of the author on the front cover) - if there’s a platform already in place. In this case, The Single Parent Travel Handbook was part of a new travel service. But the author was not in the title of the service, nor is the website or message her name. So the picture of her should not be the cover. I’m not even sure if it should be on the back. Why, if this is a book about travel, is she in hiking gear (replete with walking stick)? As one bookseller caustically commented: “It looks like an ad for an Aryan march.” Oooooo, SNAP!

If we’d designed it, we would have done something with an image of a small child with a pile of suitcases, standing next to a pair of adult legs (in unisex trousers).

I haven’t put a border around the image so you can see the problem with white cover books – they bleed out on-line. Electronic media is something you really have to consider carefully in cover design.

TITLE FONT/TEXT

Besides the title and author name, there should be very little other text on a cover (I know, I’m old school). There is way too much blather on this cover. It even continues on the spine – which says (I kid you not): “Read this book!” in white text on red. A serious no-no. They might have gotten away with the line from Parents without Partners on the cover: “A must read for anyone who wants to make family memories last a lifetime” [and what does that have to do with the price of plane tickets?], but nothing else.

The title font just doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t say “family friendly.” It does say: computer manual or something hard-edged.

Speaking of the author’s name… um, where is it? It’s mentioned in one of the lines, but not stated as usual. Not on the spine, either. Another baddy.

And speaking of that spine – the title is upside down for American standards.

BACK COVER

The back cover has a picture of the author with her adult children – but the book is about travel with minors, so this sends the wrong visual message.

There are two endorsements: one from a longer Parents without Partners quote, and one from an admiral. Endorsements should be from market movers in your genre. Not your friends – even if they are admirals. And repeating a front cover blurb simply isn’t done.

TITLE

I liked the title, The Single Parent Travel Handbook. But then, I like simple, straightforwardness in non-fiction titles. This tells what it is and who it’s for (with a weird internal syncopation. Try saying it out-loud).

During Single Parents’ last run at a book trade show, a booth visitor looked at it and said, “I cannot imagine asking for this book. It gives the clerk too much information about my life.”

Wow.

It never occurred to any of us that single parents might want to avoid self-identification products. Even in this day and age, people apparently don’t want the world to know that something happened in their lives that caused them to end up as a single parent. Who knew?

A title like Traveling Solo with Kids might have given the fig leaf necessary. And conveyed that the book covered advice for both males and females (as it does) – or even married folk traveling alone with their child (which it could).

So, what’s the moral of this cover? Well, it proves that even if your cover blows, if you’ve captured a particular market, you can sell in spite of it. But in the end, a bad cover will choke off sales you could have made if you’d invested in a well-thought-out design.

Of course, we create lovely covers; please see samples here.

© Jacqueline Church Simonds 2009