And here’s another view – this time in with a whole lot of other covers (some of mine and most belonging to other people). Most people will see the covers on a virtual bookshelf. On the scrolling ‘People who bought this book also bought’ list on Amazon, the images are small, and in the chat threads on Goodreads they’re even smaller – not too different in size to what you see below.
Can we make our covers work at this size? I think some of these work. You can still read my name on the Candle cover, and Lucinda Brant’s Dare Devil is striking, though only the face and her name are legible. Her name is legible on Autumn Duchess, further down the page, too.
Some are beautiful, but they’re not legible, and they’re not noticeable put in with a heap of other books.
This experiment changed my mind about the blue cover. I just don’t think it stands out enough. What do you think?
The thing that struck me in your little collage above, was how those covers that had a white (or light) background and black (or dark) lettering stood out the most. Those covers like yours that used colour sort of blurred themselves in to a homogenous mass!
Yes, indeed. Though the ones with colour work best when they’re sitting next to the book blurb on Amazon, or scrolling past in twitter or facebook. We need to balance one thing against another.