V S Nelson

TL;DR

If someone has put a lot of time into the cover, it’s probably because the book is worth it.

General rule

I’m not going to spend ages discussing the adage of never judging a book by its cover as most people know that it simple isn’t true. Obviously, you shouldn’t only judge a book by its cover, but it’s certainly an integral park of the package and one you’re allowed to include in your critique of the book as a whole.

For me, the general rule is, if the cover is bad, the book will be bad. If the cover is good, the book might be good – though it could also be bad. With this in mind, we’ll re-write the phrase:

Don’t judge a book by its cover, unless it’s bad.

A quick look through Goodreads “Worst Fiction Books on Goodreads” list is enough to draw a correlation between poor cover and bad book.

Goodreads rating: 1.9

Goodreads rating: 1.51

Goodreads rating: 2.68

Now, I know it’s not good to obsess over Goodreads ratings. As an author, it’s one of the things I do, and I wish I could stop. However, the sad reality is that I like numbers and data and, whether biased or not, Goodreads ratings providing a quantifiable value that directly relates to how good I am as an author. Either way, hopefully we can all agree those are pretty crappy cover and the ratings are certainly not ones I would be proud of.

So what makes a good cover?

Funny you should ask. This is where I get to talk about the cover to my next book, The Girl Who Sold Time. Now, while I didn’t create it, I did come up with the concept. I even poorly sketched it out and sent it to my brother to do great things with.

My terrible sketch for a cover, but with all of the elements there.

Cover my brother made based on my sketch.

So why is my cover so good?

Obviously, this is subjective. Just because I think it is a good cover, doesn’t mean that it actually is. However, there are a few things we can take from this cover that provide valuable information about the story.

• The bright colours and cartoon-like image suggest it is a children’s book
• The girl implies that the protagonist is a young girl
• The robots in the image, both the one running away and the one in the trees, suggest a science fiction story
• The slightly comical way the robot in the bottom right-hand corner is running suggests there are some humorous elements to the story
• The marble the girl is holding (though technically it’s hovering above her fingers) seems to imply there is something special about it, like maybe there is something here with a power that is beyond the science
• The space elevator in the background (which I concede looks a little like the CN Tower in Toronto) signifies travel to somewhere else. Possibly space…

Bottom line

Be clever with your cover. Make it look attractive, but also include elements that hint at what the story will be about – this is especially true of books for children which have a greater need to be eye-catching than adult books. And if you (like me) have no artistic skill, don’t create the cover yourself! One of the worst things you can do to your brilliant story is to slap a cover you have created on it as, chances are, that will push readers away. If you’re not artistic in that way, then pay someone else to create your cover for you. But never forget that it is a cover for your book, you’re allowed to be exacting to make sure you get what you want!

A word of warning – be clever, but not too clever

Like all my books, the cover of my first book, The Keeper of Portals, was created by my brother to my design specification. I was very pleased with this cover, but if I’m honest, I don’t feel it has aged as well as The Archivist has, which, over two years post its publication date, I still love.

I’ll start by saying that the fact the symbols look like they’re carved into wood is significant, but you’ll have to read the story to understand that one. The next point is around keepers. If you’ve not read the book, then these are essentially gods that look after a particular thing, and for every thing, there is a keeper. So while there is obviously a Keeper of Portals, there is also a Keeper of Doorknobs, a Keeper of Loose Change, a Keeper of Confusion. Whatever it is, there is a keeper for a it. These keepers are then subdivided into Fundamental Keepers, Major Keepers and Minor Keepers.

Let’s start with the centre of the book. The butterfly signifies the Keeper of Chaos. This is referenced in the book. Essentially, the only reason keepers are needed is because of the Keeper of Chaos, so that one is right in the centre. Around the Keeper of Chaos are the Fundamental Keepers. There are eight of these in the world of the keepers, though of course there could be more: Gravity, Time, Causality, Electromagnetism, Strong nuclear force, Weak nuclear force, Energy and Matter. Take a look at that ring and you’ll see that Feynman diagrams were used for the Keeper of Strong Nuclear Force and the Keeper of Weak Nuclear Force. Two of these keepers are lit up, these are Time and Causality, as they appear in the story. In the next ring we have some major keepers. Here, Portals, Questions and Answers are illuminated, as they also appear in the story. There are more major keepers than the ones around this ring, which also includes the Keeper of Life and the Keeper of Death, but the cover is only so big.

The rest of the image are symbols for minor keepers, though most of these are meaningless with the obvious exception of the button above “VS” for the Keeper of Buttons, who does appear in the story. There is even a g representing the Keeper of Garbage, as Garbage is my favourite band.

Anyway, I’ve wanted to write that explanation down for a while in the hope that someone will appreciate the thought that went into the cover for the Keeper of Portals.

Now you know!