The Winning Cover
I’m thrilled that the book cover for THE RUBBER FENCE has won a Gold Star from Joel Friedlander of the BOOK DESIGNER.
When I submitted the cover for their monthly contest, I wrote, “As this story takes place largely on a psychiatric ward, I thought that Jun Ares’s book design spoke about the desperation of those seeking treatment, as well as of the helplessness of the psychiatric intern who has to fight the hospital system that’s as stuck as the patients it treats.”
BOOK DESIGNER’s Joel Friedlander wrote: Restrained yet emotional, with carefully controlled colors and typography, this cover excels at portraying the issues in the book within and reusing a stock photo in a creative way.
My Debut Novel’s Cover
Jun Ares also designed the cover for A CRY FROM THE DEEP, my debut novel. I found this one more challenging. Originally Ares 
showed me two covers, both of which I rejected. You can see the ones he suggested here and why I ended up rejecting them.
Keys To A Good Cover
As I mentioned in my presentation on book covers at the North Shore Writers Festival in North Vancouver, a book cover is what a reader first sees before one word of the story is read.
It needs to be:
- eye-catching and scalable (meaning it has to look good not only as a cover for your paperback but also as a thumbnail image on an online booksellers’ site).
- It also has to be uncluttered. Too many fonts or colours are distracting.
- And most importantly, it has to fit your genre and story.
Having some control over the cover design has been a rewarding step for me in self-publishing. In traditional publishing, authors have little control over the final book cover.
There are other excellent book covers on Book Designer. Worth having a look to see what resonates with readers.
Congratulations! How very exciting. Your covers just keep getting better and better.
Thanks JP. Yes, it is exciting. Jun Ares is a lovely book designer. Very fortunate to have found him. I credit Martin Crosbie for giving me his contact information.
Very cool, Diana! Congrats!
Thanks, Julia. A nice boost! ?
Congratulations to you, Diana! Right or wrong I do initially judge a book by its cover (if it has one) but then we also tend to judge people initially by their appearance, right or wrong. If your cover were a piece of art (perhaps it is), I would say that it draws us in and makes us look out that rubber fence also and wonder what it would be like to be behind it and to touch it.
I’m with you, Jo. Whether we like it or not, we do judge on first impressions. By the way, I love your blog. ❤️