Every weekend, my boyfriend and I go out to eat somewhere. This past weekend, as we were waiting for a breakfast skillet and eggs benedict to be brought out to us, we had the following conversation:
Me: So what do you think of the mockups I made?
Him: Uh…
Me: Come on, the last one wasn’t so bad!
Him: You can’t just find a stock image, shade it a little bit, and slap on a radioactive symbol.
Me: Why not? It looks cool.
Him: Yeah, but you’re not making a movie poster. You’re making a book cover.
Me: What’s your point?
Him: The goal isn’t to look cool. What do you think a good book cover should be?
*silence*
Him: Go on, I’m waiting…
Me: It should tell you what the book is about.
Him: WRONG. Think about Twilight. Wasn’t one of the covers an apple and another a chess piece? I never read them and I know the covers. Did they tell at all what the book was about? No! They made you want to turn to the back cover to see what they were about. That is your number 1 and only goal.
Me: But everyone liked the radioactive book cover.
Him: No one is going to tell you if it’s dog crap because we’re all supporting you. A designer is going to know what the trends are and can edit way better than you did in… What was it?
Me: PicMonkey.
Him: Right… How much did you spend on ISBNs?
Me: $200 or $300 for ten.
Him: You’ll want to spend the $200 on a designer if you’re already spending money.
There was much more back and forth than that (I can be stubborn), but I’ll spare you. By the end of the conversation, I submitted. I need to hire a cover designer. I’ve compiled a list of potentials and will be contacting them in a couple weeks. If you have any recommendations, please let me know!
In the meantime, I found this website online to help with split testing covers: PICKFU.
I haven’t heard much about it yet, but it could be handy for anyone else looking into book covers. After I spend money on mine, I can compare it to the radioactive cover… Hah!

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