I read Derek Murphy’s excellent book on designing book covers two weeks ago and I think I have finally seen the light. As fun as I’ve been having painting watercolour illustrations with titles in American Typewriter font for my books, my old covers gave off a whiff of amateurism. So, here are two new covers for my backlist titles that I’m giving away for free to folk who subscribe to my newsletter. Not as quirky as my handmade efforts perhaps, but it’s harder to see the joins and they sit more comfortably with similar titles on Amazon. As Murphy rightly says, book covers have one job, and that is to get potential readers to read the book description. At a glance, do the covers tell the reader what the genre is, who the protagonist is and what to expect from the book? I think mine do. But it doesn’t really matter what I think. What do you think, dear potential reader?
Patrick Sherriff 