So, we got your feedback
When I Blazed the advertisement post for my book The Wingman, I got a lot of positive feedback: from the black mc, to the fresh idea of following a homeless man who stays homeless in the end... It was pretty gratifying for me to get such good notes! But there was one criticism that kept reoccurring: the cover.
Now, I'm an adult. I've been online for a while now, and I thought I understood where this was coming from. Eighty percent of this hate is people just being put off by the idea of Blaze and hoping that, if they complained enough, Tumblr would remove it. Sure.
But then we found this unnamed expert who opened our eyes to the REAL problem!
Oh, right! It's the kernelling, duh! How did we not see it? Clearly, the font and the colorations were just ALL WRONG!
And you can't have a standard font with automated spacings! You need to hand-do that stuff, or people will think you published a book by yourself!
And they're right! So I talked with my illustrator, and we worked together to come up with a solution. For the kernelling AND the quality of the artwork!
See? Much better, right? The kernelling is now 100% hand-done, and you can see for yourself that having it fixes every problem people had with the cover! And that legibility is just so much better!
But I thought we could surpass our limits!
So we did.
The kernelling comment really impressed to me that the problem was just that a hand-drawn style—no matter how gorgeously done it was in five-year-old-kid authentic CRAYONS this time!—doesn't really look good. It doesn't sell that my book is a nitty-gritty serious book for adults! Why it looks like it might be made for children—Perish the notion!
It's the same reason you can't buy hot-pink cars. Other adults might laugh at you!
We can't have that!
So we went to work on a cover that reflects our mature and serious tastes as consummate professionals:
How about that! Now with 95% less color!! This is a cover you can take to the office with you. It just screams I do tax work for fun! With this book in hand, the guys at the office will feel outright inferior to your vast intellect! Girls will be indubitably impressed by your refined tastes. And ladies, if guys see you reading this book, they'll be so intimidated at your agglomeration of literature that they'll leave you alone! And yes, this is 100% hand-done kernelling too! What a savings!!! ...
but...
Gee... I don't know... something just feels... missing.
It felt like we needed some passion! So we went ahead and borrowed from the Romance Genre of book covers to make a third design.
You're welcome.
HAWT!! Now that's how you do a book cover! It's just so original and steamy!
But, oh nose! Now we can't decide which is the best cover to use!
Now it's up to you to vote on which cover is your favorite! Leave a comment or reblog with your thoughts. If you haven't seen it (or just want a reminder), the original post can be found here or you can buy The Wingman at any of these outlets:
Barnes & Noble, ThriftBooks, Bookshop.org, BookFinder, or Amazon
Below the cut is my serious review of using Blaze to advertise The Wingman. Read it to see if Blaze is a good fit for you! This parody of Clinch Cover's Art was made in part using free Unslpash stock photo's by Justin Essah, Meg Jerrard, and Mathew Schwartz.
