Don't Judge a Book by It's Cover

Don’t judge a book by its cover.  We’ve all heard that expression.  It’s certainly well-intentioned, but not very practical.  Don’t we ALL judge books by their covers?  Isn’t the cover what prompts us to take a closer look at a given book?  The eye catching artwork draws us to read the blurb, then maybe thumb through the first few pages.  Some might say it's the title which attracts their attention.  But where does one find the title?  On the cover of course.  The same can be said for the author.

What the author of this saying meant was that we shouldn’t prejudge based on appearance.  That is, in theory, a good idea.  But consider this scenario.  You pull a bowl of leftovers out of the refrigerator.  It looks like a science fair project.  Do you really need to smell it, let alone taste it, to know it has turned?

They also tell us: “You only have one chance to make a first impression.”  If we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, then why do we worry about making a good first impression?  So if a cover gives a negative impression, whose fault is it?

Which leads me to my current dilemma.  My third novel is ready to upload with the exception of ONE thing: cover art.  The cover IS very important.  Every article I ever read about publishing a book stresses the importance of cover art.  Kindle has another factor to consider.  Not only do you need an eye catching cover, it has to catch people’s eye as a tiny thumbnail image.  I have a vision, but bringing it to fruition has been difficult.  Perhaps I need a new vision?

At any rate, here are my first two covers.  The art for Soul Searching was my own photography. The cover for Apocalypse Road came from a web site which offers free artwork.

Click here for Soul Searching, a novel by Rick Armstrong, available for Kindle from Amazon.com	Click here for Apocalypse Road, a novel by Rick Armstrong, available for Kindle from Amazon.com

I will have to come up with something for my third novel's cover, because people will most certainly base their judgement on that one factor to decide if they even want to see what its about.