Book Covers

Because I’m an artist some people who know me think I should illustrate the cover to my own book. Well, I don’t want to do that. And the reason is because I don’t want my cover to be an illustration. I said before that I want a photo. A photo of a vase. Maybe even the same photo that I use here at the top of my blog. That will do. A simple black and white photo of a simple and plain vase. Of course, the caption is the key. I’ve changed the caption to my blog a few times in the short while that I’ve called it The Vase.

It’s got to be something catchy, and something that reveals the spirit of my story. I’m not sure the current caption does it. "Conquering armies and ultimate faith recorded in clay." Before it was "Three warring faiths and a thousand year conflict recorded in clay." Not sure which is better really.

Maybe some kind of combination would be good. Maybe "Timeless aggression and ultimate faith recorded in clay," or "Eternal conflict and the Son of God recorded in clay." I suppose I will leave it to the marketing and promotion director at Virtual Tales to weigh in on that. But it’s got to hook potential buyers. It’s got to be something that convinces browsers to buy the book, therefore, it has to send the message that this is a book you want to read.

So the question is, what will evoke interest from buyers? What do they want to read? Are they interested in conquering armies? A thousand year conflict? Warring faiths? Ultimate faith? What would make a buyer interested to read a novel about something recorded in an ancient vase? You'd think the Son of God might do it, no? But that might be giving too much away. Since no one but the Virtual Tales Board of Directors has read the story at this point, (with the exception of a couple beta readers,) I don’t want to give too much away by what’s on the cover. But if it makes people buy the book, maybe I do. This is serious, and I hope to figure it out.