I see thousands of ebook covers every week (while picking books for fkb.me) and have noticed some interesting trends. I thought I’d share this one with you because I’m not quite sure how I feel about it and wanted to see what others think.
The trend is simply having a photo as the cover. No text or title or anything. Just a photo.
Here’s an example from a PDF ebook (which you can find here) that I downloaded a couple weeks ago:
So we see here that the cover is just of someone rock climbing. The next page has the title, author, and other information.
I think I first noticed this trend with the books in Seth Godin’s The Domino Project imprint on Amazon. Here are some of the covers:
So is this trend in ebook cover design good or bad? I think it could be good because
- These ebook covers are easy to make.
- Since most covers don’t look like this, these covers actually tend to stand out more.
But this trend could be bad because
- It’s too easy to make one of these covers. People will just throw one of their own photos up as the cover. The problem is that most people’s photos aren’t very good. Or people will just pay for boring stock photos without putting too much thought into it.
- These covers tell you nothing about the book.
I like the We Are All Weird and Self-Reliance covers most because they seem directly related to the title and subject matter. I don’t know, though, how contagiousness equals two bunnies on the cover (is it because they reproduce so fast??) or how a little kid equals getting what you want. Sure, I can guess how those particular covers could relate to the subject matter, but why make people guess in the first place? I’m simply left thinking, “Huh. Weird cover.”
And then you have to ask the question, “Would a title and other text make these covers better or worse?” You can still have a great photo on a cover that also has text on it.
So I think a couple of the above covers are alright and a couple are not so good. These covers are worse, though:
I don’t like these covers for a few reasons. The one on the left exemplifies the stock photo problem. Nothing about it says “surrogacy in India.” It looks like a generic mother-daughter stock photo. The one on the right is an example of the it’s-too-easy-to-make-one-of-these-covers problem. It looks like a photograph from someone’s vacation. It’s just a photo of a cloudy beach. And finally, I don’t like that the photos are oriented horizontally instead of vertically. For PDF ebooks this can be ok, but for Kindle ebooks I think it just says, “Hey guys look at this cover that I made!”
So what do you think?
- Is this trend of simply having a photo as an ebook cover good or bad?
- Do you like any or all of the examples above? Which ones?
- Do you know of any other examples?
- Do you know of any books (the paper versions) that have just a photo for their covers?
And of course, if you want to see more examples of good and bad ebook covers, go check out my new eBook Coverage site.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah this is a terrible trend and makes the books look like cheap copy and pasted web content. Wouldn’t buy one of these even if the genre was something I was interested in.
Awesome, it’s good to know that I’m not alone here :) Thanks Brad!
I don’t like the trend. Partially as a designer who LOVES typography and book cover design, it’s disappointing. Of the images above, I’d say the hatchet photo for Self-reliance is the most successful, but the photo alone still doesn’t stand up. I’m a little surprised that the Seth Godin book isn’t better designed.
I suppose though for the sake of argument – e-books are often self-published. Not everyone is a graphic designer. Ugly typography is perhaps worse than no typography? Nothing says amateur production (to me anyway) than bad typography. Still, you can get pretty cheap design these days on sites like e-lance, 99 designs, oDesk, etc.
I’m right there with you, Leslie. I love me some beautiful typography.
You bring up an interesting point… Is ugly typography worse than no typography? I’d much, much rather see a good photo cover than a bad typographical cover. But it’s the “good” part of “good photo cover” that is very, very hard to get right.
But like you said, with the cheap outsourcing options for ebook covers, there’s no reason to have a bad one.
Thanks for the great comment!
I think it really defeats the purpose.
I assume that most of the authors that are doing this use their own pictures so they don’t have to worry about copyright but a great design on a book’s cover can be truly iconic. They say don’t judge a book by its cover but that’s one of the small reasons why you get certain copies (like hardback vs. soft) – you can get these excellent designs that go with the excellent story.
Case in point: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Neuromancer_Brazilian_cover.jpg/220px-Neuromancer_Brazilian_cover.jpg
The Neuromancer cover vs. the one’s mentioned. There’s some marketing initiative behind what they’re doing but it’s about as vapid as putting up pictures of your feet facing the ocean and selling timeshares.
Modesty Blaise after she became visually impaired!
I believe it’s both good and bad. Like you said, it’s easy to make anyone can do it, but if it doesn’t say anything about the book (it’s just more or less a marketing trick), then I want the traditional cover :)
From my opinion “”Simplicity”" is the best way to show your identity in front of many which will give you more better response in your work.
I’m not a fan of the photo covers unless they are specifically chosen to match the subject of the book. Otherwise people will be putting out an eBooks about cupcakes with a giant giraffe on the front. Makes NO sense at all!
I agree with you about Seth Godin’s cover. It invites. It stands out. It makes people think before they’ve even opened the cover: A great tactic for attracting readers.
The other examples come across as thrown-together, jum-on-the-kindle-self-publishing wagon: Read my tripe!
I’ve actually seen publish-to-kindle gurus suggest that putting a tacky photo on a cover is ok.
But as Robert McCrum says “A brilliant cover can sell a [book]” http://tinyurl.com/cnfs3b &, after all, isn’t that what authors want, fiction & non-fiction alike? So, no I don’t like tacky photos on covers. I do like interesting, “come read me” covers.
@Tom_Southern
As I get closer to finishing my ebook I wonder about what the cover will look like. You are correct, the picture should match the content. No matter what you decide to do, if that picture doesn’t connect with the title, and then fails to represent your content, then you are going to have upset readers.
I write and self-publish as well as design covers. I wasn’t always a horror-novelist. In a previous life I worked as an art-director so; in sympathy another comment I read, I too have an abiding love of typography.
Thus, I’m not a fan of this trend. Anything that can be done without effort, skill or discretion will spit out mediocrity. There will be those rare gems that work; but they will also, by definition, be the exceptions that prove the rule.
Those type of covers, just image, abstract or literal representation, no title, works if you are Seth Godin. Look at his Poke the Box cover. I’m thinking it’s his signature book cover. :) Then there is another one – The Flinch; of course, that was from The Domino Project which also by Godin.