Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Cover up!



You saw it on ADR3NALIN3 first. 

March will be an exciting time in my little writing office. Two books are coming into the world and today I'm revealing their covers to you. The PB cover of The Peculiars features Lena and her impossibly long hands. My favorite detail is that wonderful Victorian glove. It’s quite different than the  HB cover which featured a side character, Merilee. Both covers are beautiful and arresting, but they make different promises to the readers.



And the question I've been mulling over is will this cover attract a different kind of reader? We all know that covers are powerful. They're a preview of what readers might expect in the pages. And they're eye candy, meant to intrigue and seduce us into buying. How will I know if a different cover attracts a different reader?


PB's are less expensive than HC's, so, I can't count on numbers sold to tell the story.  I'll have to depend on reader comments as my data points. This is a grand experiment many authors never get to participate in.





The second cover is for Beyond the Door the first in the Time Out of Time series. The cover artist is Victo Ngai and it’s worth exploring her incredible website. 

Notice the small hatch marks next to my name? That's the primitive Irish script, Ogham. Clues about this book are coming. And here is the first one.


2 comments:

P Haggard said...

Maureen:
I like the one with the hands. It is so much more relevant to the book (which I have almost finished now). I wondered why the wings were on the cover instead of Lena. Fun times!

Maureen McQuerry said...

It will be fun to see reader responses. Most authors don't get this type of experiment. I think the artist captured Lena really well!