Why a great book cover is important

 A book is as good as its cover

A book, whatever we like to think, is largely sold by its cover. When I did edition 1 of  Firedance I did not know that. I guess we do some things (like buying books,) so often that we cease to think about what actually makes us do them. So I just uses a ready made cover from lulu.com and I made the book in A4 because that was what my word processor seemed to do.

I think you can see the difference between the two book covers. I began with this:

and for a long time I was quite happy. Now I have this:

I moved on and understood that things needed to look professional and not as if they were self-published. It is always easier to choose the online free cover on a self-publishing site but it really will look like you have done that and not be original.

Think about the books you buy and the covers

If you think about it, you will probably find that the books you buy were bought because you were first attracted to the cover and then read the blurb on the back. How many times have you passed a book by thanks to its unattractive cover?