Part One in a four-part series leading up to the April launch of Kaylene’s first novel!

Is it fair to judge an actual book by its cover? Whether or not it’s really “fair” when we have never heard of a book or an author before, don’t we all do it?

Gone are the days of plainly-bound books with nothing but a few words embossed on the spine. The pressure is on. As they design a book’s cover, the choices the writer and any publishing team members make will have a definite effect on the answers to these questions:

• Will a reader browsing books in a store or library or on a website be eager to give the book more than ten seconds of their time based on how the cover catches their eye?
• Can the reader automatically understand something of what the book is about (style, genre, etc.) based on the cover art?
• Can the colors, font size and style, pictorial contents, and other design elements convey both directly and subconsciously to the reader everything the writer is trying to communicate in the heartbeat of the story or the central concept of the book’s ideas? And can the expectations raised in the mind of the reader who judges that cover be met fully and honestly every time by what the writer includes on the inner pages?

It looks like a challenging – if not impossible – task. Therefore, during the cover design process for my forthcoming novel (a working concept pictured above), I am filled with gratitude. I am thankful for the team at Concierge Marketing and how they are helping me “say” a huge amount to my potential readers in a fairly simple cover design.

Stay tuned in coming weeks for more news about the availability of The Voice of Melody.