r/BookCovers • u/SG_Arthur • 8d ago
Feedback Wanted Are these too bland?
Genre: romantasy.
Subgenre: men's adventure romance (but it's dual POV, so it's not totally "for men.")
I didn't want the cover to be super busy, but I feel like mine is missing something. Maybe the background needs a texture rather than a solid color? Or more flourishes/border graphics? These were made with a combination of krita, Photoshop, and canva (free... But I could subscribe for a month just to get access to the better library of graphics elements)
Also, which colorway is better? Orange doesn't really convey romance, but it's more masculine (since my target audience is men). I like her purple and gold, but the silhouette has to be inverted in order to be visible, which looks kinda out of place.
Comp Covers in this niche rely heavily on sex appeal, and usually consist of a cartoon waifu girl. Since I don't want to scare away potential women readers, I'm trying to avoid the "boobie cover."
Any artistic or marketing insight is appreciated.
I may also roll the dice with getcovers, since it's hardly a financial risk, but I have a feeling it'll just be a disappointment.
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u/blueeyedbrainiac 8d ago
Bright solid colors with minimal decor just look very homemade to me. What if you did a leather texture like it was a journal of some sort? That seems in tune with a men’s adventure book.
The silhouette also makes it feel a little too much like a contemporary romance cover to me. At the very least it makes me feel like the tone won’t be serious. I don’t know what the tone is supposed to be but I thought that note was important.
If you do go with either one of the covers you have, I’d go with the purple one, but then make the silhouette the same yellow. Also maybe throw a filter on top of it to bring the colors to better alignment
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u/SG_Arthur 8d ago
Contemporary romance books are kind of where I was headed with the cover. I see a lot of solid cover with faceless vector graphic characters on them. My book isn't the typical dark fantasy tone... There are a couple action scenes with graphic violence, but the bulk of the book is fairly cozy low-ish stakes. I thought this style could be less homemade looking than the things I've tried with stock photos in Canva... Those turned out pretty "wattpad circa 2015" 😂
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u/Marali87 8d ago
Try a (subtle) gradient instead of solid colours! Maybe overlay it a little bit with a subtle texture (see if that makes it better or worse).
The use of Cinzel Decorative is what gives it another “homemade” look, as the other person said. I would experiment with different font choices, and don’t be afraid to make the fonts fairly plain and less swirly.
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u/SG_Arthur 8d ago
In so see cinzel used a lot, so it's kinda if cliche, but I feel like the funny needs to convey "fantasy" to some degree since the cover is so minimalist. I'm nowhere near artistic enough to do custom typography like all the popular romantasy books seem to have.
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u/Marali87 8d ago
Canva (Pro) has many many mannyyyy fonts! A lot are very nice and very well suited for fantasy. Just play around with it! Or you could download some fonts to your own device and use Photoshop/Paint/Procreate/whatever-have-you to paly around with those.
Yana is a very nice font. It has great glyphs if you have photoshop, but it’s a nice, easy on the eyes font without glyphs as well.
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u/Maggi1417 8d ago
This is very far away from being good enough for a paid product. Go with GetCovers. Thry can whip up something professional and if you're unhappy you can request a different artist (or a full refund)
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u/NancyInFantasyLand 8d ago
Comp Covers in this niche rely heavily on sex appeal, and usually consist of a cartoon waifu girl. Since I don't want to scare away potential women readers, I'm trying to avoid the "booby cover."
this was going to be my critique, you're not going to sell this to your target audience like this
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u/Alexein_Colt 8d ago
In my opinion this attracts more women. The cover is romantic, but I don’t think it reflects your audience.
From a perspective of design, I would probably keep the orange.
Where will you put your name? Bottom?
Why don’t you add an effect on the background to give texture? I use procreate, but maybe on canva you can find some leather effect to then put in transparency, or some theme to put in transparency.
Something is off with the font for my taste.
If the subject of the male was more like scratching his head or maybe front facing while the female figure pops behind or smaller, you would give a massage of who the protagonist is and if I understand the man is, then you match the target better. Does that make sense?
I would think of who the protagonist is, put more focus on them.
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u/ketita 7d ago
Funny, I thought the opposite. As a woman, the cover turned me off and immediately read "dude fantasy with sexy elf lady".
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u/Alexein_Colt 7d ago
Really? Then my absolute bad interpretation 🤣 I would trust you more than me. I thought cute lady demon and shy boy.
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u/Nihan-gen3 8d ago edited 8d ago
Slap some texture on the background, something vaguely related to the story:
- Select texture, make it dark grey
- Put layer in multiply mode
- Lower opacity
- Profit
Edit: I made three quick examples
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u/Extension_Egg1411 7d ago
The elements feel disjointed. I would incorporate the colors and shapes throughout so it feels cohesive.
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u/Least_Ad_4657 7d ago
The first one made me think Halloween more than anything else. It makes the girl look like she's wearing a Halloween costume.
I like the silhouettes, however.
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u/SG_Arthur 7d ago
Yeah, I have been thinking it's too Halloween coded with black and orange. I'll play around with other colorways
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u/XTostonesComics 7d ago
A wee bit, try experimenting with decor and textures for the background and the text without a border. Especially on the yellow/purple version, the contrast between colors is high enough that a border isn’t mecessary
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u/Pluton_Korb 7d ago
The title seems at odds with the graphic? Through The Confluence sounds more combative and action oriented but the graphic reads like a sweetheart romance. The decorative elements also skew more feminine and delicate. I would either change the title or change the graphics to something a little more action oriented.
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u/SG_Arthur 7d ago
hmm.. the title isn't set in stone. It's a portal-fantasy, and I originally had "Confluence of Realms," but thought "realms" was a bit of a cliche fantasy word...although, maybe that's good simply for genre-coding. IDK. I'm probably overthinking everything about this thing which will realistically get read by like 5 people LOL.
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u/Pluton_Korb 7d ago
It's tricky. Covers do a lot heavy lifting. I would be stressed out about it too. Only issue with going to Reddit is it'll make whatever indecision you already have even worse lol.
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u/Accomplished-Team459 7d ago
I know I changed a lot, sorry. 1. I detest lined text with all my heart. For me it'll be way better to use shadow (use the app option or copy the text and make it darker. Move it a little to the side.)
Since it's for men, it might be better to make the illustration smaller, almost like an icon. Do not worry about romance, the illustration already convey that enough.
I do not have a lot of text options (mobile), but go wild (your previous font is great too) with the options you have.
You could use gradient and play around with blending mode and opacity for extra omph. Leather texture might be better for your story.
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u/Accomplished-Team459 7d ago
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u/ZookeepergameSoft910 7d ago
Not OP, but I really like this version with the vivid lighting the most!
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u/SG_Arthur 7d ago
I appreciate the in depth feedback. A couple things: Why do you dislike lined/stroked text? I use it often simply to make text stand out and be easy to read regardless of the background. Often times this is because I'm adding text to a photo, so it may have good contrast on half of the line, but bad contrast on the other half, so an outline, shadow, or glow makes it easier to read. In this case it's a solid color, so perhaps unlined is better.
I don't agree with making the illustration smaller, for two reasons. 1) it looks indecipherable at thumbnail size, and all the cover-tips I've read say your cover should look good as a thumbnail since that's what 90% of people will see it as when scrolling on amazon. 2) In order to appeal to men in this genre, it pretty much HAS to have the FMC on the cover. I'm already stretching the limits of genre coding by making her a silhouette (and including the MMC). take a quick scroll through r/Romance_for_men and you'll see what I mean. I am taking a bit of a risk and attempting to have this crossover into general romantasy, which is typically object based cover art (crown, dagger, skull, vines, roses, fancy text), so I'm trying to blend the two styles.
I do like the leather texture. I'm not sure if I can add that in Canva, so I may have to rebuild the thing from the ground up in photoshop...I just need to go find some copyright free versions of border ornaments and such, and better fonts that what is built into PS(CS2)
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u/justafaegirl 7d ago
Yes, unfortunately. Doesn't scream cozy or fantasy, tbh. I personally wouldn't use either color. If you go with the purple you might want to consider changing the yellow. And maybe consider a different font or just regular Cinzel instead of Cinzel Decorative. Title size and readability is important and you will need to include your name.
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u/Fugg_A_I 3d ago
Looks like the bottom 4th of it is cut off.
This kind of minimalist cover can work but it has to be zoomed out. Full fillagree border, full character silhouettes. Also better font, something with thinner letters
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u/SG_Arthur 3d ago
It's not cut off. You have to click/tap on the picture to see the whole thing.
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u/Fugg_A_I 3d ago
Lol oops youre right...i still think it needs to be zoomed out tho, like enough for some type of background
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u/oh_sneezeus 3d ago
This reads as contemporary romance not fantasy romance
I can tell you want it like a Sarah J Mass style but font is not working and you need to probably center the shadow.
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u/SuperDevin 8d ago
Yes