Why I changed my book covers yet again #WriterWednesday #BookMarketing #BookCovers #CozyMystery #AmWriting
Blurb and cover. Blurb and cover. The so-called experts tell us that if our books are not selling to go back to the basics and look at the blurb and cover. (There’s also the matter of having enough reviews, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.) Despite being one of my favorite series, my Death by Cupcake series doesn’t sell – at least not as much as I’d like. I’ve tried Facebook ads, Amazon ads, even Bookbub ads (FYI – those are super expensive), and nothing was bringing in the sales I want (let alone the sales I’d hoped for). So, I decided to go back to the basics.
In the past year, I’ve changed the blurbs for each of the books in this series. I’m assuming, therefore, that the blurb isn’t the problem. Time to take yet another critical look at the covers for this series. I already changed the cover of the first novel in the series, Never Trust a Skinny Cupcake Baker. (You can read about that here.) But perhaps that wasn’t enough?
Honestly, I like the book covers. They’re fun, cute, and obviously all within the same series.
But when I took a look at the covers of other cozy mysteries, I realized my covers were different than the others. A bit too simple, a bit too sexy. Looking at the top 100 culinary cozy mysteries, the majority of the covers can be (very simplistically) divided into two categories:
Those with located into a bakery or restaurant:
And those with food on the cover:
I decided to go back to the drawing board with my covers. I wasn’t going to make a cover that was different or special. We all know those don’t work. As I think covers of bakeries or restaurants seem a bit crowded, I decided to go for a cover with food. Since the Death by Cupcake series is obviously about cupcakes, the cover ended up being a big cupcake.
I only uploaded the new covers yesterday, so there’s no telling if the change is working. To be continued …
I’m wondering if I should do the same with my romantic suspense series, only I look at the bestselling books in the genre and the covers are all so different… I’m in something of a quandary about it all, particularly the expense involved.
I went to the subgenre of culinary cozies to really figure out what was working and what wasn’t. Amazon often puts books in genres that aren’t actually correct, so I filtered those out. Then, I was left with a bunch of covers that were similar. There are also outliers but I assume those books make the top due to author name recognition.
My husband does my covers, so the expense for me is minimal. I’m lucky that way. I’m not sure I’d be quick to change things if I had to spend a bunch of money.
Sorry, what I should have said is that I liked your old set of covers, as you did, but the new set is easier to read, very clearly a series and eye-catching. Good luck with them I hope they do the trick with sales 😀
Thank you. Fingers crossed.
Reblogged this on Claire Plaisted – Indie Author and commented:
Sometimes a book cover change is all it needs. Thanks for the Post 🙂
Thanks for the reblog!
Anytime. Love to share good posts 🙂
Very interesting. I do like your new covers. They say ‘cozy mystery about making cupcakes’ which is probably what you want?
My two bits: My thriller with a submarine sells much better than the one with the less-known Cruiser. And, when I switched from thrillers to prehistoric fiction, my cover designer said that wasn’t a genre she was good at and recommended someone who was.
I am eager to hear if your changes work.
Kudos to your cover designer for admitting her limitations. I checked out the covers and all of your covers scream what genre they are in.