I don’t understand cover reveals. I mean, I do but I don’t. We can’t judge anything by its cover, right? The cliché can be applied to everything from people to presents to the Millenium Falcon. (She’s got it where it counts.) But it most aptly applies to books and their literal covers.
I’ve seen authors do countdowns (In 12 days, you can look at a picture!) and even try to turn the first peek at a cover into some sort of event (The first 100 people to look at the picture get entered into a drawing to win a bar of soap!!). I’m not sure the cover is something to try to get readers excited about. Aside from the fact that viewing a jpg is not an event, a picture is an art form completely different from a story. The people who like the cover may not be the same people who like the story. Plus, most authors don’t make their own covers so it feels a little like suggesting someone else’s skills might make your work good.
On the other hand, creating a cover is a necessary step in creating a book, one that still sneaks up on me every time. What!? I need to make another cover. <grumble> I know that cover reveals are mostly about saying the book is one frustrating step closer to being available to read. That is something to get excited about.
I’m not revealing anything, but you might notice a new cover if you look around. In fact, depending on how often you stop by, you might notice more than one. Because I make my own covers, I can say with authority that the other ten or twelve versions of flowers and a pizza box were not as pretty as this one. That feels like appropriately lackluster fanfare. The cover may not look like much if you like a funny love story, but the book has funny and love where it counts. I hope you’ll agree.
And if you’re looking at the wrong new cover, you’re
probably confused about why I mentioned flowers and a pizza box. An interesting note about the Heart Games
covers is that they have puzzles similar to the puzzles on the inside. You might actually get an idea whether or not
you’d like those books based on your reaction to the cover. It’s like they are trying to negate
everything I just said.