Tag: design

Question by Risa: Front cover design – eye catching or off-putting?

I’m working on a free ebook to post on my site (and maybe later add to and self-publish).
A graphic design student has volunteered to help me out, and I have a very peculiar idea for a cover. The story is AU Fantasy, the basic storyline is quite typical. It’s a young woman sent to a kind of medieval timeline and stuck there until she helps out the magician who summoned her. I wanted a cover that kinda didn’t make sense, I have this idea and I’m going to go and sort it tomorrow…
It’s the idea of a heavy wooden table, like a workbench, with a white piece of linen draped roughly over it. On the table is a sword, bow, dagger, or whatever I can get my hands on first. Then next to that is something from the modern world; like a pair of converse or an MP3 Player. I’m trying to make it a bit bizarre, like ‘wait, what?’
So here’s my question – if on a shelf (or more likely online) you saw a book with that kind of cover, would it put you off or would it make you curious? That is, if you knew nothing about the story.
Also, would you be likely to give it a read if it were free or would you assume it was no good because of this?
Yeah, that’s a concern actually; I need to buy a toy weapon and then the graphic designer is going to edit the photo to look medieval – not sure how that would turn out though, lol!