Cover Critique
Do any of these describe you?
- You designed your own cover, and you want to make sure it’s professional quality
- You designed your own cover, and and you’re worried something looks wrong
- Your book isn’t selling well, and you’re wondering if the cover isn’t attracting readers
- You’re getting poor reviews, and you think you might be attracting the wrong readers
It’s never too late to improve a cover that’s not doing your book justice, whether you have a new release coming up or your book has been out for years! If you relate to any of the scenarios above, this service is perfect for you.
Send me your book cover and I’ll comment on both big picture and technical questions like…
- Whether your cover fits into its genre, target audience, and the current market
- The quality of the imagery
- The quality of the text
- The overall combination of text and imagery
Where I see room for improvement, I will give you practical and actionable suggestions.
Please be assured that my critique will always be completely honest and disinterested. The intent of my critique will never be to influence you to order a service from me; my sole purpose in providing this service is to assist you in designing your book as well as possible, regardless of your self-publishing budget. My comments will not be a vague “this is bad” but rather “this is what I would improve and how I would suggest doing so”, so that you can solve potential issues yourself if you wish.
How many rounds of critique are included?
In this package, I will give one round of critique. If you’d like a second critique once you’ve integrated my comments and suggestions, we can negotiate a discounted rate. In the future, if there’s demand, I may create a new option for two rounds of critique; but for now, this is designed to give the best value on a budget.
What genres will I critique?
Any except erotica or suggestive covers! For what it’s worth, my design specialty is fantasy and its various subgenres, so I’m best situated to comment on those covers!
Special discount on custom services for critique clients!
If you at any point after receiving your critique decide you would like to order a cover from me, I will give you a 15% discount off any custom or premade cover!
Again, please be assured that my critique will always be completely honest and disinterested. The intent of my critique will never be to influence you to order a service from me; my sole purpose in providing this service is to assist you in designing your book as well as possible, regardless of your self-publishing budget. My comments will not be a vague “this is bad” but rather “this is what I would improve and how I would suggest doing so”, so that you can solve potential issues yourself if you wish.
Sample Cover Critiques
NB: These were free critiques provided in a group in which I am a book design instructor. Your paid critique will go into more depth and specificity. These samples are intended to give a brief example of what you can expect from this service.
For a non-fiction book, targeted to women who feel marginalised:
I absolutely love the imagery and the concept! Just a few things I’d suggest looking at…
– maybe a different, but still a similar script, font for the title? I see this particular font a lot! If you’re working in Canva [note: I could tell this from the font!], they should have a bunch of great options.
– see if you can arrange the subtitle and author name so they don’t have to have that bar of colour behind them—that’s a more dated look.
– I’d recommend having the entire subtitle in the non-script font for easier readability at that small size… and maybe experiment with a sans serif font; they pair really elegantly with script.
– usually on a cover and title page, there won’t be the word “by” in front of the author’s name.
That photo is so gorgeous and evocative!
For a novel about a faith journey, targeted to young men:
This is a great prototype cover, and I love that it harkens to nonfiction books for your target audience. I think that could definitely draw in some of your audience, especially since as I understand the genre of your book, it isn’t well defined in fiction.
That said, I think with the size of your subtitle in particular and also your endorsement, this looks a little too much like nonfiction right now. I might try making those smaller (and maybe try a different font? A serif perhaps?) and maybe the title a little larger yet. And I definitely agree the title and image should be somewhat brighter. I can read the title at thumbnail size, but the image gets more or less lost.
It is always a bit of a toss up whether custom art works for a cover or not, but if it stays dark and the general composition remains the same, I think it will work well for this cover!
One final nitpicky thing that I’d suggest would be to keep the alignment of all three text elements centred. It just flows a little more cohesively!
Typesetting (Formatting) Critique
Typesetting a book is an extremely involved process! From the big picture like chapter headers and fonts, to the intricately technical like margin and indent sizes, there is a lot to keep in mind. If you’d like someone to cast a professional eye over your formatted manuscript before you hit publish, I’m your girl!
My comments will include topics like…
- Whether your design elements (fonts, chapter headers, images) are appropriate and on trend
- Whether fonts, indents, margins, line spacing, etc. are properly sized
- I will even mention if you might want to consider a different trim size based on your genre!
Where I see room for improvement, I will give you practical and actionable suggestions for you to try.
Please note that this service is only for print formatting, not ebook formatting.
Please be assured that my critique will always be completely honest and disinterested. The intent of my critique will never be to influence you to order a service from me; my sole purpose in providing this service is to assist you in designing your book as well as possible, regardless of your self-publishing budget. My comments will not be a vague “this is bad” but rather “this is what I would improve and how I would suggest doing so”, so that you can solve potential issues yourself if you wish.
How many rounds of critique are included?
In this package, I will give one round of critique. If you’d like a second critique once you’ve integrated my comments and suggestions, we can negotiate a discounted rate. In the future, if there’s demand, I may create a new option for two rounds of critique; but for now, this is designed to give the best value on a budget.
Special discount on custom services for critique clients!
Special discount for critique clients! If you at any point after receiving your critique decide you would like me to format your book, I will give you a 15% discount off any print and/or ebook formatting package!
Again, please be assured that my critique will always be completely honest and disinterested. The intent of my critique will never be to influence you to order a service from me; my sole purpose in providing this service is to assist you in designing your book as well as possible, regardless of your self-publishing budget. My comments will not be a vague “this is bad” but rather “this is what I would improve and how I would suggest doing so”, so that you can solve potential issues yourself if you wish.
Sample Formatting Critique
Click to view a sample critique!
Your chapter headers are exquisite and really capture the feel of your book. I would give them some more room so they can really shine. Try pushing the beginning of the chapter down the page a bit farther to create extra white space on the page! At the same time, make sure the first paragraph of each chapter isn’t indented.
You’ll want to change the body font to something more industry-standard. The current font size is also pretty big, so you might want to decrease that.
It’s fantastic that you increased the line spacing, since single spacing is too tight for books, but double spacing is actually a bit too wide. Try experimenting with a middle ground between single and double!
Finally, in your genre and especially with the relatively low page count of your book, I’d consider a smaller trim size than 6×9 inches.
Kairos Book Design and Editing 