Yes, we all know that as writers we want our work judged by its literary quality. Yes, we know that publishers rarely consult us on what they decide to put in a cover. Yes, we lament the short-sightedness of the reading public in not delving into the text to see our genius.
Grow up.
The facts are that covers DO matter and more than 2/3 of a buyer's decision to even consider a book comes from the cover; the second factor by which 3/4 of buyers make a decision is the first page. That's right. Roughly 75% of book buying decisions are made from reading only the first page. 25% are made on the first line alone.
So, boil that down. Cover and first page.
Unless you're self-publishing, you may not have input into the design of a cover, but you do have total control over your first page. Forget about back-story, forget about prologues. Get to the inciting incident. Pull the reader into your story.
You only have a page to do it.
(Buying statistics above courtesy of Simon & Schuster.)
And check out these novels. Just click on a cover to go to Amazon.
Reviewer and NYT bestselling author, David Corbett called The Firecracker King "a wicked, marvelous book."
Sci-fi legend and NYT bestseller, A.C. Crispin, called TIME JUMPER “a mindblowing fantasy thriller.”
