Three Things That Make Me Pick Up A Book


Quick Disclaimer: most of the covers I posted are just aesthetically pleasing to me. Some I have read, some I haven't. I can't guarantee how good they are.

Hi again!

For week two of my blog, I thought I’d share
the top _ things that make me pick up a book!

1. Cover
People say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. In a perfect world, maybe nobody would. However, the entire reason this saying exists is that people do judge books by their covers, myself included. In past experiences, books with cheap, poorly designed covers were not well-written. In fact, they were boring, hard to follow, and often downright awful.

Depending on the genre, different covers might be more or less appealing. Fantasy covers might have more details, for example, while dystopian might look better minimalist, while realistic fiction could use silhouettes, and chick lit has brighter palettes. But no matter the genre, a few things are of absolute importance.

Font: It should be large and eye-catching. Certain fonts look better than others, some fonts look cheap. If you remember anything from this, it’s that no matter how much you spend, you do not want to look cheap. Contrast cursive fonts with regular ones, thin fonts with bolds, complex with simple, vintage with modern, serifs with sans serifs. Avoid fonts that are too similar. Make some parts smaller than others. Use fonts from the same family, and when you’re done, ask yourself, does it look cheap?

Imagery: I always love minimalist covers, with simple backgrounds and one, eye-catching image in the center. It draws the gaze right to the focus-point of the cover and gives it a clean, uncluttered look. Another thing I love is a quote on the cover, something to pull the reader in. For the novel I’m currently working on, this quote is “Nothing in Life is Free.”

Blurb: This could be praise quotes from other authors or a quick summary designed as a hook. Whatever it is, it needs to be to-the-point and engaging. Not everyone has a lot of attention devoted to your book, and you have to convince them to buy it in the span of a few sentences.

2. Reviews
Whether it’s on Goodreads or Amazon, I always look at the reviews. There’s not much you can do about the reviews other than produce quality material. If there are mostly good reviews, I will buy the book. So will, I’m assuming, most of your potential readers. If there’s a negative review here and there, or even if half the reviews are bad, I’ll still take my chances.

Don’t worry if you have bad revi
ews or even mediocre ones. Not everyone will love your book, and there’s not much you can do about it.



3. First Five Pages
I’ll either read the first few pages or open to a random part in the middle. If I don’t like the prose or find the five pages I read disengaging, I’ll put the book down. If I find an error in spelling or grammar, forget it.

The book needs to have a clean and polished look. The beginning has to draw me in. If nothing is happening for thirty pages at a time, broken up by a page and a half of action, that is bad.

Make your book interesting, add action, create realistic dialogue. Edit.



That’s all I have for you today.

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