Pretty book covers and why they're important.

Take a good look at the above pictures. Some are indies and the rest are commercially produced, but what they all have in common is that the cover image is striking. You may have the world's best book in your hands, but if you package it wrong, no one will discover it. I know it seems shallow to pick up a book by the cover, but that is what people do. A great cover attracts the eye and gets someone reading your blurb, which may lead to your book being read. As someone who has picked her next read from the 'most gorgeous cover lists' on Goodreads, I can assure you that I'm not the only person who does so. If you've spent your time writing your novel, please give it the best chance you can. 

If like me, you don't know one end of paintshop from the other, then I definitely recommend you invest some money on designers. I understand that going down the designer route is expensive, but take a look at the following: The cover on the left was designed by me and the cover on the right was designed by Ida at Amygdala Designs
 

As I am not artistic, it took a long time to design my cover and I think I did okay, but I would never say that anyone would take a look at it and go 'wow, I love that cover, must have a look at that'. I decided to take the designer route when it became clear that I had no clue of how to produce the second cover. To do it properly, you need access to things like shutterstock and be able to pay for image use, you also need to know how to blend images on paint or photo shop. I've lost count of the amount of covers I've seen where the characters on the cover clearly weren't in the same photo and badly photoshopped. Even more covers use fonts poorly. Some fonts just don't work on covers and the amount of gratuitous, 'fancy' font use I see is sad. Think to yourself of how 'you' decide to read a book and I don't mean from recommendation, I mean from going into Waterstones or Barnes and Noble and picking a book off the shelf. I'd be willing to bet that you go to your usual genre, fantasy or chick lit or literature and you will then pick up a book with an attractive cover.

So spend a little and hopefully people will pick up your book. You don't even have to spend a lot. Amgdala Designs sells 'off the shelf' covers for a very reasonable price.  The Book Cover Designer also handles one off covers at reasonable rates. Check out the message threads on Goodreads to discover the best, most reasonably priced sites and take the plunge. Your book sales will be glad you did.