by Tara Stevens, Assistant Manager, Ebook Marketing
The other day my boss asked me what I like most about my job, what I gravitate towards when I come in to work. Which emails I check first when I sit down at my desk, that sort of thing. The answer is easy: Carina covers!
I’ve been helping to manage our digital-first cover creation process for a while now, and I enjoy it because it’s something totally unique to everything else I do in my role. I think what interests me most about it is the challenge of representing the heart or essence of a book and getting it right so that people will see it online and want to discover more about it.
Do customers judge ebooks by their covers? I think so. How we promote a book has changed a lot in the digital age, but I believe quality covers are still an important ingredient in the total marketing pie. People seem to be spending the majority of their time on the Internet these days and their attention spans are low. So how can our covers stand out from all the competitive clutter onscreen?
I think one of the biggest challenges facing our Art department and freelance designers is creating a cover that’s as unique as the book. Often it can be difficult to avoid using popular stock photo sources. When I brief the designer, we really try to get to the heart of the book’s genre and sell one thing. Part of my job is to pick one key attractive feature about the story and present it in a clear way so the cover artist can let their creative juices flow and get to work on some concepts that I share with the rest of the Carina team. We also try to keep the cover images simple, so if you had to describe the book in one word, it wouldn’t be too difficult a task.
Some of you may be wondering whether there’s anything unique about the digital-first cover process compared to the traditional print cover process. There is! One of our steps involves editor and author feedback. We welcome this insight and always try our best to address any concerns as they come up.
I’ve worked on quite a few special Carina covers along the way, spanning many different genres—everything from historical romance to erotic romance to horror to steampunk! Picking favourites is hard, but the ones you see sprinkled throughout this post definitely rank up there.
So now it’s your turn: What are your favourite Carina covers so far? What catches your eye and makes you click through to find out more about a book?








