How soon is too soon to reveal your next book cover, posting it on social media and your website/blogs? Some say hold off until a few months before the pub date, at least until review copies are mailed out. I was told by one publisher that if you reveal the cover too soon, readers will get use to seeing it, and then if they see it again some months later around the time the book actually comes out, they'll associate it with an older title. There are some authors who have not unveiled the actual cover until pub day, even displaying a generic cover on Amazon and other sites. Others say it's best to debut the cover early on and get it set in a reader's mind so that they bond with the visual and look forward to the on-sale date.What's your opinion? How many months prior to release date do you unveil your new cover?
Also, here's a great, informational blog post on the same topic by author Jody Hedlund. She gives several important pros and cons that I found to be very helpful. http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-should-authors-release-their-book.html
I guess it seems like a risk to reveal it more than two or three weeks before the release.But what do I know. I certainly don't have a great track record.
ReplyDeleteThe cover of Wolf Hunters was my member pic in half a dozen communities from the day I got a copy of the image. No idea if that helped sales or not, but I kept it out there.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately To Ride the Chimera's cover was deadly dull and Roc coupled news of it's release with an announcement they were ending the series due to poor sales.
Pretty sure that hurt sales.
I'd choose to debut the cover as close to the release date as possible. I doubt it would impact sales one way or the other but as Charles said, what do I know? Maybe now that I have some control over these things I can do a comparative study, but even then there might be other factors at play that have nothing to do with when the cover was unveiled.
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