Never Judge a Book by its Cover

An Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Community forum was held on the subject of Traffic Counts in August of 2021. A few respected authors and Kimberly Hitchens, a KDP certified e-book contractor, offered their respective opinions on why Amazon KDP refuses to provide authors with information on the number of impressions or clicks on the free book-cover advertisements that appear on the Amazon platform unless they subscribe to its paid advertising schemes.

It was denied but then admitted that the data even existed. An anonymous professor felt that traffic counts on the free ads might be a useful but not crucial tool. All that really counts, some participants felt, is money. It suffices, most participants felt, that a “self-publisher” can buy the KDP ads and get data on the responses and does not really matter if the author does not know how many people reached out and touched their books and read the free introductory information.

The value of the free advertising gimmicks, such as giving away your books, letting them be lent out for nothing, and discounting them as far down as a dollar, was felt to be minimal. More than one participant felt that even the paid ads are of little value, and that a self-publisher on the Amazon platform must use other promotional devices. Kimberly Hitchens felt that KDP makes very little on paid ads, anyway, so I asked Amazon's Investor Relations department for revenue and expense data for its KDP division, and I received no response.

I concluded that the provision of traffic counts to authors on Amazon book advertisements, whether or not KDP ads were purchased, would be beneficial to both Amazon authors and Amazon. If that number were known and compared to the number of books sold, the conversion to sales ratio might say something about the effectiveness of the free book cover advertisements and their supplemental information displayed on the Amazon platform.

Anyone can sign up and participate in the forums using aliases, so one does not know if they have ever written a book. The KDP Community forums are notorious for abuse, so many participants do prefer to remain anonymous even though anonymity serves to compound the abuse. Using my own name, and stating that I had sold only one of the dozens of books I had quickly posted, and that sale was quite by accident, I ventured to say that the incentive to express oneself in writing is not money for the overwhelming majority of writers.

A respected forum participant who dubs himself “Ding Ling” chimed in to say that I am just a "failed writer." However that may be, the main motive for writing is not the “filthy lucre” defamed by many famous writers even though every author might appreciate a few soiled dollars now and then. Many of the world's greatest authors lived in dire poverty; the works of some of them were considered incoherent, plotless ramblings and were unpopular during their lifetimes. Furthermore, money was never the incentive for authors who had ample means and wanted to join literate conversation. Every writer who has read the masterpieces and studied the biographies of the authors knows that very well.

Most open publishing companies provide content providers with traffic counts free of charge. An online book publisher was even discovered inflating those numbers to encourage content providers. After all, the attention to providers' posts as indicated by the number of clicks is an incentive for them to keep posting and to take steps to increase the traffic in hopes of free reads or sales. It stands to reason that the provision of that data by Amazon to authors, whether or not they but into KDP's advertising scheme, would increase Amazon's income if the content providers were pulling together against each other as competitors.

In fact, it might prove the nagging feeling true that, unless authors do something to promote their own books, the Amazon platform is worthless to them, and that KDP is merely a scheme for a publisher to do the least amount of work, even nothing if that were possible, for the most income, by encouraging authors to be “self publishers” and do all the work publishers normally do. The authors believe the operation is not a “vanity press” because they do not pay Amazon to participate; however, they must game the algorithmic system and pay in time and money if they are to succeed in dollars and cents—besides, honestly, what is not done in this world out of vanity? In any event, if only the number or impressions on the free advertisements were known by everyone, and compared to the number of books sold, the conversion to sales ratio might say something the effectiveness of the book-cover descriptions, rather than the book covers already “touched” or clicked on because readers were somehow attracted to them instead of millions of other covers. What value does a book cover alone have, anyway?

So, having concluded that the provision of Traffic Counts would be beneficial to the KDP enterprise, I organized another “focus group” by posing this question to the Community on the subject of Book Covers:

“Does anyone have any scientific evidence that a particular kind of book cover will result in better sales of the same book than other covers? For instance, has a test been run of several identical books other than different covers and different author names, marketed in the same way, to see if what is considered in advance to be a superior cover has more traffic and conversions to sales?”

It stands to reason that a beautiful woman, for example, as beauty might be defined at the time, or a man handsome according to the handsome model, would get a lot more attention. But would that be converted into a firm relationship? Would the right kind of book cover result in more sales? I get ads all the time from people selling cover designs, $500 to $1,000 and more, all said, of course, to be far better than the free templates offered to reel writers into the schemes. Is there is really any science involved? Millions of e-books are out there. Who sits day and night scrolling through the thumbnail pictures of covers to find the most attractive ones?

“Spinner” replied with, “Didn't you learn from your other thread that everything doesn't have a definitive 'scientific' solution? That's especially true in publishing.”

That “other thread” was, of course, entitled Traffic Counts. In the absence of numerical measurement, how can there be any science based on measurable experience instead of nebulous feelings and wishful thinking? The principles of what makes book covers attractive are supposedly well known by designers, so why not test them on the huge Amazon audience?

I soon discovered that, yes, indeed, scientific studies do exist; that is, if A/B testing is recognized as scientific, a potential subject of debate among positivists or objectivists and anti-positivists or subjectivists; the question might be raised as to whether statistics is mathematics or science. A/B testing is a statistical tool, a random experimental process where two versions of something are shown to an audience at the same time to see which version has the greatest impact. Publishers resort to such testing, but their reports are proprietary. 

One participant felt that no such study of books could be conducted on the Amazon platform because the company does not allow duplicate books to be published, even though the results might be informative. Nevertheless, I supposed Amazon could permit itself to do a artificial intelligence study, posting say, a dozen books with the same content, and report on the results to its “self-publishing” authors, who are, after all, its partners, because book income is split with them. Perhaps that had already been done. Is there such a report?

“What I do for my covers,” said another anonymous Community member, who calls himself KDPMember:TZSSA1a7b258fle, “and this is scientific, is use the focus-group approach. You get one or more avid readers, show them some examples of what you are considering for a cover, and ask them which covers would prompt them to shell out the coin, It works every time. Most products are focus group tested.”

“Focus Group studies,” I responded, “are claimed to be 'scientific,' but that notion is considered passé and has been discredited by numerous students of marketing.”

Although upwards of $3 billion is spent on focus groups in a year, they are definitely unscientific although their proponents may speak of accumulating quantitative or objective as well as qualitative data or subjective feelings from a few people, many of whom are pros or regulars whose selection is based on deception; they know how to lie in order to be chosen to participate in a group, and cannot wait until the hour or so is over so they can collect the $100 fee for participating.

The value of focus groups is not in innovation, which is generally nonexistent in groupthink. The only advantage is in creating hypotheses for testing. That is what I was seeking, reports on the testing of the assumptions made about book covers. Almost everyone seems to be a writer nowadays. Just type “book” or “writer” or “author” in social media and you will be besieged by book cover designers eager to create the perfect cover for you. Some will give you free templates to initiate you into the need for their services. Of course legitimate publishers pay thousands of dollars on a single book cover, so do you want to sell books or not?

'Beach Garden' felt a “scientific” study would be a waste of time.

“Logic and personal preference come into play, both on the part of the author/publisher and the reading public. Logic tells me that a cover that will primarily be seen in thumbnail size should be uncluttered and the colors bright and attractive (subjective). Short of the need to catch the eye of a prospective reader long enough for them to read the adjoining blurb, in my opinion, a cover is really only a big deal in the eyes of the author who is imagining it on display in a brick and mortar store or being shown, full screen, on TV as a best seller or Oprah pick. It is not the cover that makes a book a best seller but the content.”

I tend to agree, given my own experience of reading myself nearly blind over the years in my effort to avoid a miserable reality by transcending it. I have read many of the world's greatest authors, most of them long dead, in old books with well-worn hard covers. I found them by their call numbers since the names of the authors and titles were barely distinguishable. I eventually lost interest in fiction and turned to non-fiction, especially histories, where I learned from the philosophy of historiography that the facts accounted for were not things but events about which many people had different perspectives, so the interpretations of those events were according to the imaginations of the authors in their time or reconstructions well after the fact based on previous histories, hence all were unintentionally fictitious to some extent.

Who cares about book covers? I could have cared less. I was too poor to afford the fine books with embossed covers. Content was what I was interested in, and I proceeded with my studies seemingly at random. I would eventually realize from my introduction into interdisciplinary social sciences that everything humans think is related somehow, and that led to my interest in plotless works, the sort of book one can dip into anywhere and learn something, as if we were reading the minds of passersby. A friend of mine in the publishing profession claims that he has not read a book since he left college. Nor have I, really, not an entire book. The written world is one continuous page for me. I dip into books and magazines here and there at random and always find something to enjoy, something to learn, even in dozen pages of carefully plotted novels.

Perhaps Beach Garden will erect a giant billboard of one of her book covers on Main Street. Otherwise how would I know it existed in the millions of books on Amazon? Regardless of her covers, I would examine one of Beach Garden's chapters if only I knew who she is, but she keeps her identity undercover, it is said, for fear of abuse from her colleagues in the KDP Community. If she is a Camus or a Sartre or Beauvoir, I would not like her novel, but I would love what the critics said about the philosophy behind it. If it were a philosophical work, I would prefer to read her Beauvoir version for sure.

“Can one apply statistics to book design or even writing?” she asked. “There is indeed a formula for Romance novels. Beyond Romance novels I'm skeptical.”

I tend to agree with her again, in the sense that formula writing is conventional, yet the formulas are supposedly based on human nature, on subjective phenomena, the logic for which is found in all stories, logic itself being a story.

“Wander too far afield from the norm in any genre and the readers may reject you,” she continued. “Stick too close to the typical plot plans and be passed up for lack or originality. It was an ancient Greek, I never remember which one, who said there were only six possible plots for a story—it is the variations on the theme that makes all the difference. “

Aristotle identified six major elements for tragic and epic stories. Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Song, and Spectacle. He claimed there are only two types of plots: Simple and Complex. A simple plot has necessarily related moments laid out along a continuous line along which are changes of fortune. Conflict naturally produces those changes. A complex plot includes reversals of fortune involving a crucial action of a character, which he later recognizes as key to the outcome.

Since then, critical thinkers have identified all sorts of variations and more than 31 structures to stories. More await discovery. Indeed, the more elements one starts out with, the more the possible variations. The number of possible combinations of the elements on the periodic table are enormous, and much of the technical advances of civilization can be attributed to the useful combinations discovered so far. Kurt Vonnegut, resorting to an amusing Keep It Simple Stupid explanation, chalked out a line curving up and down from left to right on a black board, the horizontal axis representing time, the vertical axis representing good and bad experiences. His presentation is presently available on YouTube as 'Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories.'

“Who can say if it was the perfect cover or the fantastic telling of a tale that made a book sell?” Beach Garden asked. “Who can say if a perfect cover can save a badly written book? I will admit a great marketing effort has managed to make a best seller out of a disappointing tale or two. Would the time and effort it might take to try and scientifically prove either possibility be worth the time, or even provide a useful bit of information except as applied to the book in question?”

Beach Garden certainly provides food for thought for social scientists who would discover just what the norm might be that leads to best selling books, and how that norm changes over time. Some professionals seem to know it intuitively, their intuition hopefully being based on experience or direct access to noumena, and they may collect handsome fees by attributing the upward swings to their acumen or insight. There is certainly something to said for intuition when it succeeds.

Several writers did say they had anecdotal evidence. One Hannah Banana stated, “All I do know is that, when I changed my covers from my naïve newbie offerings to professional looking, on genre, and eye-catching ones, I sold way, way, way, way more books. Common sense tells me that those additional sales were mostly down to the change in covers. Scientific? Well, as far as evidence goes, I can demonstrate it, it is documented, and I can testify to it.”

Still, we do not know for sure if book cover design is responsible for the frequently reported swings in sales. I myself pay little attention to book covers. I do have a friend, an interior designer, who buys expensive books with fine covers to display in her home. She informed me that interior designers buy remainders from warehouses to display in homes or in stores to make a good impression on prospective buyers or customers. But who would buy an e-book for its cover? Well, someone has paid over a million dollars for a PDF of a tweet, so why not? But the point here is that there may be something about the cover that compels the reader, once he gets to the book, to buy it. My local librarian says book covers should have “big-ass titles and author names, the rest is superfluous.”

No doubt having a nice cover on a book could add to the enjoyment of possession after the purchase, but what is it about the cover that would close a sale? Many of the Top Ten Covers of the Year are pretty, including pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

Kimberly “Hitch” Hitchens, owner of Booknook.biz, an e-book formatting and production boutique based in Arizona that has two full time crews and produces 1,500 books annually for indie and best-selling authors, weighed in to say she had “anecdotal” evidence from several clients of the value of good book covers:

“One of my customers is a Macavity- and Edgar-nominated mystery/suspense author. When he first came to us, he had an older backlist of 6 books. They were all put into eBook format and published. He used the same cover designer for all of them. One, the third book, was a rather dim, dark cover, but the rest were quite heavily contrasted, all the usual rules around "good cover design" if you listen to the marketers. So, the series which was popular when trade-published, still sells today. Except for, you guessed it, Book 3. Now, mind you, even though these are standalone, there are two overarching story arcs, that go through all six books. Nobody can explain to me why Book 2 sells in a good number and so too does Book 4, but not Book 3. Other than what? What's the one difference? The covers.

“I have another customer, who wrote what she freely admits is a middling, mediocre romance/mystery, but it has a BANGIN' cover. And it sells like crazy, far outselling all her other work. FAR outselling it. The rest of her work has workmanlike, 'good' covers, but this one has a great cover.

“I fail to see how any "study" could answer the question. A study without money on the line would be meaningless. Commercial publishers do A/B cover tests all the time, in adverts, and they get cold hard data in clicks, but again, what matters is the coin of the realm. And the anecdotal studies related here are just that: cold hard cash. Not hypotheses that if 20% more people "love" cover 2 that that will translate into sales.

“I can say, I've seen enough that were I a publisher of books, were I a would-be self-published author, even if I had to go without lunch for 6 months or a year, or whatever, I'd go, to the trouble and expense of a commercial cover design. Using the KDP "templates" or unexciting covers is simply the KOD (Kiss of Death).”

I would submit my works to legitimate publishers and stuff my mattress with rejection slips before forsaking my lifelong effort to understand the world and share what I know in order to learn more. I recall that an author who managed to game the Amazon money machine to become a best selling author wished she had not gone through the grinder.

Hitch said she no longer does book covers. She referred participants to an article by Derek Murphy, '8 Cover Design Secrets Publishers Use To Manipulate Readers Into Buying Books.'

Well, they are not secrets—the word “secret” is used to manipulate readers into reading the article. I had several “secret” reasons for selecting a free KDP templates as my temporary brand or soup can label for all my books. KDP Community experts have denounced it as the ugliest one. I am tinkering with the text. I am not selling covers. Never judge a book by its cover.

My Currently Favorite Novel