Designing the book cover!

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Nobody is going to know how good your book is until they start to read it. The only things they have got to go on is the book cover and what you have written about the book on the back cover. If you are not a well-known name you have to rely on attracting potential readers through the visual medium.

An eye-catching cover, along with enticing back-cover notes, might just convince a reader to take a chance on you as a new writer.

I remember having a depressing conversation with an editor. He asked me how many Sci-Fi books an average Sci-Fi fan might read in their lifetime. I enthusiastically replied ‘thousands’. He was more sceptical but asked me how many good Sci-Fi books, by established writers, were already published and out there. We left that hanging.

He then asked me to imagine I was going on a long flight and I wanted to buy a novel for the journey. He told me to imagine I was browsing the Sci-Fi section at a book shop. Would I be more attracted to an Isaac Asimov or an Iain Banks that I had not read than taking a chance on a Ron Forsythe?

It was a tad disheartening.

All one can do is to design a cover that attracts, like a flower touting for bees. The cover can be a make or break. It has to stand out from the crowd.

A cover should say something; it should visually relate to the story. It is a statement. It tells the reader what the book is about within a scan of the eye.

The cover should also capture something of the author.

A picture says more than a thousand words.

Designing a cover is crucially important.

Here are the covers I have designed for my books:

Cambodia – Angkor Wat – Another wondrous site.

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Design of a building for the average vinyl junkie.

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I studied this at length and could only find three major faults.

  1. Do the kitchen and bedroom really need all that space?
  2. Couldn’t the outside door open into the bedroom thus providing more wall area for shelving?
  3. There is a need for books too – so a similar size room adjacent to this would be required.

Apart from that the design looked perfect.

Rotterdam – The Cube Houses

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An amazing feat of architecture that looks incredible.

Blame The Vagina For Our Ignorance.

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The problems associated with birth are just one of many problems associated with the human body. This was a great post.

Five major ‘Design’ faults with the human body!

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Because the human body is the result of billions of years of evolution through chance mutation and selection it is far from perfect. Given the opportunity to design a human from scratch there are glaring problems that need addressing. As a biologist these are blindingly obvious. The human being is far from perfect.

Here are five major problems that could be addressed with simple design:

  1. The single opening to the lungs and its opening into the mouth/digestive tract.

Many people choke to death because of a simple ‘design’ fault. Because the lungs developed out of a sac/swimbladder of a fish as a part of the digestive tract we are saddled with one single opening into the mouth which opens right next to our oesophagus. Consequently we can easily choke and often do.

Answer: – two or more separate openings into the lungs that are completely separate to the digestive system. If one becomes blocked it would not be fatal. There would be less likelihood of food or drink going down the wrong tube.

2. The opening of the reproductive system, excretory system and egestory systems in one place.

Because the whole egestory, excretory and excretory systems are designed to open into a common cloaca of a fish living in water, where there would not have been a hygiene problem, they still open in the same area now. Except that we have evolved to live on land and this close association of the three openings together creates hygiene problems. The vagina and uterus, with its adaptations for life on land, facilitates internal fertilisation and development of the embryo. Thus allows entry of bacteria and a fertile area for them to breed. The contamination of faecal bacteria causes infections of the urinary tract and reproductive system. The genitals are contaminated with both urine and faeces. A recipe for infection. Also not brilliant for sex!

Answer: separate the three opening so that urine is not voided through the vulva and faeces are not ejected right next to the vagina.

3. the neck and brain.

Because of cephalisation the brain and senses organs are grouped at the front. With the increased size of the brain it has become more delicate and we now find it encased in protective bone on the end of a flexible neck. As we lead with our head our brain is vulnerable and the neck is extremely open to damage. We suffer concussion, brain injuries, broken necks and paraplegia.

Answer: house the brain in the centre of the chest where it would be better protected and also closer to the heart to ensure a great blood supply (oxygen and nutrients). There would be no need for a protective skull and no neck to break. The senses – sight, hearing, taste, smell, could still be congregated at the front.

4. The testes on the outside of the body.

As any man knows the most painful experience a man can have (85.6X childbirth) is to have a severely blow to the testes. It is mind-blowingly, paralysingly, agony. Yet there they are – an easy target and major weakness when fighting, hunting or participating in a domestic. They invite a good kick. The reason they are there is because sperm production is better at a temperature below body temperature.

Answer: make sperm production best at body temperature and put them where women keep there’s – inside the abdominal cavity!

5. The vertebral column

The vertebral column is the wrong shape. It has evolved for walking on all fours (as with chimps and gorillas) and has not yet evolved to suit bipedal ambulation. Consequently people are plagued with back ache and major problems caused by curvature of the spine. It cripples millions of people.

Answer: adapted the shape of the spine so that the weight bearing problems associated with bipedal locomotion do not cause the pressures, strains and structural decay we currently find.

I could go on through a list of other problems associated with our imperfect bodies – biochemically, with tissues and organs and structurally (feet, hip joints, knees, appendices, placques, deleterious genes…….). If we were made in god’s image or created then there has been a major cock-up somewhere down the line.

The human body functions but is far from perfect. A day spent in a design centre could come up with a far superior model that would not suffer with this range of problems.

Food for thought.