It’s all about the books and blogs today. I’ll be discussing how I judge the books I read and how wonderful an organized book blogger is!

 

The Books

 Some covers are wonderful. The colors, the text, the pictures all express the true meanings of the stories held within. When a book has a bad cover, it doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad, but it sure doesn’t help. If I see a horrid cover it makes me think two things. Either the author had no control over the cover art or they did have control and just have no idea how bad it really was.

I would say this is a very bad cover on many levels. Yes, it does give you the country/cowboy romance vibe, but there are so many things wrong. The landscape with the fence is pretty, but where this cover went bad is the text and the inserting of the people. The photoshopping of both people is horrible. I have a feeling they didn’t want the females legs to show because of the horizon, but where is the guy’s legs behind the fence? Plus, she is huge compared to him. Is she an amazon in the story? The text is way too generic and doesn’t appeal to me at all. With this cover, I feel bad to say it, but I wouldn’t even read the summary. Thank God, the cover has since been revised.

This cover says what I think the author is going for, a sexy cowboy romance. The contrasting text and colors looks so much better. I would definitely give this summary a read.

 

As an author, I have been very lucky to have some control over my cover art. My previous publisher let me have a lot of input into what my covers were all about. With my first self published novel, the pressure was all on me. With my cover designer and friend, T.M. Franklin, I was able to bring the vision of my cover to life. I wanted vibrant and colorful with a fun couple on full display. My story is about a nerdy girl turned into a reality star icon. That meant I needed a little glitz as well. Together, I think T.M. and I achieved that goal.

 

What do you think?

Here are a few more examples of amazing cover designs.

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The Blogs

I love a well organized blog. The design doesn’t have to be super fancy, but I like to see a little bit of flair and expression of the bloggers personality. With mine, I love the darker colors and straight lines. That is why I went with the purple, black, and white color scheme. My theme does give me the ability to change that up if I feel like it and I just might one of these days soon.

The main reason I made the big switch this year to WordPress is a plugin call the Ultimate Book Blogger. This plugin was created by Ashley, aka Nose Graze. This plugin is genius for busy book bloggers. Some of the many features are: Take a look

• Formats your book reviews in 30 seconds

• Grabs information straight from Goodreads

• Updates your review archives automatically

• Includes 9 time-saving widgets

• Spend less time formatting and more time reading

• Includes several shortcodes to make posting easy

  Take a look at Ashley’s website to get all the details for this plugin, the add-ons, and several amazing WordPress themes she has available. Find it all at NoseGraze.com.

  Check out my website and some of the others listed below to see the Ultimate Book Blogger plugin in action.

• The Overly Attached Reader

• Kira Butler

• Reading in the Rain

• The Book Disciple

• Please Feed the Bookworm

Today’s Instagram Challenge