A response to Do Covers and Titles Matter in Self-Publishing?:

Just look at all the SANDMANs with their murky, unfathomable covers. Other titles such as THE DREAMING also follow this pattern. Vertigo has many titles with nice covers, but if the covers aren't obscure, they're often painted in somber colors. As a whole, they aren't nearly as striking as the covers of mass-market titles.

>> Even mature audience is attracted to nice packaging. <<

I didn't just make this theory up out of thin air. I talked to my local dealer, who caters to the more mature audience, and he agreed with me. His readers care more about the content, the creative team's credentials, and reviews and word of mouth than the average reader does.

>> If you want to cut corner, you should think of doing so in more inconspicuous manner. <<

I wasn't talking about cutting corners, primarily. I was talking about the difference between mass-market and high-end covers. For mass-market covers, you generally want muscular men and buxom women doing something colorful, violent, and obvious such as hitting something. You don't want pretty (but obscure) painted covers like you find on Vertigo books.

A painted Vertigo cover may cost more than a penciled-and-inked mass-market cover so, again, we're not talking about cutting corners. We're talking about whether you need a flashy, glitzy, mass-market-style cover if your comic targets a more mature audience. I say you don't.

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