Choosing a Book Cover for No One Noticed

Choosing a book cover

The next stages of getting No One Noticed out onto the shelves involves a flurry of activity, making me feel quite frantic at the thought.

Next up: choosing and finalizing the book cover.

Several book cover photos made the final cut (I've posted pics of them below), but I believe the final cover will look something like this:

Nitty Gritty:

There are multitudes of things I adore about this photo.

One, at first glance, the lake looks serene and lovely. The kind of place upon which one might want to kayak, or ride a paddle board (both of which I witnessed when the photo was taken).

 Or, perhaps, go fishing. Like Randall Strait. 

The photo was taken on a beautiful day. The sky is blue. The trees are green. 

The lake seems quite placid.

But then, as your eye moves toward the bottom of the photo, 

one notices the log. 

And the cement tube.

And the darkness of the photo begins to settle in. Leaving the viewer with a slight sense of nervousness -- an unsettling discomfort.

Stepping back to look at the entire photo once again, the viewer's eyes are drawn to the photo's edges. The way the leaves frame the picture helps draw the eyes in toward the center. And then down. 

The feeling of being slightly unsettled nags at the back of one's mind.

Those are just a few of the reasons why I adore this cover photo.

For those of you who read Diamonds for Diamond, you'll note that I used a photo of Horsetail Falls, just outside of Portland, Oregon for the cover for that book.



For complete and utter spoilers, in the first novel, Jack Diamond recovers the body of one of his serial killer victims in the pool at the bottom of this waterfall.

So the picture has significance.

Spoiler alert: If you don't want to know anything more about No One Noticed, you need not read any further.

If, however, you have an insatiable curiosity about spoiler alerts, please, read on.


Are you sure?

Okey dokey.

You asked for it.

It's just a wee one. So not a BIG jump into the pool of spoiler alerts.

Here goes:


One might make an assumption that Jack Diamond will make a similar such discovery at the location pictured on the cover for the novel No One Noticed.

For now, I'm keeping all other such spoilers to myself.



For those of you who want to frolic about in the midst of all things Jack Diamond, here are the 'rejects' for alternative cover photos. After the photos I briefly discuss why I liked each one, and mention why the photo was finally rejected.

Each of the book covers above had something I loved about it.

The first one: I loved the sinister darkness about the photo. It seemed to have a similar color pallet that Diamonds for Diamond had. But it also seemed a bit bland, and didn't have that 'look' about it I was searching for.

The middle photo (from left to right) is still one of my all time favorites. I love the cement tube in the photo. It most accurately represents the feeling and the look of what I was aiming for. I don't remember why I chose to go with something slightly different -- it may have been that the back cover of the book would not have worked if I had used this photo? I honestly can't remember. I am trying not to second guess myself here, folks. I kinda want to switch back to this photo now. Hmmm.

The third cover had that lovely dark photo again I adore. And you can see the lake peeking through the trees, which I also love. But again, it didn't have that certain something I was looking for. Not quite sinister enough.

Cover four (first one on the left of the second row) looked amazing to me. I love the starkness of the trees with the lake contrasting behind it. It reminds me a great deal of a photo I took off the deck of my cabin in the San Juan Islands in the early 1990's when I was a camp counselor teaching a fishing class. For reals. Sigh. Nostalgia.

Cover five, easily my third favorite, and a very close winner. The logs in the water gave the cover exactly what I had been looking for. But frankly, I loved that cement tube! I just couldn't get over it, and the simple logs lost out.

Finally, cover six. A nice, generic cover. But it lacked something. So it's a loser.

The amazing thing about these photos is that they were all taken within 15 feet or so of each other. Same lake. Different angles. It's amazing how just focusing on something slightly different can give you a vastly different feel.

I wish I could say that there were just six final photos to choose from. The 200 gajillion that we started with took multiple hours, and much angst to weed through. I don't think I've ever realized just how much work goes into picking just the right book cover. The front of the book as well as the back of the book both have to be taken into consideration. Font size, shape, color, shading...

The list is vast and endless.

These final three photos are truly lovely and can give you a better idea of the total view.

That's it for the teasers for today.

Next up: choosing the wording for the back cover. Ugh.

* * * * *

Diamonds for Diamond (the first book in the Jack Diamond Mystery series) can be bought by clicking on the picture or the link below.

You can buy my book in both e-book and paperback on Amazon here:  

Diamonds for Diamond by Kay Nimitz Smith



No One Noticed (the second book in the Jack Diamond Mystery series) will be available shortly!

* * * * *

We judge books by their covers

Choosing the wording for the book cover

We Judge Books By their Covers

I can't tell you how many books I have chosen to read, or slid back onto the shelves, after having read the book cover.

It's amazing to me how easy it is to actually judge a book by its cover.

We've been advised against it since we were wee tots.

And yet we do.

We judge books by their covers.

In your mind's eye, envision the cover for a romance novel. I'm sure at some point you've seen one of their covers. A half naked man, hair flowing wildly, swooping over a woman who is flopped over his arms.

Or a bodice ripper book, where the cover focuses mainly on a woman's cleavage, her ample bosoms heaving -- perhaps even a wee damp bit of sweat beading strategically.

Western covers usually evoke memories of the vastness of Montana, or a horse meandering along with the Grand Canyon somewhere nearby.

Murder Mysteries inevitably have pictures of knives, bright red blood oozing off the tip. Or pictures of a city skyline, making the reader think of the darker, seedier side of urban life.

Or perhaps the cover has something like a graphically designed bird that, although not immediately clear as to its meaning, will somehow evoke feelings of satisfaction once the reader makes the connection three quarters of the way through the novel.

Matt Damon's face inside a space helmet helped the movie version of the novel the Martian fly off the shelves. The book cover is an eye-grabbing orangy-red, immediately evoking feelings of Mars. To top things off, the book cover also has an astronaut sort of bouncing -- arms in front, feet off the ground -- as if the astronaut is struggling on the planet. Perfection.
Add in Matt Damon's face and you've got yourself another winner.

We judge books by their covers.

If one is lucky enough to have a zinger of a cover to entice the potential reader to pick up our book from amongst the gajillions out there on the shelves, or on the Amazon lists or the Goodreads recommended book lists, one then has to have a wowzer of a back cover paragraph. The clincher. The hook.

We judge books by their covers.

Right now, I am facing that mountain. Trying to write the hook, the clincher, the paragraph that will hopefully entice the reader to pick my book off the shelf and tuck it under their arm, taking it to the register and smiling, thinking of the lovely afternoon they will spend tucked into a blanket, reading my book. Or sitting on the back deck, sunglasses perched upon the bridge of their noses, sipping 'drinkies,' reading with delight as Jack Diamond discovers who the bad guy is.

I have an initial idea for my hook.

But perfecting it is my next task.

Wish me luck!

Next up: choosing the picture for the back cover.

* * * * *

Diamonds for Diamond (the first book in the Jack Diamond Mystery series) can be bought by clicking on the picture or the link below.

You can buy my book in both e-book and paperback on Amazon here:  

Diamonds for Diamond by Kay Nimitz Smith



No One Noticed (the second book in the Jack Diamond Mystery series) will be available shortly!

* * * * *

Final stages

Hello all!

As we move into the final stages of No One Noticed, book two in the Jack Diamond Murder Mystery series, I sit around twiddling my thumbs with absolutely nothing to do (cough cough). One of my friends sent this to me from Prague, and I thought I should share.

Turns out the name Granini is Czech for STRAWBERRY!!

Since strawberries are my most favorite fruit, I thought that the news seemed most appealing.

After all, Granini could have been Czech for something like, oh, say lima beans.

* * * * *

I wrote a murder mystery!  Here is the link so you can buy it:

You can buy my book in both e-book and paperback on Amazon here:  

Diamonds for Diamond by Kay Nimitz Smith

* * * * *