# RateBookCover.com - Free Cover Ratings (1,000 Covers)



## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

So in between writing and changing diapers I began thinking about how helpful it would be for indie authors to get a better idea what others think of their book covers. Now we all know a book cover is the first thing people look at. Whether it's right or wrong, it's the truth... people *DO* judge a book by its cover. I sense that some people may refrain from replying in a thread when a person posts up their cover and says "Hey give me your opinion on this cover" in fear of having to tell them it stinks perhaps. It's easier to ignore it and pretend you never saw it.

But how about anonymous ratings??

So I thought some more about it and decided to create a website where people (authors), like you and I, can jump over and upload a cover without having to even register or login and anyone can browse them and rate them or post them to social media sites. The ratings are all about cover appeal and not content. Sometimes it's daunting to wait for people to read your books and then hope for a review. It only takes a few seconds to look at a cover and it could be great feedback as an author trying to sell books.

The site is brand spanking new and in beta so if there are any bugs let me know. But feel free to try it out. It's all free and simple and no registration or logging is needed so no worries on having to submit your email and all that. Also if you have any suggestions I am all ears of course.

This is the site http://ratebookcover.com/

In the menu you can read "How it Works".

Edited to add: I did toss up a couple of my own covers, one of my dad's and couple friends so people can see a few covers there.


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## Johnny Dracula (Feb 20, 2015)

Cool idea, and making it easy to upload the cover is a huge plus.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Great idea.

I made my own cover and since I have no talent I am afraid to ask


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Truthfully, I think all of the covers on there right now are good. "Cold Creek" seems a bit plain but the bicycle on that mark is a good idea, otherwise I would have no idea that is a road or trail.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

geronl said:


> Truthfully, I think all of the covers on there right now are good. "Cold Creek" seems a bit plain but the bicycle on that mark is a good idea, otherwise I would have no idea that is a road or trail.


Yeah I am not too fond of the Cold Creek cover.



Eric Cartman said:


> Cool idea, and making it easy to upload the cover is a huge plus.


I know how people hate to take the time to register and then login. These days it feels like an investment. It's nice to be able to just swing over real quick and upload and be done with it.


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## Julian Bray (Feb 26, 2015)

Ok, User feedback.

I like the idea. I have rated the first one. I lost interest in continuing simply because I had to click every cover to see it properly in order to rate it, that's too many clicks. I would want to simply scroll down the page, see the cover in your blog post and click the rate option. I see the rate option is there in the blog feed, but you only get a sqaure of the cover and you've used real estate for your share buttons, which no one has used.

Make it more user friendly. Don't push people away.

At least, that's my perspective.


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## Tallytally (May 5, 2015)

This is super cool!  It was fun to rate the covers, and I'll definitely have to remember this when I eventually get my own stuff out there.  Thanks for making it, it's awesome!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Julian Bray said:


> Ok, User feedback.
> 
> I like the idea. I have rated the first one. I lost interest in continuing simply because I had to click every cover to see it properly in order to rate it, that's too many clicks. I would want to simply scroll down the page, see the cover in your blog post and click the rate option. I see the rate option is there in the blog feed, but you only get a sqaure of the cover and you've used real estate for your share buttons, which no one has used.
> 
> ...


Yeah there is probably a better way to display the covers. Maybe across the page and not having to click to a new page to see the entire thing. I'll work on that...


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

All I saw was the thumb up thing, is there another rating system?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

geronl said:


> All I saw was the thumb up thing, is there another rating system?


There is your typical 5 star rating system... Do you not see it?

I changed the thumbnails to reveal the entire cover and increased it's size. I think it's much easier on the yes now.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> There is your typical 5 star rating system... Do you not see it?
> 
> I changed the thumbnails to reveal the entire cover and increased it's size. I think it's much easier on the yes now.


I do not see any stars. Weird


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## Julian Bray (Feb 26, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> I changed the thumbnails to reveal the entire cover and increased it's size. I think it's much easier on the yes now.


Nice one, just went through and rated them all with no UI clunkiness. Many thanks and have put you on my bookmark toolbar so i'll keep popping back 

And good job all round. I dabble in websites and I know these things take time. Not just the functionality but the aesthetic of a site. So a lovely idea and good on you for taking the time. I hope it becomes a useful resource for people.

Am I right in assuming that this is for people to test drive covers before using them? That's how I would use it for mine, rather than one I had already picked and was using. What would your thoughts be on opening comments on the covers? It would prove useful, though I guess you'd need people to register for that side of things other wise you'd have lists of posts stating how well you made your point and how relevant it was to this other website that happened to be selling viagra.

I would imagine that people who genuinely wanted to give constructive criticism would be willing to jump through the registration hoop.

Just a thought. May over complicate your intent (and create more work for you if you moderate all the comments).


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

OK, I can see the stars and _<- Rate_ This in a different browser than Waterfox

I didn't want to comment because I would have to login but the MiG-29 was well-done. At least, I think it was a MiG-29


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey thanks. I am sure things will only improve as I get more feedback too. 

I think the idea of putting up a few choices before publication is an excellent idea. There is no real connection between the covers and actual book content. I really wanted to stay away from that. We have Goodreads and Amazon for that sort of stuff. So my initial thought was to have any cover whether it is on a published book or not. 

However, I do provide the ability for authors who have already published to place an Amazon button below their cover on their individual page linking to their Amazon page. This takes me a little bit of time (not much) so I am charging $5 one time just to do it. It's cheap so most anyone can afford it and it covers my time and maybe some bandwidth expenses, etc. 

I have thought about doing Amazon affiliates but instead for those people who do purchase a button they can place their own affiliate link there and maybe earn enough commission to earn back the $5 or even more.

As far as comments go, I currently have it set up with Facebook comments (you have to go to the cover's individual page for this) so there is no registering on the website. Not that I am totally opposed to it but I figure if people want to talk more about it they can link it up and come here and chat about it?? Maybe?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

geronl said:


> OK, I can see the stars and _<- Rate_ This in a different browser than Waterfox
> 
> I didn't want to comment because I would have to login but the MiG-29 was well-done. At least, I think it was a MiG-29


Glad you can see it now. I wonder what was up.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

I also mentioned it and linked it on My Twitter (I don't have many 'followers' though)


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## klhynds (Apr 7, 2015)

I don't have a problem with giving criticism in relation to book covers. When people ask for your input, you shouldn't be afraid to tell them what's on your mind--ultimately it helps them to get a better book cover (at least in most cases). 

Or maybe I just don't have much of a filter. I just blurt out the first thing I'm thinking.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

geronl said:


> I also mentioned it and linked it on My Twitter (I don't have many 'followers' though)


Hey thanks! Every little bit helps


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

*Anals of Brightshire*??

Are we sure that it is spelled correctly??

It's not supposed to _Annals of Brightshire_??


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

This is awesome! 

I will definitely be testing my covers here. I'll also spread the word to any authors I know.


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## Shiriluna Nott (Aug 26, 2014)

Fantastic idea. I might throw up my unreleased cover on there soon.


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## Michael J Elliott (Dec 18, 2014)

I think this is a great idea for those of us that have two possibilities in mind and aren't sure which to use, the feedback would be a great help


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> Lol... It's Anais, not Anals.


OK, but it is possible that an erotic story could be called that.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I'm enjoying this more than I thought i would. Me and the kids like browsing all the covers.  

I'm still debating on the whole comments thing... In one way it's good to get the advice from others but if there are crap comments I don't want to get into having to moderate or begin taking covers down because authors don't want those comments associated with their books etc. If you could email Amazon and say "hey can you remove that poor comment I just got?" most would. 

I'm not completely opposed to it of course, it just opens up a whole new dimension to the site... and where it just launched and it's already getting tons of hits and votes and there are now 27 covers listed, if in a month there are 27 covers times 30 then it could mean a full time job for me and no time to write my 3rd novel hahaha


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## BEAUTeBOOK (Oct 8, 2013)

I love the idea and I think it is great for designers too, it is always interesting to interact with authors and this is a very original way to do that. Thank you!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

BEAUTeBOOK said:


> I love the idea and I think it is great for designers too, it is always interesting to interact with authors and this is a very original way to do that. Thank you!


I was thinking about this very thing last night. I wonder if there is a way to give credit to designers if/when their books are listed... I am not sure if the author would want that or not if they paid for it, some may care, others many not...

Something to think about...


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## BEAUTeBOOK (Oct 8, 2013)

stevenremington said:


> I was thinking about this very thing last night. I wonder if there is a way to give credit to designers if/when their books are listed... I am not sure if the author would want that or not if they paid for it, some may care, others many not...
> 
> Something to think about...


Sometimes authors don't like to give away the name of their designer, and that's OK. What you could do is to add a field where users identify themselves as either author or designer, but I think the site as it is settled right now works perfectly.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

What's interesting is the cover of mine that has gotten the lowest rating (the vast majority say average, and some say poor, with only a few above average) is the cover that generated over 60,000 downloads in a Bookbub ad and five figures of sales for the other 3 books in the series the same month, with similar covers. So, if this reflects what the general reader population would think, the cover isn't as important as I would think.


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

Caddy said:


> What's interesting is the cover of mine that has gotten the lowest rating (the vast majority say average, and some say poor, with only a few above average) is the cover that generated over 60,000 downloads in a Bookbub ad and five figures of sales for the other 3 books in the series the same month, with similar covers. So, if this reflects what the general reader population would think, the cover isn't as important as I would think.


I don't know about others, but I was digging that Stiletto cover  and I gave you a handsome rating. Not so sure about the others, so I left it all blanko. You may be right though - either the cover is not as important, or you had one hell of a blurb hook ... OR ... There could be different tastes for covers depending on different fans of genre. For instance I'm not a fan of models in erotica covers and such, but I know people who borderline salivate on erotica or romance covers made with photoshop to look all purdy and such. It could be that we didn't have as many of those folks now on the bookcoverrating blog, but we may have them in the future, as the numbers of visitors increase.



stevenremington said:


> I'm enjoying this more than I thought i would. Me and the kids like browsing all the covers.
> 
> I'm still debating on the whole comments thing... In one way it's good to get the advice from others but if there are crap comments I don't want to get into having to moderate or begin taking covers down because authors don't want those comments associated with their books etc. If you could email Amazon and say "hey can you remove that poor comment I just got?" most would.
> 
> I'm not completely opposed to it of course, it just opens up a whole new dimension to the site... and where it just launched and it's already getting tons of hits and votes and there are now 27 covers listed, if in a month there are 27 covers times 30 then it could mean a full time job for me and no time to write my 3rd novel hahaha


Steve, maybe you could try and "hire" some folks who are not writers or designers, with much more ample time on their hands to moderate the site? Just an idea. And not even now, but like, on the long run, as thing thing grows.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> I don't know about others, but I was digging that Stiletto cover  and I gave you a handsome rating. Not so sure about the others, so I left it all blanko. You may be right though - either the cover is not as important, or you had one hell of a blurb hook ... OR ... There could be different tastes for covers depending on different fans of genre. For instance I'm not a fan of models in erotica covers and such, but I know people who borderline salivate on erotica or romance covers made with photoshop to look all purdy and such. It could be that we didn't have as many of those folks now on the bookcoverrating blog, but we may have them in the future, as the numbers of visitors increase.


Yeah, I think readers of various genres like certain kinds of covers. I also think women in general like different kinds of covers than men. It also makes me think the blurb might weigh in heavier than the cover when it's shown in a promo with a photo. Perhaps people who subscribe to bookbub go more by blurb, since they already feel bookbub has seen merit of wouldn't feature it...so they read the blurb to see if it interests them. Who knows? It's very interesting, though. Sincer I was in advertising so long, I like to think about this stuff! 

Thanks for the compliment and rating on Stiletto. Man, I've gotten a TON of remarks on how cook that cover is, yet one person gave it an "awful". Just goes to show you can't please everyone with your writing, your blurb OR your cover!


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Here's another thing to keep in mind. The cover can be a big success or a big fail, depending on the audience they are trying to reach. I mention this because of Harvey Click's covers. Since he showed one of these covers on here and said he was hoping to reach a female audience, since the protag is female, I hope he's okay with me repeating what was said to him from several women. The cover doesn't work if he wants female readers. The protag in a couple of those covers is sexualized and her clothes and pose are unrealistic for anything but being "sexy".  Most women who read action, thriller, sci-fi, etc don't respond well to sexualized protags on covers in those genres. Those same women might enjoy them on romance or erotica.

So, if he really is hoping to build a female fan base, it's an epic fail. A 1 or 2 star. 

However, if he simply cares about sales (and there sure isn't anything wrong with that!), and wants to appeal to men, his covers are excellent and rate 5 star.

I dig the retro "pulpy" look, but as a woman I also feel those covers are for male readers. I look at the cover and go, "Cool, pulp look. Men will love it." Then I go on to look at someone else's book. (Or, if it were erotica, both sexes would love it.) 

So, how does one rate it without knowing the target? Do I give those a 5 or a 1?  lol


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## BEAUTeBOOK (Oct 8, 2013)

Caddy said:


> What's interesting is the cover of mine that has gotten the lowest rating (the vast majority say average, and some say poor, with only a few above average) is the cover that generated over 60,000 downloads in a Bookbub ad and five figures of sales for the other 3 books in the series the same month, with similar covers. So, if this reflects what the general reader population would think, the cover isn't as important as I would think.


Well, here is a thought about whether the cover matters.

It is true that:
- You would not throw away a diamond ring just because it was given to you inside a mach box, while if someone gave you a rubber o-ring you wouldn't be less disappointed just because it was given to you inside a velvet case.

But:
- If someone were to choose to pick one of the two without knowing the content, they will tend to choose the velvet case.

So:
- The cover is like any package, the purpose is either to lure the most people to buy a product they have never try before, or to improve the experience of people who buys because they already knows the product. (Even if you already know they are giving you a diamond ring, it is not the same feeling to open a beautiful velvet case and see the ring shinning inside the pillowed perfumed silky interior, than to see it loose inside a smelly mach box.)
- If your book is already being successful without a professional design, and in sites like Steven's you are getting low ratings for your cover, you have a great opportunity to increase sales by getting a new one.

That said, congratulations on your 60,000 downloads, that's amazing.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

60,000!! Wow. Congratulations on that!


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Thanks guys. Well, those are the 3rd set of covers for the saga. It was done by a cover designer. The book was finally excepted by bookbub after this new cover. The saga was dead in the water until the promo. It's still doing decently. So, for now, they stay. If things stall, maybe I'll change. What I do know is now *they look very similar to other psychological thrillers*, which is what I was shooting for. A psych thriller has much different fell than a crime thriller, techno thriller, etc...so I'll wait and see if things die again.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Caddy, bear in mind also that there are only a handful of people who have been to the website and it may not reflect yet the "general population". I think, like anything, the more reviews you get the more it will all pan out. let's say I promote the site next week and market to a bunch of Romance authors you may see a totally different result than if I marketed to a group of horror authors. So for those who may not like their ratings right now I wouldn't throw up your arms yet, I think all will pan out in due time. I saw some really awesome covers that got poor results. We all have different tastes and genre and marketing will determine the results. Also, it's a lot harder to get ratings from people who have read the book than it is to get ratings with a simple look at an image, so I can only imagine the ratings number will be MUCH higher on the cover site than what we see on Amazon.

As far as hiring someone, I could do that, although i would probably need to find a way to monetize the site better. I have been thinking about starting a free newsletter though (more things to keep me sidetracked)


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

As far as comments go, is it that people don't want to use Facebook? Because if you are logged in to Facebook you can leave a comment. You just have to go to the individual cover's page to do it...


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

how many other forums has it been mentioned on?

I have a coolscifi forum account, I could post about it there. If someone has a reddit account they could mention it.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I tweeted about it a couple times, but other than that it's only been mentioned here in this thread. I haven't even posted it on Facebook yet. I wanted to get feedback from the folks here first before I went to town on marketing


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

That makes sense


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## Motley (Jul 9, 2013)

What a great idea. I'm an amateur cover designer (for myself!) and enjoy seeing what other people like and don't like.

I have no clue about website coding, but to get around the comment moderation problem perhaps there could be some sort of checkbox system where raters can select a star rating for categories such as font choice, readability, color choice, graphics?


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

stevenremington said:


> Caddy, bear in mind also that there are only a handful of people who have been to the website and it may not reflect yet the "general population". I think, like anything, the more reviews you get the more it will all pan out. let's say I promote the site next week and market to a bunch of Romance authors you may see a totally different result than if I marketed to a group of horror authors. So for those who may not like their ratings right now I wouldn't throw up your arms yet, I think all will pan out in due time. I saw some really awesome covers that got poor results. We all have different tastes and genre and marketing will determine the results. Also, it's a lot harder to get ratings from people who have read the book than it is to get ratings with a simple look at an image, so I can only imagine the ratings number will be MUCH higher on the cover site than what we see on Amazon.
> 
> As far as hiring someone, I could do that, although i would probably need to find a way to monetize the site better. I have been thinking about starting a free newsletter though (more things to keep me sidetracked)


Steven, I hope you don't think I'm upset about the rating. Not at all, and I also mentioned it matters what genre people who vote read, sex, etc...I was simply pointing out how interesting it is that the book that makes me bank is getting the lower ratings.  It is what it is and I don't care, as I did my research on covers for the genre...but it does make me think the covers may not be as important as I imagined. Important, yes...but like I said when using an advertising site like Bookbub, perhaps they go straight to the blurb. Now I'm going to fixate over my blurbs even more! lol

Being upset about the rating would be as ignorant as being upset with a 3 star review. Or even 1 or 2 star reviews. People like what they like.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Nice. I like the idea. I see a problem with a "Most rated" feature in that it will always be populated with the oldest covers. I'd also recommend a bulleted list for genres, which will help when you activate the "By Genre" feature. Make it as extensive as you like, but force submitters to a fixed set of categories, otherwise you'll get a lot of esoteric subs.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Yeah I agree, Caddy. When I receive the bookbub promos I do look at the cover but I also look at the blurb and price. The Fussy Librarian emails I look at the ratings etc. So yeah I think it's the entire package!!



Saul Tanpepper said:


> Nice. I like the idea. I see a problem with a "Most rated" feature in that it will always be populated with the oldest covers. I'd also recommend a bulleted list for genres, which will help when you activate the "By Genre" feature. Make it as extensive as you like, but force submitters to a fixed set of categories, otherwise you'll get a lot of esoteric subs.


Saul I was just having this discussion tonight about the Most Rated feature. It almost seems irrelevant. I'll be working on the By Genre thing soon. I think that will help... and like you said keep to a fixed set of categories.


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

Caddy said:


> Yeah, I think readers of various genres like certain kinds of covers. I also think women in general like different kinds of covers than men. It also makes me think the blurb might weigh in heavier than the cover when it's shown in a promo with a photo. Perhaps people who subscribe to bookbub go more by blurb, since they already feel bookbub has seen merit of wouldn't feature it...so they read the blurb to see if it interests them. Who knows? It's very interesting, though. Sincer I was in advertising so long, I like to think about this stuff!
> 
> Thanks for the compliment and rating on Stiletto. Man, I've gotten a TON of remarks on how cook that cover is, yet one person gave it an "awful". Just goes to show you can't please everyone with your writing, your blurb OR your cover!


I agree on your comments regarding bookbub and differences in taste for book covers between the sexes .

And you are welcome! Yes, you can't please everyone, and the sooner new authors learn this, the better they will cope with bad remarks for covers or bad reviews and ratings!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> I'm not on Facebook, nor will I be in the foreseeable future. I don't how many people like me are out there, but I know a lot of folks seem to be disenchanted with it nowadays. *shrug*


Yeah I did notice a few people have "unplugged" from Facebook lately. Well, I'll maybe add in a comments section soon. I can always see how it goes!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I removed the Facebook comments section all together. I went to turn my comments back on for the site and now they aren't showing haha. So I need to figure out what happened.

I am going to do a daily featured cover where a cover remains at the top of the home page for a day! The site now has 43 covers uploaded and ready to browse and rate. At this pace we could have a few hundred uploaded by the end of the month. I'll keep everyone posted on anything new.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Trying it out now. It would be cool if covers that we rated would disappear to be replaced by new ones to rate. Right now I rated all the ones on the front page but I don't see any others cropping up unless I hit the 'Older' button.


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## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> Lol... It's Anais, not Anals.


I thought it was Anals too. Poor typography choice.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

RachelSilbes said:


> I thought it was Anals too. Poor typography choice.


I knew I could not be the only to make that mistake


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Ted Cross said:


> Trying it out now. It would be cool if covers that we rated would disappear to be replaced by new ones to rate. Right now I rated all the ones on the front page but I don't see any others cropping up unless I hit the 'Older' button.


You know that's interesting. I might look into this and see if I can at least get them to auto load. Right now you have to click on that 'Older Covers' button on the button, loading up another 10 covers and so on.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

Ok, this sounds fun. I'll play. Submitted.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Looks fun! Submitted and bought a buy-button!

It'd be good to have them come up randomly too, so the older ones don't get forgotten about as they move down the list.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey got you guys squared away!

Yeah the covers are coming in pretty hot right now. Before, the new ones kinda sat for a bit but the ones that were uploaded this morning have already gone over to the 2nd page, so I am going to begin working on different options to browse. In fact, I'll probably do the Top Covers by Genre this week so people can browse that way and rate them...


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I have been thinking about book promotion a lot today and I want to sorta pose a question... 

Not sure how to word it but my goal here is to not only provide this as a tool but to also help you guys promote your books. If there is anything... or if any of you have any slick ideas that might be an opportunity to get your covers in front of more eyeballs please run it by me. You can always email me personally or send me a PM.

Right now I have a Featured Cover option, an Amazon icon feature, and now a newsletter I am going to begin. Hopefully over time this will help to get the world out as well. So let me know if any thoughts come to mind.


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## RachelSilbes (Apr 28, 2015)

geronl said:


> I knew I could not be the only to make that mistake


My thought process was the same as yours. I assumed it was an erotica novel.


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## Just Another Vampire Writer (Jan 22, 2012)

This will either be soul-crushing or encouraging... I'm in! Uploading some now


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

I am working on another homemade cover for the next story. (halfway done) Hopefully it won't look half-bad. lol. 49% would be enough bad.


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## alexsouthwriter (Jan 23, 2013)

I uploaded the cover. But I wasn't given a link to its page. So how can I find it on the site and see what people think?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

alexsouthwriter said:


> I uploaded the cover. But I wasn't given a link to its page. So how can I find it on the site and see what people think?


Alex, it takes a little bit of time for each one to be processed before they appear but here is yours. It's live on the site http://ratebookcover.com/swarm/

You can also see it on the home page for now...


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## archaeoroutes (Oct 12, 2014)

Like the idea. I just put a couple of my covers on there...


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## alexsouthwriter (Jan 23, 2013)

Okay, it might be good to put that info on the post-submission page. 

Also, if the site becomes really popular, it might be harder to find your cover, so maybe the author could get an email with the link once it's processed.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

alexsouthwriter said:


> Okay, it might be good to put that info on the post-submission page.
> 
> Also, if the site becomes really popular, it might be harder to find your cover, so maybe the author could get an email with the link once it's processed.


That's a good idea with putting that info on the post-submission page. The problem with emailing the link to the author is that the form doesn't request email addresses so I would have no idea who to email. But, there are a couple things I can mention on the post-submission form. There is the search function where authors can search for a book title. Also whatever their title is just add that to the end of the domain name. /book-title-here

For instance:

http://www.ratebookcover.com/*swarm*


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Thanks, Steven.

I really like that it's simple, and I don't have to register.

I just loaded two different versions of covers. They don't appear yet, I assume you check them first (eliminate spam?). Is that true?

Very often, people want to choose between two covers. You might implement that by simply allowing them to say "Keep these together."


----------



## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

TromboneAl said:


> Thanks, Steven.
> 
> I really like that it's simple, and I don't have to register.
> 
> ...


Yes, I manually approve each submission so depending on my schedule it could take just a few minutes or several hours. If I'm sleeping it could be 6 or 7 hours before the submission appears 

I did just edit the post-submission page right after your cover submissions to help explain this better.

Thanks everyone for the input. Keep it coming!


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Playing around with it some more, I really like it. 

I don't see the Thumbs Up thing, for voting something up, and it's not clear to me what that would do, anyway.

Oh, I see it. It's only visible when you view the full cover. I'm guessing most people won't care about seeing the full-sized cover. 

So, if I click the thumbs up, what happens? Will that determine the top covers in the genre once you implement that?

Perhaps the thumbs up thing is a way to get people to come to the site more often, but I'd consider nixing it. Essentially you have two ways of rating a cover, and they are redundant.

After the Submit button is selected, I recommend a message such as: Thanks! Your cover will appear as soon as it's been approved.

Consider: Browse for image, upload, then get "Here's how your cover will appear on our page," and the final Submit button.


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## Small Town Writer (Jun 11, 2014)

I've listed my cover and have already gotten some great votes!


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## Flopstick (Jul 19, 2011)

Yeah, I can't see the star-ratings at all. Where are they supposed to be?


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Not sure if there's an easy way to do this, but having an array of more covers in thumbnail that show a larger image when you mouse over them might work better. For me, the biggest negative is having to click on the "Older Covers" button. I'd also recommend adding your own Buy button with your own affiliate tag for covers where authors choose not to purchase their own. Why waste an opportunity like that?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I'm currently talking with someone to help me out on a possible redesign to implement pretty much what you described. The biggest issue is ease of navigating all the thumbnails. 

I live in Maine and residents from here are not allowed to join Amazon's affiliate program, nor are people from Arkansas and a couple other states. Some tax law issue.


----------



## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Flopstick said:


> Yeah, I can't see the star-ratings at all. Where are they supposed to be?


Use a different browser. The stars don't show up on my Waterfox but they work with Chrome


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

One thing that's useful is to see how the cover would look on Amazon's search results page. So, if you wanted to get fancy, you could add that kind of display.

Also, I'd consider getting RateMyBookCover.com. RateBookCover.com doesn't feel right to me.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

TromboneAl said:


> One thing that's useful is to see how the cover would look on Amazon's search results page. So, if you wanted to get fancy, you could add that kind of display.
> 
> Also, I'd consider getting RateMyBookCover.com. RateBookCover.com doesn't feel right to me.


I didn't get RateMyBookCover.com because it wasn't available


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I do own RateBookCovers.com, however!


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## Flopstick (Jul 19, 2011)

geronl said:


> Use a different browser. The stars don't show up on my Waterfox but they work with Chrome


I'm using Chrome...maybe it's my pop-up blocker.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Maybe! or NoScript


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Okay we have a new look which is easier on the eyes and waaaaaaaay more mobile friendly. According to Google Analytics most of you guys are on a tablet or a mobile phone of some sort. I have added comments, although some of the older comments were turned off so I need to go back one by one and turn on comments individually for each cover listing so if your cover isn't allowing comments, just be patient and it will eventually appear 

I am still working on some cosmetic stuff, but more importantly, I am in the process of creating a Top 100 list by genre, much like Amazon's list for people to navigate through.

http://ratebookcover.com/


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Yep, that's different alrighty


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## Amber (Dec 6, 2014)

Great idea!



TromboneAl said:


> Also, I'd consider getting RateMyBookCover.com. RateBookCover.com doesn't feel right to me.


I have to agree, the domain bothers me, haha. There are a ton of domains available that might work a little better:

BookCoverRatings.com
RateThisCover.com
RateMyCoverDesign.com
TheCoverRater.com

etc, etc - I have an obsessive habit of domain browsing.

Just something to consider.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I could use RateBookCovers.com (with the s) which I own.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

both could be pointed at the same page


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Yeah I could always do a 301 redirect so it appears on a different domain. 

Okay, so basically as they appear, the new covers will start in the upper left (unless there is a featured cover and then it will appear below it) and move it's way down to the bottom of the page and then pop back up onto the top of the 2nd column and work its way down and then pop up onto the 3rd column and so on, finally making it to the bottom right of the page and onto the 2nd page...


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I may have opened up a can of worms but comments on covers are now open.  

If people aren't gonna play nice I will look for a couple volunteer moderators or something


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I am going to begin writing articles on the website. One of the things I would like to do is interview professional book cover designers... It could be a useful and very valuable tool...


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> You know that's interesting. I might look into this and see if I can at least get them to auto load. Right now you have to click on that 'Older Covers' button on the button, loading up another 10 covers and so on.


Something that has a mark on it that you voted would be great, if its doable. Like "check" sign.

Also, thumbs up on the idea for interviewing book cover designers


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## jrwilson (Apr 7, 2015)

Jeff Tanyard said:



> I read the title of the "box" thingy before I looked at the cover, so that may be why the "anal" thing never occurred to me.
> 
> I wonder if the author is aware that people are reading it this way.  Then again, it's probably not a problem on Amazon, since the product's title is right there in big and bold type next to the cover. *shrug*


I wasn't aware that anyone would read it that way. I guess this exercise is officially soul crushing for me. I knew there was a reason why I try to only lurk. I'm officially retreating back into the shadows.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Only those with a dirty mind  

I knew it was an "i" because it's a name...


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

stevenremington said:


> I may have opened up a can of worms but comments on covers are now open.
> 
> If people aren't gonna play nice I will look for a couple volunteer moderators or something


Well part of being anonymous is that some people won't play nice. I may not like Romance, but I still gave a 'good' rating to some romance covers just because that is what their quality seemed to me, but I see some 'poor' ratings on one of my covers that just don't make sense to me, regardless of whether people like the genre or not.


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## mickeywrites981 (May 9, 2015)

This is a great idea...now to obtain a cover.....hmmmm


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

jrwilson said:


> I wasn't aware that anyone would read it that way. I guess this exercise is officially soul crushing for me. I knew there was a reason why I try to only lurk. I'm officially retreating back into the shadows.


Don't retreat! Seriously, get yer butt back here! I think it is normal for us to fall in love with our covers, and it makes us a little bit blind sometimes to flaws. Stick around. You might never have known potential readers were seeing the title that way if it wasn't mentioned. It's an easy fix.


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## archaeoroutes (Oct 12, 2014)

A questions for ebbrown: What made you decide to have some of your covers black and white and some colour? It think they all look great but wondered if there was a specific reason.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

archaeoroutes said:


> A questions for ebbrown: What made you decide to have some of your covers black and white and some colour? It think they all look great but wondered if there was a specific reason.


The one cover in my Time Walkers series (Of Vice and Virtue) was a side story featuring secondary characters from the main storyline. When I first published it, I called it a "Time Walkers Novel" so that readers would not think it was about the main characters and be disappointed. Turns out that line of thinking didn't go over well with fans, so I re-branded it into the series as #3 where it naturally fell into the timeline and turned the trilogy into a 4-book series. I liked the idea of a slightly different cover while keeping it recognizable as part of the series, so that's why I went with the B&W. If that makes any sense, haha!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Almost there. Just a few more to get to 100 covers. Come on folks upload some more covers  

Yeah it can be a humbling experience. I had some poor ratings  

But it's all good. Authors need thick skin for all the criticism they receive, because for some reason the industry expects us all to be perfect. Perfect with the best covers, perfect with zero typos or grammatical errors in a 100,000 word epic fantasy, perfect in all ways... It's tough as hell.


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## archaeoroutes (Oct 12, 2014)

ebbrown said:


> The one cover in my Time Walkers series (Of Vice and Virtue) was a side story featuring secondary characters from the main storyline. When I first published it, I called it a "Time Walkers Novel" so that readers would not think it was about the main characters and be disappointed. Turns out that line of thinking didn't go over well with fans, so I re-branded it into the series as #3 where it naturally fell into the timeline and turned the trilogy into a 4-book series. I liked the idea of a slightly different cover while keeping it recognizable as part of the series, so that's why I went with the B&W. If that makes any sense, haha!


That makes perfect sense. I agree it was a good way to keep it similar but make it obviously something a bit different.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I meant to update this sooner, but there are now 103 covers on the website. There are some really nice ones. My favorite cover right now is Amara's Daughter by EH Howard. There are some close seconds that's for sure. My son's favorite (he's 13) is Bad Deeds by Robert Bidinotto.


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## allison.sipe (May 14, 2015)

This is such a great idea. I love my cover but have been wondering if others will too. I'll have to check out the site! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Flopstick (Jul 19, 2011)

I still can't see the stars in Chrome on my PC, but I just checked using my phone and they're visible there. No idea what's causing it: Disconnect is showing no requests, no scripts seem to be trying to run, there are no ads trying to load or anything. It's weird.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Flopstick said:


> I still can't see the stars in Chrome on my PC, but I just checked using my phone and they're visible there. No idea what's causing it: Disconnect is showing no requests, no scripts seem to be trying to run, there are no ads trying to load or anything. It's weird.


That is very strange. Let me ask around and see if others who use this same star script have run into people having similar issues.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

allison.sipe said:


> This is such a great idea. I love my cover but have been wondering if others will too. I'll have to check out the site!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Fear not!


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## Accord64 (Mar 12, 2012)

This is good, fun idea. I jumped in and am finding the results interesting.

There are a number of great covers, but I really envy "The Immortality Game" cover. Very nicely done, Ted!

I probably missed it upstream, but what are the little dialog balloons for (all have zeros in them)?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Accord64 said:


> I probably missed it upstream, but what are the little dialog balloons for (all have zeros in them)?


I just opened up comments for those who wish to register. Some had asked about it so they are now open. That number indicates how many comments are under that cover


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I have considered creating a page or category for book cover designers to "display" their covers for purchase. It's only a passing thought.


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## Julian Bray (Feb 26, 2015)

Steve,

just wanted to say I really like the new layout you've implemented. It makes it so much clearer and easier to see the covers and rate them. Good job sir, congrats.

Also, your site is on my toolbar and i pop in when i'm killing 5 minutes, so thanks for the entertainment too.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

It certainly is entertaining. My kids love to browse through and they get a kick out of them.  

I'm glad you like the new design. Took me a bit to get used to it but now I definitely like it better. It works like a charm on mobile, so people can jump on while in the car (as a passenger of course lol) or at the doctor's office and do some rating.


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## SteveHarrison (Feb 1, 2015)

It's a really good, fun site, Steven. Well done!


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## allison.sipe (May 14, 2015)

Just uploaded my cover and I can't wait to see the rating. I really like that it's free and easy to use from my phone! I've already rated a bunch of other covers. It's fun seeing what everyone else is coming up with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

SteveHarrison said:


> It's a really good, fun site, Steven. Well done!


Thanks Steve! Glad you like it. 



allison.sipe said:


> Just uploaded my cover and I can't wait to see the rating. I really like that it's free and easy to use from my phone! I've already rated a bunch of other covers. It's fun seeing what everyone else is coming up with.


Yeah I like how it's really easy on the phone. I actually prefer to scroll through on my phone than my desktop for some reason... I am thinking of developing a shortcut so people can just tap the icon and go directly there.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Accord64 said:


> This is good, fun idea. I jumped in and am finding the results interesting.
> 
> There are a number of great covers, but I really envy "The Immortality Game" cover. Very nicely done, Ted!


Thank you, I appreciate that. I'll always recommend Martiniere to anyone!


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> I agree. That cover's a winner, Ted.


Well, it's a 'poor' cover to several people!


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## Adrian Howell (Feb 24, 2013)

Just finished rating a bunch of covers on the site. There really are some beautiful covers there; it’s impossible to choose a favorite. 
Also submitted the cover of my series’ first book. Looking forward to seeing what ratings it gets.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Adrian I was the first to vote on yours.  

I love that cover. I gave you a 5-star. I hope it does well 'cause I really like that one...

Also, I made the mistake of not having the search capable of finding covers by the author's name. So I have been going back through the archives and one at a time adding in the author's name to the covers so people can search by author as well. I'm about half done. It should be done today but this should be helpful. The result will be each author can plug their name into the search and see all their covers they've uploaded.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Gaulvinov said:


> Something that has a mark on it that you voted would be great, if its doable. Like "check" sign.


Yes! I can't remember which I've already voted on. And an option to have the covers appear in different orders - by genre, date uploaded or random.

But I'm impressed. Especially with the speed at which this site is being modified. I wish Agile Development in my work was half so efficient!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

DebBennett said:


> Yes! I can't remember which I've already voted on. And an option to have the covers appear in different orders - by genre, date uploaded or random.
> 
> But I'm impressed. Especially with the speed at which this site is being modified. I wish Agile Development in my work was half so efficient!


Under or next to the stars it will say: *Rate This (5 Votes)* for example if you haven't voted for it. 
If you have already voted it just says: *5 Votes*


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Done! Okay everyone can now use the search function to look for author names as well, and not just cover titles... I had to go back and add this in manually. Hopefully I spelled them all correctly


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

Just put mine up there. Now I'm going to get to rating--there are some great covers!


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

The cover for "Crypt" is really good.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Here are some more comments, but know that I like the site.

1. Sorting by column 1 then column 2 etc is not a good idea. Row-wise sorting is the most common, and most people expect it. It makes more sense with paging also. It won't matter to most, but I was wondering why my covers weren't together, then figured it out.

2. This is a gripe that I have about thousands of web sites: Why can't you just put them all on one page or at least have more than five rows? Think how easy it would be to use my mouse wheel to scroll through all the covers. In most cases web sites break things into pages for one reason: So they can display more ads.

3. Getting more traffic is key. Be sure to work on search engine optimization. Figure out what authors search for. Your title and meta data should have things like design a book cover, book cover tips, author tips for covers, graphic design, how to make a book cover. You want to attract authors but also anyone who might enjoy rating covers.

4. Having some cover design articles is a great idea.

5. If you need to attract more authors, maybe a contest in which a submitter could win a free cover design by a pro. I'm sure there are pros who would donate their time in exchange for the promotion.

Good luck.


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

stevenremington said:


> Under or next to the stars it will say: *Rate This (5 Votes)* for example if you haven't voted for it.
> If you have already voted it just says: *5 Votes*


Oh that's clever... 

Oh and I registered to see if I could add a comment. Several hours back and it's not yet sent me an email. No worries - but I thought you'd want to know.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

DebBennett said:


> Oh that's clever...
> 
> Oh and I registered to see if I could add a comment. Several hours back and it's not yet sent me an email. No worries - but I thought you'd want to know.


Crud. Okay, I'll look into this real quick.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

The joys of shared hosting  

My host says they are deleting emails in queue from some other site which was causing the issues. When they are done (hopefully soon) I'll have the system resend the email if that's possible. In the meantime, I'll look for better hosting


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

TromboneAl said:


> Here are some more comments, but know that I like the site.
> 
> 1. Sorting by column 1 then column 2 etc is not a good idea. Row-wise sorting is the most common, and most people expect it. It makes more sense with paging also. It won't matter to most, but I was wondering why my covers weren't together, then figured it out.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info! There is something in the works already for #5 as far as submitters potentially getting something. 

I'll probably announce it next week...

Oh and I'm working on a plan to form a group of people who would like to get paid to leave honest votes and honest reviews. I have to crunch numbers on this, though.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Okay I'll give some detail on the announcement next week. I'll announce with more specific detail on Monday but there will be a cover drawing. I will have the system randomly select a cover that has been uploaded and whoever the author is will win an Amazon gift card (possibly?). In other words, the more covers someone uploads, the better their odds are of winning. Right now I am thinking there will be 3 picks and 3 winners and they will be drawn sometime in early June. 

I'll work out the details for Monday and post it here.


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## Rob May (Jun 18, 2012)

Uploaded some of my covers. The site is great - sort of like Tinder for Kindle ... Tindle?

Reminded me of one of my favourite book cover sites ...http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Rob May said:


> Uploaded some of my covers. The site is great - sort of like Tinder for Kindle ... Tindle?
> 
> Reminded me of one of my favourite book cover sites ...http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/


Here you go good sir  http://ratebookcover.com/?s=Rob+May
Good looking covers.

That other website is neat. You snap photos of your books in the "wild" and upload them. Very cool!


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## Rob May (Jun 18, 2012)

Thanks Steven - looks likes someone already rated them all as excellent  I probably shouldn't have done that. I take it you have means of stopping people voting more than once!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Rob May said:


> Thanks Steven - looks likes someone already rated them all as excellent  I probably shouldn't have done that. I take it you have means of stopping people voting more than once!


Yes for the most part... Sometimes you can get away with voting twice if you use a tablet and then your desktop. Not in all cases but it depends on your setup. Then of course there is your work computer. But in the end everyone gets one shot at it from their 1 or 2 and maybe 3 electronic devices.


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> Under or next to the stars it will say: *Rate This (5 Votes)* for example if you haven't voted for it.
> If you have already voted it just says: *5 Votes*


Oh! I see!

I didn't know this. It always gave me "Rate this", maybe because I haven't yet run into trying to rate a cover I already rated. Thanks for the tip! 

Also, I'm loving the redesign!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Gaulvinov said:


> Oh! I see!
> 
> I didn't know this. It always gave me "Rate this", maybe because I haven't yet run into trying to rate a cover I already rated. Thanks for the tip!
> 
> Also, I'm loving the redesign!


Hey glad you like the redesign 

I'm getting a lot of good feedback on it, especially those on mobile.


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Hi Steven,

I uploaded two of my (self) redesigned covers the other day. I wasn't 100% happy with them, to be honest, and see that the voters aren't exactly keen, either. So, I've done another redesign and just uploaded it. Can authors take their old covers down if they upload a new version?

Loving the site, by the way!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

garam81 said:


> Hi Steven,
> 
> I uploaded two of my (self) redesigned covers the other day. I wasn't 100% happy with them, to be honest, and see that the voters aren't exactly keen, either. So, I've done another redesign and just uploaded it. Can authors take their old covers down if they upload a new version?
> 
> Loving the site, by the way!


Shoot me an email at ratebookcover at gmail dot com


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Will do.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

The plan for the upcoming week will be to get the word out about the site to groups outside of the indie author community, especially readers. I will word it similar to "There are over 100 authors who are seeking the opinions of readers regarding their book covers. There is no registration involved, simply browse through the covers and click on the stars to give honest ratings."

I wanted to spend time populating the site with your covers so that when readers come they will enjoy the experience. But I think with close to 150 covers now I say give the green light  

So authors, get your covers up there... and hopefully this week we'll see a lot more readers browsing and rating and hopefully clicking through and buying some. It could be a process but the idea is not only to judge your covers but getting readers interested in buying books by looking at the showcase of covers. Make sense? So this could even be a good promotional tool once things get crankin' 

It's only been a week since the site launched and we are seeing some good activity on there! Also wanted to say thanks to all the authors who are joining in, it's been a lot of fun so far and there are some very attractive covers up there. 

I'll be away tonight so don't worry if you submit a cover and it isn't posted immediately. It'll be approved tomorrow!! Have a good weekend everyone.


----------



## Kate. (Oct 7, 2014)

CN_Crawford said:


> The cover for "Crypt" is really good.


Thank you so much!!  It's the first cover I've created completely myself, so it's a huge relief and an absolute thrill to see how well it's been received!


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

If I bring the cursor up from below, it's hard to vote, because the rating histogram is in the way:










Note that people see the current average rating before they vote. That will influence their vote.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

KylieQ said:


> Darn, I wish I had seen this two weeks ago! Oh well, I'll keep it in mind for the next cover.


It wasn't here two weeks ago. 

He only tarted the thread on the 8th of May . . . having just set up the web site.


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## Accord64 (Mar 12, 2012)

stevenremington said:


> It's only been a week since the site launched and we are seeing some good activity on there! Also wanted to say thanks to all the authors who are joining in, it's been a lot of fun so far and there are some very attractive covers up there.


You're off to a great start, but I think the real challenge will be keeping everyone engaged in the long run. Something has to keep people coming back, otherwise I think it will quickly fade. Contests are a good idea, but perhaps other features like interviewing authors of top-rated covers, cover design hints, and maybe even a "help me with my new cover design" section?


----------



## Jill Nojack (Mar 7, 2014)

Well, I just want and uploaded covers that I now realize are too small to display correctly on the site. Darn it all! Can I not remember to stay off the interwebs before I've had my morning cup of coffee?

So, in terms of constructive feedback to prevent dunderheads like myself from doing it all wrong, code to prevent covers that are too small to display correctly would be a nice addition 

I'm uploading them again at a proper size. Sorry for the extra work.

Jill


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Jill Nojack said:


> Well, I just want and uploaded covers that I now realize are too small to display correctly on the site. Darn it all! Can I not remember to stay off the interwebs before I've had my morning cup of coffee?
> 
> So, in terms of constructive feedback to prevent dunderheads like myself from doing it all wrong, code to prevent covers that are too small to display correctly would be a nice addition
> 
> ...


Jill no worries! Trust me when I say you aren't the only one who has done that. It happens 

Here ya go http://ratebookcover.com/?s=jill+nojack


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Jill Nojack said:


> Well, I just want and uploaded covers that I now realize are too small to display correctly on the site. Darn it all! Can I not remember to stay off the interwebs before I've had my morning cup of coffee?
> 
> So, in terms of constructive feedback to prevent dunderheads like myself from doing it all wrong, code to prevent covers that are too small to display correctly would be a nice addition
> 
> ...


What I'd suggest is an upload button, then a

*This is how it will look on the site*










[Submit button here]​---------------

Here's another reason for row-wise sorting: If you submit two covers in succession, for comparison, with row-wise sorting, they will always be at least within one row of one-another. With column-wise sorting, they can be four rows away from one another (as two of mine are now).

---------------

Note, in the above image, that in rounding the corners, any outline is cut off.

I sure am a feedback-aholic.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Accord64 said:


> You're off to a great start, but I think the real challenge will be keeping everyone engaged in the long run. Something has to keep people coming back, otherwise I think it will quickly fade. Contests are a good idea, but perhaps other features like interviewing authors of top-rated covers, cover design hints, and maybe even a "help me with my new cover design" section?


Great ideas! Working on a few of them now.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

TromboneAl said:


> What I'd suggest is an upload button, then a
> 
> *This is how it will look on the site*
> 
> ...


Feedback is good and I do appreciate hearing what everyone has to say. I am looking into displaying them across the top. Right now the template I am using does it in columns and not rows and I am trying to figure a way to do it. In the meantime it'll have to be up and down movement unfortunately.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Today has been absolutely nuts! We hit our record pageviews for one day at about 11am and have already uploaded 41 covers and they keep coming in! You guys are keeping me busy. We are going to be at 200 covers total soon.   

Keep 'em coming, I'm having fun


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Good morning everyone. We are now up over 200 covers on the website. 

I will be working on yet another more improved theme early this week. It will move covers across the top and it has infinite scroll, and will look more professional. Always improving right?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Ted Cross, your Immortality Game cover is ranking pretty well I would say. http://ratebookcover.com/the-immortality-game/

I am going to work on my first article for the site. You interested in doing an interview... I'll ask you a bunch of questions?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

I promised everyone I would provide details to the give-away. We will start with one give away and see how it goes. On Monday, June 1st a random cover will be selected. The author of that cover will win a $50 gift card to Amazon. That's right. The more covers you upload, the better your chances of winning. If you have already uploaded then you are all set! The give away includes all covers in the RateBookCover.com library.

http://ratebookcover.com/upload-cover/

Good luck everyone


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## farrago (Oct 29, 2013)

Oh my Goodness! #StevenRemmington: Rate my covers just showed up on one of my group sites and at least 15 authors have rushed over to upload their covers. So fun. I rated about 4 pages of covers. I surmised this from those covers I saw: Cover artists are showing off their talent... and some of the titles fade into the artwork. Some fonts were unreadable. I do not know a lot about cover art, but I want every word and letter readable. on my covers. A great idea and I love it that we do not have to jump through hoops to enjoy the site.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

farrago said:


> Oh my Goodness! #StevenRemmington: Rate my covers just showed up on one of my group sites and at least 15 authors have rushed over to upload their covers. So fun. I rated about 4 pages of covers. I surmised this from those covers I saw: Cover artists are showing off their talent... and some of the titles fade into the artwork. Some fonts were unreadable. I do not know a lot about cover art, but I want every word and letter readable. on my covers. A great idea and I love it that we do not have to jump through hoops to enjoy the site.


That's pretty cool. Word must be getting out. I also agree, I like to be able to read everything clearly on the book cover.


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

stevenremington said:


> Ted Cross, your Immortality Game cover is ranking pretty well I would say. http://ratebookcover.com/the-immortality-game/
> 
> I am going to work on my first article for the site. You interested in doing an interview... I'll ask you a bunch of questions?


Sure, I'd gladly do one. Thanks.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Excellent  

Message me your email address and I'll see if i can put some questions together by the end of the day.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Also I have decided not to develop a top cover list. I'll display the top 5 at the bottom of the page but I am not going to develop the Top 100 lists as I originally planned. My reasoning is based off the simple fact that I don't want the site to turn into a big competition where other authors are voting others down to make theirs look good. People trying to get others to vote is fine but telling others to vote Excellent defeats the purpose of the tool. 

So, I plan to interview authors and possibly discuss covers that are trending, but other than that I'm not going to do much with Top lists. I have some other ideas that we can set in place.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Consider "giveaway" instead of "give-away."


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Steven,

Looks like I never gave you the welcome, so here it is!

Welcome to Kboards! [br][br]You're welcome to promote your business and website here in the Writers' Café![br][br]Now that you have an official thread, you'll want to add your listing to our Yellow Pages Listing, found here:[br]http://www.kboards.com/yp/[br][br]The listing is free to KB members and is completely self-service; you can add and edit your listing from the page. More information on our Yellow Pages listing can be found here.[br][br]In your thread here, we ask that the same basic rules be followed as we have for authors in the Book Bazaar: you may have this one thread about your service and must post to it rather than start a new thread each time. New threads about the service wil be removed. Please bookmark this thread so that you can find it again to post to. And, you may not make back-to-back posts to the thread within seven days. If someone responds (such as this post), you may reply but otherwise must wait seven days, thanks![br][br]Betsy[br]KBoards Moderator [br][br]Note that this welcome does not constitute an endorsement or vetting of a service by KBoards. Members should do due diligence when considering using a service, for example, by asking KB members for feedback and doing an Internet search such as "service provider name" complaints.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey thanks for the warm welcome  I appreciate that. I will have to check out the yellow pages. Sounds good.

I also wanted to mention that I interviewed author Ted Cross who is here at the forums. You can read it here: http://ratebookcover.com/interview-with-author-ted-cross/

Hope you guys enjoy it!


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## Ted Cross (Aug 30, 2012)

stevenremington said:


> Hey thanks for the warm welcome  I appreciate that. I will have to check out the yellow pages. Sounds good.
> 
> I also wanted to mention that I interviewed author Ted Cross who is here at the forums. You can read it here: http://ratebookcover.com/interview-with-author-ted-cross/
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it!


Thank you for the interview, Steven! Some thoughts about your site--you might consider keeping some genre categories, but without ranking them, so that book covers don't become impossible to wade through as you get more and more of them. You could even ask people during the upload process which primary category they want their book in, i.e. Romance, Fantasy, etc. The way it is structured now, once you get thousands of covers, it will become more and more unwieldy to wade pore over them. By having categories people can feel less overwhelmed and even choose those genres that they like best for finding things.

Another thought is to perhaps restrict books from hitting the rankings lists until they have x number of votes. Right now each new book that come in and is given a five star vote by its owner automatically hits the top and displaces everyone below that has tons of votes.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Ted Cross said:


> Thank you for the interview, Steven! Some thoughts about your site--you might consider keeping some genre categories, but without ranking them, so that book covers don't become impossible to wade through as you get more and more of them. You could even ask people during the upload process which primary category they want their book in, i.e. Romance, Fantasy, etc. The way it is structured now, once you get thousands of covers, it will become more and more unwieldy to wade pore over them. By having categories people can feel less overwhelmed and even choose those genres that they like best for finding things.
> 
> Another thought is to perhaps restrict books from hitting the rankings lists until they have x number of votes. Right now each new book that come in and is given a five star vote by its owner automatically hits the top and displaces everyone below that has tons of votes.


Ted, I had a great time doing the interview. In fact, I am seriously going to buy the Shard and read it up man 

Secondly, that advice seems like good advice. I have already in the list down in the footer of the website provide the top ratings with those covers that have at least 20 votes. that makes complete sense to me. Secondly, I think I will just provide a top 40 list of top ratings and top 40 list of the most up-voted covers.

For those who think their covers are lost in the archive, you can have people go back and up-vote your cover. Navigate to the cover's page, and under the cover image (to the right) is a thumbs up. Each person can click that once per day per cover. I will be focusing a lot more on this. Ratings are one thing of course but voting up covers can be another way to get your cover seen. Once we hit 1,000 covers or more, sure your cover may seem to be lost, but we can up-vote our covers, and I may divide that feature out based on genre. The highest rated list will probably just be "Overall" for now and not by genre for the reason I gave earlier. I don't want this to become a game of voting covers down to win a spot. With the thumbs up, nobody can come along and give it a thumbs down. So, it makes sense to me that those who vote someone up is more authentic than a troll coming along and seeing a cover doing really well and giving it a 1-star.

People can also Feature their covers (now at $1.99) for a day, less than a large cup of coffee at starbucks. Right now for some odd reason weekends are getting way more traffic than midweek. Not sure if that's going to be the norm or not since the site is only like 10 days old.

I have been talking with a few sites that are going to be featuring an article and mentioning the website so we may see an influx in traffic (hopefully). So these are some of the things to think about once we have a ton of covers. Also comments are open. I am going to provide a place to display the latest comments. List your covers on your blogs and have people go and leave comments. People who come to ratebookcover.com will see latest comments and can come over and see your cover, getting you more exposure. I have decided to allow a thumbs up and thumbs down on the actual comments. Kinda like Amazon has "was this review helpful or not" option and if people sense there is a troll they can vote a comment down so others can see that if they happen across it.

But I am working on something like this: http://ratebookcover.com/top-voted-covers/

I just need to design it better with numbers and display the cover thumbnail and probably list out only the top 40. People can then browse the list. I can do this by genre as well. Just been busy approving covers


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Needs some work, it's square for one thing, but I tried to upload it anyway


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

geronl said:


> Needs some work, it's square for one thing, but I tried to upload it anyway


Got it added last night for ya!

Okay I have a couple Top 40 lists added. It's a start. In order to make the top 40 star-rated lists you need at least 20 votes. You can search by All-Time, Last 30 days, and Last 7 days. The other Top 40 list is the most Up-Voted. (Click on the thumbs-up above the comments area - which any person can do once per day per cover)

Here are the 2 pages:
http://ratebookcover.com/top-40-star-rated-covers
http://ratebookcover.com/top-40-up-voted-covers

This will help some of you get noticed more. I will be breaking the top 40 up-voted lists into top 40 by genre.

More updates coming soon!


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## Eric Z (Apr 28, 2015)

What an awesome site! I don't know of anything like it on the net.
This is a great way to A-B test book covers, which I think every author should do. Also while you are at it you can validate the book. I think the 5$ price per button is really fair, considering your book will be showing for a while, almost like 'free' advertisement! Keep up the good work... now I gotta go make more books.
E.


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## Shei Darksbane (Jan 31, 2015)

Excellent idea!!

May I make a suggestion?

Add more rating options per book cover.

Like you can rate the cover overall, then rate the typography, pictures, layout, and style. 

Or something like that. Because more feedback is awesome.

But overall that's a great idea! *bookmarked*


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## Rebecca Norinne Caudill (Feb 6, 2015)

What a fantastic site, and a great tool for authors. Thanks for all of your effort in bringing it to fruition.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey glad you guys are liking it and thanks for all the feedback! 

Just did another interview. this time with Nicholas Rossis. Check it out! http://ratebookcover.com/blog/amazon-bestselling-author-nicholas-rossis-and-his-thoughts-on-writing-marketing-and-book-covers/


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Just wanted to update everyone on things happening at http://ratebookcover.com 

I have brought on another person to help with a few things who has experience in marketing and is currently very familiar with the industry. we have spent the last week or so developing a plan and our aim is to not only provide a great resource but to help give authors the ability to get more exposure. we have seen nothing but great remarks regarding the site and we feel as we continue to tweak and improve we'll continue to grow and become a bigger asset for authors.

I have a series of announcements that I will slowly reveal over the coming week or two. there are currently over 250 covers on the website and over 10,000 total votes so some of the older covers are being pushed to the back. looking at google analytics people are spending more time looking at the Top 40 lists than scrolling through everything. you can have people vote you up by clicking the thumbs up to get you onto the top 40 if your star-rating isn't landing you there.

we hope to provide more options for you as we move forward.


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## Eric Z (Apr 28, 2015)

Great! I've been using your site as a "milestone" in my authoring process.
I think everyone should make the cover first and then author the book.
There's a lot to say about validation, especially the fact that most authors don't validate their books.
But your site offers a FREE validation tool - that's awesome!
Was trying to make somekind of milestone or quality gate function, e.g. if my book cover doesn't at least get a 3.5 star rating then STOP, back to the drawing board etc.
But there is a lot of subjectivity when it comes to ratings.
All in all I really dig the site, there is nothing like honest feedback, even if they do rate your cover 1-star-"Awful"!


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Eric Z said:


> Great! I've been using your site as a "milestone" in my authoring process.
> I think everyone should make the cover first and then author the book.
> There's a lot to say about validation, especially the fact that most authors don't validate their books.
> But your site offers a FREE validation tool - that's awesome!
> ...


Why does cover validate the book? 

While I'm all for getting better covers (obviously) but that seems a bit 'cart before the horse' thing..


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

The site is good for a few things, but just be careful using it to completely validate your covers, especially early on. i would suggest having at least 40+ star votes before beginning to make any decisions.

just remember that although most people are being fair, there are going to be one or two people on there casting poor votes. Whether they are competing or are simply trolls, it happens. So give the site time. It takes a while for people to buy, read, and then leave a review on amazon, but only a few seconds to glance at a cover and make a split decision. so keep that in mind too.

With that all said, i'm having fun! keep uploading your covers and i'll keep approving them. should be closing in on 300 covers soon.

For those who have uploaded covers, you may consider joining the new newsletter. I want to feature some covers and maybe it'll be yours 

You can sign up here and no worries, you can opt-out at any time...
http://ratebookcover.com/newsletter/

thanks everyone and like I said, I'm looking forward to announcing a couple of things shortly!


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Jeez, I started playing around with this and now I somehow find myself 6 pages in.  Fun stuff.  

Good job, Steven!


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## AnthonyJMelchiorri (Apr 4, 2014)

I appreciate you making this for us and for getting my covers up there! Very cool to see a place with everyone's covers put up in an easy-to-browse through manner. I like the blog on there. Any chance you'll get someone to write some posts on cover design/tips for working with cover designers? (Sorry if this has been asked before...it's late here and I've been severely lacking in my caffeine intake today).


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> Jeez, I started playing around with this and now I somehow find myself 6 pages in. Fun stuff.
> 
> Good job, Steven!


It is! I'ts super fun. My kids enjoy looking at the covers, although they can't always vote because we share the same IP.



AnthonyJMelchiorri said:


> I appreciate you making this for us and for getting my covers up there! Very cool to see a place with everyone's covers put up in an easy-to-browse through manner. I like the blog on there. Any chance you'll get someone to write some posts on cover design/tips for working with cover designers? (Sorry if this has been asked before...it's late here and I've been severely lacking in my caffeine intake today).


Hey Anthony! Thanks again for letting me use your cover for the logo image. 

I may do some interviews with designers but one of the things I planned to announce soon is that I am going to be adding a pro critique service. Mainly authors can have their cover seen by a professional and a basic critique will be done. The format is being worked on currently! If anyone has any feedback or suggestions regarding this service then that may assist in our process!


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

stevenremington said:


> I may do some interviews with designers but one of the things I planned to announce soon is that I am going to be adding a pro critique service. Mainly authors can have their cover seen by a professional and a basic critique will be done. The format is being worked on currently! If anyone has any feedback or suggestions regarding this service then that may assist in our process!


I'd love to see a focus on sales related data. Less opinions and more XXX has been shown to lead to sales because of YYY (if at all possible).


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> I'd love to see a focus on sales related data. Less opinions and more XXX has been shown to lead to sales because of YYY (if at all possible).


No designer or marketer knows those. Only Amazon knows. Any designer claiming he knows 'what sells' 100% is lying..

Also data lies, so it can't be be-all-end-all source of info. It's very inspirational to see case studies but they are more guidelines and possibilities than real guarantees.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

I've got an idea for you. Ready?

Here it is: RateMyBlurb.com


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

TromboneAl said:


> I've got an idea for you. Ready?
> 
> Here it is: RateMyBlurb.com


haha Clever.. surprised it's not been done already..


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

YES! We need a sister site to this one for blurbs!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

A sister site sounds kinda cool 

Okay, sorry it took so long to reply, my grandmother passed away and I took the whole family down to the service. All ten of us. whew! I'm pooped!

I wanted to announce a couple things going on at the site. The first thing, those who register at the site will notice once logged in that there is a place to view RBC Points. I have set up a simple point system to reward those people who are active on the website. Naturally I want to promote activity and this seems like one way to help do that. I have nothing specific at the moment but I do plan to put together periodic weekly, monthly, and/or all time point holder winners who can win gift cards, prizes, etc. Right now just browsing the site and commenting will earn you points. I am still debating whether to award points for voting.

Lastly, and more importantly, I have been in touch with Adrijus at RockingBookCovers.com and we have teamed up to provide professional feedback on cover design. He will be doing the critiques and he's been in the business for a while now. This is a new service we are testing out and I hope everyone considers taking him up on this. You can learn more on our Cover Critiques page here http://ratebookcover.com/critiques/


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Gaulvinov said:


> YES! We need a sister site to this one for blurbs!


I actually bought the domain for it haha Maybe something will happen.. If it's really needed.


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## Mikaela Copy Editor (Jun 3, 2015)

This is great! I just visited and rated a few covers! I think there should be a comment option where people can offer advice on how to make it better, though.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Mikaela (ASUE) said:


> This is great! I just visited and rated a few covers! I think there should be a comment option where people can offer advice on how to make it better, though.


Yes. There is a place for registered users to leave comments. If you click on any of the covers, you will go to that cover's individual page where you can comment below it. Let me know if you have trouble finding it.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> Lastly, and more importantly, I have been in touch with Adrijus at RockingBookCovers.com and we have teamed up to provide professional feedback on cover design. He will be doing the critiques and he's been in the business for a while now. This is a new service we are testing out and I hope everyone considers taking him up on this. You can learn more on our Cover Critiques page here http://ratebookcover.com/critiques/


I'm going to try this out, thanks.

Since you're like me, and appreciate suggestions, here are some for http://ratebookcover.com/critiques/:

1. Consider "What you'll get" instead of "What you'd get"
2. "24 hours" instead of "24hrs"
3. Black text on a white background instead of gray text on white background (gray is trendy, but harder to read).
4. "The main goal of ..." instead of "Main goal of ..."
5. "The quality of your book covers" instead of "The quality of book covers."


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Jeff Tanyard said:


> I'm sorry for your loss.


Thanks for the comment. Very sad but we all knew she was declining for a while. Still doesn't make it easy though 



TromboneAl said:


> I'm going to try this out, thanks.
> 
> Since you're like me, and appreciate suggestions, here are some for http://ratebookcover.com/critiques/:
> 
> ...


Thank you for the suggestions and I went ahead and implemented every single one of them. 

Let us know what you think of the critique! This is a new service and we want to make sure we are providing the best value.


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> Thank you for the suggestions and I went ahead and implemented every single one of them.


You really shouldn't encourage me.



stevenremington said:


> Let us know what you think of the critique! This is a new service and we want to make sure we are providing the best value.


Will do. My cover is consistently rated poorly by others, even though I like it. So, I really need to understand why. I need suggestions.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

TromboneAl said:


> Will do. My cover is consistently rated poorly by others, even though I like it. So, I really need to understand why. I need suggestions.


There are many worse covers, this just needs some tweaks to be good. Some mistakes but nothing unfixabe there.

Hope you enjoyed the critique and found it useful!


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

RBC said:


> There are many worse covers, this just needs some tweaks to be good. Some mistakes but nothing unfixabe there.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the critique and found it useful!


Yes, I got the critique last night and it was indeed useful--nice concrete suggestions for changes. It was worth the $15. Thanks.


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## Joe Mynhardt (Apr 26, 2015)

Great site. I just added my newest release. Already have 27 votes.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

TromboneAl said:


> Yes, I got the critique last night and it was indeed useful--nice concrete suggestions for changes. It was worth the $15. Thanks.


Awesome. I'll be back with follow up to your questions soon! 

@Crystal Lake Publishing, great stuff. If you send the link to your FB fans or email subscribers that can give even more votes. But 27 is already good!


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Here is the result of Adrijus' suggestions to me. He's been patient, and it was probably a bit frustrating for him. That is, it would probably have been easier for him to make the changes himself than to walk me through things. Definitely worth $15.

This is the before:










And here it is after:


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## soyeljefe (Dec 29, 2014)

I've been playing around with it for a little while. I'm definitely having a good time and It's nice to think that I'm helping out other authors. Once I get the cover for my next book designed, I'll be sure to put it up for review. As for rating blurbs, that's going to be an amazing tool in the future. Bookmarked!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

TromboneAl said:


> Here is the result of Adrijus' suggestions to me. He's been patient, and it was probably a bit frustrating for him. That is, it would probably have been easier for him to make the changes himself than to walk me through things. Definitely worth $15.
> 
> This is the before:
> 
> ...


So that's where Adrijus has been, eh? 

All joking aside, I am glad you found it worth the $15. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to peek in on any of the discussions but it sounds like it all went really well. And thank you Al.



soyeljefe said:


> I've been playing around with it for a little while. I'm definitely having a good time and It's nice to think that I'm helping out other authors. Once I get the cover for my next book designed, I'll be sure to put it up for review. As for rating blurbs, that's going to be an amazing tool in the future. Bookmarked both sites


That's what I like about it too... fun and it's actually helping others. I know Nicholas Rossis decided to change his cover design to Pearseus after putting it up on the site and the new one is just that much better and more improved and seems to be getting much better ratings.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

TromboneAl said:


> Here is the result of Adrijus' suggestions to me. He's been patient, and it was probably a bit frustrating for him. That is, it would probably have been easier for him to make the changes himself than to walk me through things. Definitely worth $15.
> 
> This is the before:
> 
> ...


Happy to help. Hope my communication style was good and easy to understand etc. Hope the cover update does well! And thank you for trust!


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

soyeljefe said:


> As for rating blurbs, that's going to be an amazing tool in the future. Bookmarked both sites


Would you prefer it to be just as open for anyone to critique or more for registered users only? Maybe a version where only logged in Authors can critique each others work and it wouldn't be anonymous.


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## soyeljefe (Dec 29, 2014)

I think that with blurbs, it would be useful if it was only from registered users. I like the anonymous rating system for covers, but with blurbs, I would like more in-depth feedback and to be able to have a little back-and-forth with someone while I tweak it. Getting a star rating on a blurb is much less effective than comments, and I think a registered-user system would help encourage that. I really hope that Ratemyblurb happens!


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

soyeljefe said:


> I think that with blurbs, it would be useful if it was only from registered users. I like the anonymous rating system for covers, but with blurbs, I would like more in-depth feedback and to be able to have a little back-and-forth with someone while I tweak it. Getting a star rating on a blurb is much less effective than comments, and I think a registered-user system would help encourage that. I really hope that Ratemyblurb happens!


Yeah, that's my thinking too! Would be much more for Authors and Editors, not readers...

I'll make it happen in next two weeks.


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2015)

RateBookCover.com reminds me of a website, created by a plastic surgeon, where women could upload their pictures and men could rate them. Obviously not everyone was a ten, so the good doctor made a nice living suggesting a nip and a tuck here and there. When you put ratings and remedies in one place you end up with abuse.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

drno said:


> RateBookCover.com reminds me of a website, created by a plastic surgeon, where women could upload their pictures and men could rate them. Obviously not everyone was a ten, so the good doctor made a nice living suggesting a nip and a tuck here and there. When you put ratings and remedies in one place you end up with abuse.


You're implying the site is useless and/or scam?

Site was created by an author btw..


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

yep, I created the website and own it! I've outsourced to RBC for nips and tucks. bahahaha  

Adrijus (RBC) is a reputable book cover designer within the industry. You can go to his website and see what he has done. My goal is to provide value to authors such as myself. RBC can provide a level of value through his extensive knowledge and experience. I would never ask anyone to offer something like this for free as it takes time and energy to develop the reports and work with the clients. 

I will continue to look for ways to add value to authors so you may see me testing new ideas and services. If there is a demand for it then it should work out. If there is no demand for it then it will fall by the wayside.

But on a personal level I am not qualified to offer advice on cover design... but maybe I could offer advice to dads on diaper changes. Having #9 due this Fall and as a stay at home dad, I have tons of experience there.  

Will keep everyone posted as new things spring to life at www.ratebookcover.com - thanks


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> But on a personal level I am not qualified to offer advice on cover design... but maybe I could offer advice to dads on diaper changes.


RateMyDiaper.com


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

Love it! I uploaded three of my covers for feedback, and I'm going to post a link to your site from my book cover design blog, too. ;-)


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

TromboneAl said:


> RateMyDiaper.com


YES!! Bought the domain just in case

just joking! 



cagnes said:


> Steve I commend you for the time & work you put in the site! It could be a greatly useful tool for authors to use as a gauge to determine if their covers appeal to a wide range of people within & beyond their genre.
> 
> Unfortunately it's apparent that not all are using the service for this purpose. Some seem to view it as a contest and are soliciting votes from their readers/fans/followers. Some are treating it as a promotional service to be seen and sell books. It's sad that they're missing the point and not getting an honest, fair or unbiased assessment of their covers. There also seems to be a bit of 1 star voting on covers that clearly are not awful... I'm assuming to bring down the ratings on covers that aren't their "favorite".


Thanks for the nice comments. Yeah some think it's a contest. I do believe it's natural for people to contact everyone in their social media circles to come vote, but voters should be voting honestly and they certainly shouldn't be voting others down. This was one main reason I decided against going with all the different top lists by genre. I did want people to see which ones were getting high ratings, though, so they could study them and see a common denominator, and learn from it. So i have a general top 40 list and then a thumbs-up rating system for authors to try and gain exposure if interested.



Sherry_Soule said:


> Love it! I uploaded three of my covers for feedback, and I'm going to post a link to your site from my book cover design blog, too. ;-)


Excellent. I am sure you have already been there to see but you can use this link to see all your covers at once: http://ratebookcover.com/?s=sherry+soule


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## TromboneAl (Mar 20, 2015)

Sherry_Soule said:


> Love it! I uploaded three of my covers for feedback, and I'm going to post a link to your site from my book cover design blog, too. ;-)


 That's an interesting idea to quote a review right on the cover.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

RateBookCover.com has reached a milestone! We now have over 500 covers uploaded and closing in on 20,000 total votes. 

We are in the process of implementing a new ad campaign which we hope will bring in even more traffic and provide more votes. We have plenty of authors on board but we really need to bring in more voters to make the site even more valuable to the authors. So we are working on that.

We are also working on a completely new logo for branding before we push forward. 

Lastly, we are going to provide a better solution for displaying premium covers. So, still a lot to do and to tweak to keep the site valuable for you all.

Also, if you get time, head on over and vote on some covers. We all like our covers to be voted on so it helps to return the favor and vote on others. Voting benefits everyone. Also it helps to ask your readers to rate your cover(s) via mailer, social media, etc. It provides another reason to reach out to them and by asking them, it shows you value their opinions. Readers enjoy voting especially where it's fast, free, and anonymous. 

Thanks and we'll continue to keep you posted.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Don't judge a book by its cover

But you can judge the covers at

ratemybookcover.com


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## Harald (Mar 23, 2015)

Hi Steven,

Just catching this thread. Neat idea; good luck with it!

As someone who did something kinda similar in the web-based, photo contest arena (and now advising authors about book covers), I offer a couple of suggestions or ideas. Take or disregard as needed...

1. I think your default cover size is too big. You're currently at about x369 pixels (height) at full browser width (and knowing your site is "responsive"). Most people view/judge covers as thumbnails, which can be anything from x100-150. Take a look at www.jellybooks; they're showing covers at x170, which seems about right. If that feels too small, you could add a "roll-over-to-enlarge" function. And yes, I know, one can always "max zoom out" on the browser, but they're still kinda big.

2. Personally, I would get rid of the "keep-upvoting" option and restrict to one vote per IP *total*. Otherwise, you may run into what happens with online Voting photo contests: they become popularity contests and can be easily scammed (get your friends to all up-vote you each day). You might think: "who would do that?" Well, people will. I just tried it and star-voted someone again within a few minutes (sorry!)

3. Can you implement a "continuous scroll" (vertical)? Would be easier than the current "page/next" set up. I can't see myself clicking through 27 pages (today) but could imagine continuous-scrolling a bit to see new stuff. (but don't know how the "freshness-top-left" or "row-column" thing would work with that)

4. Re: offering Amazon Gift Cards for contests/give-aways... Good idea *BUT: make sure to note that AGCs are only redeemable in the country in which they are issued. At least that's how it used to be for my online photo contests (one year ago). Best to read the current fine print on Amazon about this. Otherwise your non-U.S. viewers will be disappointed.

Keep at it -- you're on a roll!

Harald Johnson
author, art/creative director, designer, swimmer (and a good one!)


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2015)

excellent idea. Best of luck. Did some rating ... wasn't evil.


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2015)

1) Also, rating scale of 1 to 10 (or even 1 to 100) would be better. Right now everything will fal between 3 to 4 stars.

2) Cover Rating + Genre Applicability Rating. Though that would interfere with simplicity.

3) Link to 'Visit Cover Designer' for covers that authors like.


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

We've got some sales from this! One of the reviewers mentioned in the review that's how she found our book.


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## Adair Hart (Jun 12, 2015)

CN_Crawford said:


> We've got some sales from this! One of the reviewers mentioned in the review that's how she found our book.


That's pretty awesome! I just updated my cover over there, props to Steven for the quick email and turnaround.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Harald said:


> Hi Steven,
> 
> Just catching this thread. Neat idea; good luck with it!
> 
> As someone who did something kinda similar in the web-based, photo contest arena (and now advising authors about book covers), I offer a couple of suggestions or ideas. Take or disregard as needed...


Hey thanks for the advice. I plan on compiling everyone's input and taking a look. The one thing I have to say is you shouldn't be able to vote more than once per IP, so I am not sure how you were able to do that. But thanks for the input and I do look at every single piece of advice. So I appreciate it greatly!!



ireaderreview said:


> 1) Also, rating scale of 1 to 10 (or even 1 to 100) would be better. Right now everything will fal between 3 to 4 stars.
> 
> 2) Cover Rating + Genre Applicability Rating. Though that would interfere with simplicity.
> 
> 3) Link to 'Visit Cover Designer' for covers that authors like.


We've thought about the link to the cover designers and this may be an option in the near future. I'd like to work directly with cover designers on exclusive deals through ratebookcover.com at some point. Sooner the better probably.



CN_Crawford said:


> We've got some sales from this! One of the reviewers mentioned in the review that's how she found our book.


This is totally cool. Too bad they didn't add .com and hyperlink it from Amazon 

Seriously, this is good news and I would recommend those who are in the top 40 lists to seriously think about getting an Amazon button. I'm not just saying that to line my pockets but the Top 40 lists are the most active pages on the site, besides the home page. People go there all the time and if your cover is there then it most likely appeals to the general public and authors should make it easy for people to click over and buy. Plus it helps me pay for server costs  All those large images add up...

Just so people know, you have to have at least 20 star ratings to be able to land in the Top 40 list.



Adair Hart said:


> I just updated my cover over there, props to Steven for the quick email and turnaround.


It was good working with you and good luck with the new, updated cover. I like it!!


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## Heather Hamilton-Senter (May 25, 2013)

CN_Crawford said:


> We've got some sales from this! One of the reviewers mentioned in the review that's how she found our book.


You have one of the most gorgeous covers on Amazon!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey everyone, 

I have been contacted by quite a few of you who have redesigned your covers. If you have done that and had bought an amazon button on the original cover you don't need to purchase a new one for the redesign. Just email me when you upload the new cover and i'll place your amazon button on the new one as well. Just wanted to clear that up!!

I was on vacation end of last week and beginning of this week so sorry for any delays in email replies.  

Thanks everyone. I'm still having fun checking out all the great covers out there.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Just wanted to leave another update. We're just about at 600 uploaded covers on the site. I'm about to run some Facebook ads. Hopefully that will help attract some more voters. Also, please take the time to go through and give your honest opinions on the covers that are currently there. It's nice to be able to upload your own covers but the site is designed to receive feedback so help out your fellow author mates by voting. You can also leave comments/reviews on each of them. Just remember to play nice. Constructive criticism is fine! 

Thanks and hope everyone has a good weekend!! http://ratebookcover.com/


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

We're quickly closing in on 700 covers on the website and almost 25,000 site-wide votes!!! 

The last few days we've exploded with new covers. Some of the ads we've put out seem to be working well. Voting also seems to be up which is ultimately the most important thing for authors. The higher the vote count on your cover, the more realistic the results become. 

Would like to post a question. If there was a section along the top to feature covers would you consider placing your cover there if the price was right? 

I was thinking if I did this, instead of saying we'll feature your cover for a day or week, we'd feature your cover until you reach a specific vote count. 100? 150? 200? etc

Thanks everyone!  www.ratebookcover.com


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## Talbot (Jul 14, 2015)

I'll have to bookmark this and give it a try!


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Morning everyone and happy Friday!  

Ratebookcover.com has reached 700+ uploaded covers. I did want to mention that those covers which seem to be getting the most votes are usually by authors who mention their own covers on their social media sites. What this means is they are asking politely for their readers/followers to go give honest ratings. Those people -- your own followers -- are going to give you the most honest votes and reviews. Sure you'll have a passing troll here and there, or someone who sees it on the home page who is not in your genre and may cast a couple poor votes. It happens. 

In fact, your readers want to engage with you and will want to help you out. Asking politely is the key. "I want to thank all of my readers ahead of time. If you could do me a huge favor and provide me an honest review of my cover that would be extremely helpful."

Posting something like that on your FB, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and even in your newsletters is a great way to engage with your readers. People who follow you already have done so for a reason. They'll feel good about helping you out, plus it's another way to reach out to them and remind them you're still around, working hard, etc. 

The website isn't a competition, although those who receive more votes, comments, and higher ratings tend to get seen more. We've already witnessed a few times where someone bought a book because they saw the cover on our website and it looked good. People do judge books by their cover in some ways. I just posted something on our FB page that states our brains are wired to process images faster than words. So a book's cover is the first thing a potential reader sees and it will make a LASTING IMPRESSION. 

So I encourage everyone to continue to upload covers and SHARE the links with their followers once they are approved. Purchasing a $5 button is only optional, but I would also encourage those who tend to rank well to get one, especially those landing on the top 40 lists. Those pages, other than the home page, are being seen the most. Make it easy for people who discover and like your cover to go download your book.

Thanks everyone and if you have any questions please fire away. www.ratebookcover.com


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## baldricko (Mar 14, 2014)

stevenremington said:


> A sister site sounds kinda cool
> 
> Okay, sorry it took so long to reply, my grandmother passed away and I took the whole family down to the service. All ten of us. whew! I'm pooped!
> 
> ...


Excellent idea!!!


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## SidK (Jul 7, 2015)

Just uploaded one of my covers. 

I know it is going to elicit guffaws and ridicule   Oh well, better than nothing. 

Sid K.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

There are a couple of cover designers on this board who are getting nice fat paypal transfers from me because of this site.

A few weeks ago, I spent an hour or so scrolling through all the offerings and was astonished how many godawful, and how many more OK-but-clearly-amateur covers there are that *just* miss the mark. So I did what I'd been thinking of doing for a while: get the best designers to do my covers.


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## Liz French (Apr 13, 2014)

Patty I think it's really working for you - I keep hovering over your new banners and covers - I LOVE them, they're so shiny!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Liz French said:


> Patty I think it's really working for you - I keep hovering over your new banners and covers - I LOVE them, they're so shiny!


Now it would be great if my sales matched this experience.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> There are a couple of cover designers on this board who are getting nice fat paypal transfers from me because of this site.
> 
> A few weeks ago, I spent an hour or so scrolling through all the offerings and was astonished how many godawful, and how many more OK-but-clearly-amateur covers there are that *just* miss the mark. So I did what I'd been thinking of doing for a while: get the best designers to do my covers.


I know of a few authors already who have decided to redo their covers after receiving lower than expected ratings. It will be interesting to see how that impacts Amazon sales. Keep us posted!!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

stevenremington said:


> I know of a few authors already who have decided to redo their covers after receiving lower than expected ratings. It will be interesting to see how that impacts Amazon sales. Keep us posted!!


Shifting Infinity in my sig at the moment sat at #700,000. I think it's one of my best books. After the cover change it's now at #13,000. I didn't reduce the price. I wonder how long it will last (yeah, I'm very skeptical), but clearly there is a clear element of getting a good cover. Not an OK cover. I can do OK covers myself, but you need to learn what to look for in a designer who can make great covers. Not all of them are pricey (although most of them are), but you need to develop an eye for evaluating a designer's work.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Shifting Infinity in my sig at the moment sat at #700,000. I think it's one of my best books. After the cover change it's now at #13,000. I didn't reduce the price. I wonder how long it will last (yeah, I'm very skeptical), but clearly there is a clear element of getting a good cover. Not an OK cover. I can do OK covers myself, but you need to learn what to look for in a designer who can make great covers. Not all of them are pricey (although most of them are), but you need to develop an eye for evaluating a designer's work.


Holy Smokes! 

I'd say that is significant, especially if you just switched out the cover with no real added promotional channels. I guess people do judge a book by its cover...


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## Eric Z (Apr 28, 2015)

stevenremington said:


> Holy Smokes!
> 
> I'd say that is significant, especially if you just switched out the cover with no real added promotional channels. I guess people do judge a book by its cover...


Oh YES they do! What I'm doing now is uploading 2 similar covers at a time, A-B testing on your site - awesome!
I'm not a scientist, but I would love to analyze it somehow someday -- if you updload 2 covers at the same time, the viewers are more likely to compare them to each other than with the other covers on the page.

I think this comparison is a trap because you want the people to judge your cover regardless of what else is on the page right?
But it's only human that people see the whole page and then re-adjust their ratings accordingly (I can't give you a 5 star if I gave the other guy a 5 star etc etc.)

However, if you upload 2 covers at the same time, the viewers are more likely(?) to realize what you are doing and focus only on comparing those 2 covers to each other...

Any Michi Kaku's in the room? Or Freeman Dysons?


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Eric Z said:


> However, if you upload 2 covers at the same time, the viewers are more likely(?) to realize what you are doing and focus only on comparing those 2 covers to each other...


Good question. I would assume so too, but this leads to a few unanswered questions. Comparing two covers against each other is a totally different monster than coming across a cover alone. Well, at least for the reader. ratebookcover.com is used for more than one reason, depending on what you're looking for. But to answer your question, I'd assume people can see the two covers side-by-side and know that the author wants the rater to choose.

But at the end of the day everyone has in their mind what a 5 star might look like. Same with a 4 star, 3 star, etc. So, you can almost kill two birds with one stone.


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hope everyone had a great weekend  

RateBookCover.com is currently seeking out professional book cover designers who are willing to contribute to the multi-author blog associated with the website (coming soon). It's a new idea Rate Book Cover will be implementing. 

For those who may be interested. This is what RBC is looking for:

1 - Professional Book Cover Designers who are willing to leave short cover design tips, industry news articles on the topic, and/or discuss why a specific book cover is rating well on the RBC. (we'll refrain from public critiques of poor covers)

2 - Must contribute 1 article per week minimum and must understand Wordpress. Articles cannot be long, 350-600 words tops. 

3 - Each contributor will pitch an idea for a short piece inside the Wordpress interface. Me or an editor will come along and approve it. 

3 - Contributors will not receive payment at this time, but in exchange, at the bottom of each of your articles will display the following information:
- Your face or company logo (whatever you have for your wordpress gravatar)
- A brief bio of you and a link directly to your cover design website. 
- Under gravatar you can have social media icons linking to your social media websites. 

4 - As the blog grows, I'll be looking to hire more full time contributors who seem dedicated, and potentially hire an editor. Pay is not yet determined. It may depend on website revenue, etc. 

If this interests you at all, please contact me via PM first. 

*Potentially in the future we'll be looking for contributors who are:

- Professional Editors
- Publishers
- Actual Indie Authors

Thanks everyone!
Steve


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## stevenremington (Jun 17, 2014)

Hey, everyone. It's been a while since I updated this. I've been nose deep in writing my 3rd book of my series 

Just wanted to let you know that the website has reached roughly 1,000 covers. If you haven't been there in a while or haven't seen the site, you can upload your covers without registering to receive ratings and comments. http://ratebookcover.com/

Thanks and I hope you all continue to enjoy the site. It's been a lot of fun.


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## Trans-Human (Apr 22, 2015)

Hi Steven! I'm happy things are going very well for you, and to see how far they've come too (I was one of the first to test the site back in it's launch, when it had no more than a dozen or so uploads) 

Just a bit of a feedback, since everything came a long way since then:

I wish there was an option to rate covers based on genre category or keyword search. This way I have to scroll a lot of pages worth of covers just to find something I'd actually like to rate between 3-5 stars within genres and themes I'm interested in. I'm sure a lot (though not all) of those poor ratings on certain covers are a result of people who come across those covers that are not that genre's readers. I'd rather not rate something poorly based on my unfamiliarity with that genre's trends and likeability factors when it comes to book covers, because I don't read/understand the genre.

I'd also cast another vote on the continual scroll thing when looking for newly uploaded covers, instead of flipping pages.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

cool site


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