Slam! Bash! Crash! Action Covers?

 

I've referred to covers being a very important part of a book and how it is meant to draw in the potential customers. Here's a link:

https://hoopercomicart.blogspot.com/2021/07/yes-cover-really-does-matter.html

Someone suggested that I might sell more books if I adopted the character or super team battle action scene on covers. They may be right but there are problems.  Firstly, I like to think that real comic fans (not the ones out chasing every cover variant or first issue or even the first appearance of a character) love comics for the sake of the medium -the stories, the art and that they are not all swayed by having to have a big action cover. Maybe I put too much faith in real comic fans ....if they exist these days because I never hear from any.

Secondly, I want to have the reader surprised by what is in a book. In the first version of Return of the Gods: Twilight of the Super Heroes I simply had Jack Flash free falling into tentacled space.  When the book went up to over 300 pages I wanted something different after all what was in the book -alien Boarman invasion, space vampires, cultists, adventurers and super heroes, giant robot, ancient Old Gods and the newer ancient pantheons, eternal war on a dimensional plain and the ultimate evil.  How the heck do you get all of that on one front cover?  So I went for a more cosmic view cover.

The Cross Earths Caper involved parallel Earths, a Selenite space cannon pointing at Earth, the rescue of the original 1920s members of the Society for the Suppression of Criminal Activity and a lot more including the main heroes lost in time.  I went for a multiple Earths cover.

When it came to the final part of the Invasion Earth Trilogy, The Green Skies,  I found that the page print limited was 500pp on a book and so, annoying as it was, I had to split that final part into three separate volumes.   I designed and drew cover after cover and rejected them all> decided that I would go with an eye catching fancy design featuring the silhouette of one character (pivotal characters) on each. A lot of comments about the unique design and blah blah ego stuff blah blah. 

How do you produce a simple cover for a book in which the Reality Check Controllers are decimated, an alien invasion fleet commits genocide on Mars, space patrollers are killed, and on Earth a plague of genetically created (by alien vampirons) zombies dubbed "the Close Zone Boys"  have spread across the globe and heroes on every continent have to face the menace while Earth magic users are tricked by their guiding council into traps and heroes die (permanently)while, as an act of mutually assured destruction to prevent an unstoppable alien invasion force the Selenites have a doomsday device that will destroy every planet and object in the solar system and beyond.... there is more with non alien vampires but let's not give the story away.

Also, although I can whack a comic cover rough together for projects I am not really a cover artist.  Someone did suggest that the easy option was to use AI to create the covers.... my response is unprintable.

Would more action on a cover sell a book?  I do know that some people do not find my idea of a cover to their liking but then I have had some claim the books have high production standards so can't be called Small Press (I do not call them that) and "look too professional. You cannot win.

If you make your own comics or books my advice is to go with what you feel fits in and you are happy with and please do not use AI art!