Recently I spent a few mornings and afternoons talking to ladies at my gym where the owner kindly let me set up a table and bring copies of Immigrant Soldier to sell. As usual, people told me the WWII stories of their relatives, asked me how long it took me to write the book, and wanted to know if I was working on another project. But the thing I began to notice was that most of the ladies who purchased the book commented that they were buying it for an uncle, father, or husband. Luckily, it was the week before Father’s Day.
One lady would have walked by the table without stopping if I had not opened a conversation with her. We chatted for a few minutes, and after she heard a bit about the story, she said she would buy a copy of Immigrant Soldier for her husband because he loved “World War II books.”
I mentioned that many of my readers are women, and they tell me they enjoy the book and say they can’t put it down. “Oh,” she said, “Then I’ll read it too.” What was it, I wondered, that at first glance, made women think it was a book for men?
As we know, a book is first judged by its cover. I looked closely at the front of Immigrant Soldier. I have received compliments on the cover, and naturally, I like it because it has pictures of my uncle Herman. But the photos are unmistakably military in subject matter. If only I had a picture of Herman with Molly or Giselle—but there is none. Perhaps a picture with his mother or his sister, I thought, would have been better than the photo of the soldiers with the POW.
Thanks to the wonder of POD (print-on-demand) publishing, such changes are easy. First I confirmed that a minor change to the cover “for marketing purposes” would not necessitate a change in the book’s ISBN number or copyright. I contacted my graphic designer and explained my idea. He said that such a change would be simple, but that it would be easiest if we used a photo with the same horizontal orientation as the one we planned to replace. After looking through my files of photos of Herman, there was one that seemed perfect (lacking a romantic shot with a girlfriend).
The photo shows a young Herman on his motorcycle with two children on the back with him. The young girl I know to be the daughter of his cousins, the Meyers—little Anna in the book. Besides not being military in nature, this picture would indicate that Immigrant Soldier includes Herman’s youth in Germany. It would warn men looking for a purely military story not to expect the book to begin with the hero’s induction into the army.
Excited now by the possibilities of the cover facelift, I sent the photo off to my graphic designer. We decided to add an image of the IPPY Book Award medal to the cover as well. The new digital file, back to me in less than 24 hours, was just what I wanted. I let the concept rest for a day to make sure I wanted to make this change, then it was uploaded to Amazon, Kindle, and the other distributors I use.
What will this mean for buyers and readers? Very little. The interior is unchanged but in the future, online orders will have the new cover. Of course, the existing stock of about 400 books held by Pacific Bookworks, my publishing company, still have the original cover. These are the books I take with me to author events and which I send to bookstores and museum gift shops. But it is my hope that the new cover will appeal to women shoppers looking for a good summer read on Amazon or at the iBook Store online. I will be interested to see if it makes any difference.
Here is the new cover. Please let me know what you think of the change. Do you think it will make a difference?
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