This old saw is both true and false. Once upon a time, book covers were plain and gave few if any clues about their books’ contents. Now, we expect a book’s cover to convey what’s inside. Often it is the cover art that sells the book. For my book, Digital Dick, I faced a dilemma. Despite my protagonist being an Artificial Intelligence, my novel is a mystery—not science fiction. The story takes place in San Diego, “in the near future.” No world-building here, no alien space creatures. When I thought about the cover, the question in my mind was: how could the cover show my AI protagonist as a sleuth? The cover is shown below. In my opinion, Mark Clements’ cover design brilliantly conveys that Digital Dick is a mystery.  What does it convey to you?

Digital Dick Cover

FYI, that’s Dick in the foreground. Physically, he may not look sophisticated. But it’s his software that makes Dick special, that allows him to come alive, and that brings him profound grief.

Of course, while today’s book covers attempt to convey, topically (pun intended), what’s inside, a great cover does not ensure great content. For that, you have to peer past the cover. So in that sense, it’s still true that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

For inspiration while composing this blog, I listened to Kenny Wayne Sheppard’s kick-ass version of the song, “You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover.”  Here’s a link to a YouTube video of the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvpWGRFHFlc