The Monkey Cage

It depends on your audience.

As a political scientist, I would think twice about purchasing that first book (A). It seems very Curious George meets Doctor Seuss. The second cover (B) is very simple (a good thing), yet fairly bland. Actually holding it, the cover may signal simple elegance. This potentially means its more intellectually serious.

However, the first cover (A) may appeal to a more popular audience. I guess.

Still, I think it doesn't meet the test of that most successful popular social science book - Freakanomics. That was a simple and intellectually interesting cover. Whimsical, but exciting.

Cover A gives me the idea that you are stereotyping in your analysis. I assume that your book has some surprising, non-stereotypical conclusions. Your first cover conveys the opposite of that. Your second cover also doesn't hint at the nature of your contributions. I would pass either in a book store (when I'm not buying online based upon reviews).

I will never read any book that uses Comic Sans on its cover. So "B" wins by default.

A looks like a coloring book; perhaps that's intentional, but if so it's doubly unfortunate. It is, ahem, terrible. Or perhaps it's an April Fool's Day joke?

B is okay. Not a super cover, but a good enough one. It's got a nice, clean look.

Cover A by a mile. What fun!

The preceding curmudgeons should acquire a steady supply of coal as their rear orifice could provide a meaningful income stream from intense carbon compression.

A without a doubt.

Cover C. It deserves something better. If you wanna try something different, as a fan, I can help you. I can try.

Design glue: Never use Comic Sans.

A is best, but none om them is good. Here is what I would do. I would take something like David Hockney's Pearlblossom Highway as point of departure, and make a landscape or cityscape with red state, poor state, etc as signs (in the foreground).

All of them suck, but cover B sucks the least. I recognise what cover A is trying to do, but it is an offense against god and man, to say nothing of poor Ted Geisel. Cover C is marginally more bland and forgettable than cover B.

That said one rather hopes that these are quick mockups and that your publisher is not actually planning to foist a book covered in Arial and Comic Sans upon the world.

B, by far.

A gets my vote

The last one is the worst... it gives off a hint that red state=poor state and that blue state=rich state. Bad message...very bad

B is best, followed by C, followed at a huge distance by A. B looks classy and serious, A would make me look like an idiot if I read it on the metro.

B

"A" if you want people to buy it at the neighborhood book store, or if you want to get on the Colbert Report (not that there's anything wrong with that!). Neither of the others do much for me.

Cover A get my attention and looks like fun -- it get my vote.

Cover A gets my attention and looks like fun -- a rarity among political science titles. It gets my vote.

The first cover seems to imply that red states are rich states while the second and third covers seem to imply that blue states are rich states. If you are trying to imply something, choose/adjust your cover accordingly. If you are not trying to imply one of these options, I suggest starting all over. Given that, I think A will mass market better though I am not a fan of any of them.

Is this a book aimed at political scientist and class use or for the general book trade? If the latter, the idea of A is more fun, but poorly executed. Poor type placement and spacing. Actually they are all pretty poorly executed.

The safest is the new one, C.

Academic books don't get the big budgets for covers and it shows here. :-(

go with A b/c you only live once

That title is dying for some effective alliteration.

I have to say that I prefer A.

Vote for B. I imagine that on paper, it could look quite elegant, and it certainly has the favour of simplicity.

That said, it's also rather bland.

Option C, however, is at least as bland, and on top of that also has all the charm of pre-fab highrises.

Both are fairly boilerplate "study book" covers, but B would still have me intrigued, while C is the kind of leaden, oppressive thing that used to make my heart sink when I was a student.

As for A), that's a joke right? Not just does it look like a children's book, but it's also just terribly executed. Like a piece of no-budget improvisation done in haste by those without actual graphic designers at hand. (Umm, sorry.. but hey, you asked ;).

one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish...i like A. I don't know why political scientists would pick to read or not read a book based on the cover. Seriously! If you know the author is good and you're interested in the topic, you buy it and read it.

A!!!!