Which Cozy Book Cover Is Your Favorite?
Cozy Cat Press has a LOT of different book covers, as you can see by glancing through our list of titles. But is there a quality that makes a book cover typically “cozy”? According to Ryan M. Williams, a “cozy” mystery book cover generally features the following:
They are illustrated. Unlike many non-fiction books or even some fiction books, most all cozy mysteries show pictures or illustrations. This is 100% true for all Cozy Cat Press books. We have no books that are text only. According to Williams, the art work on cozies can range from cartoons to vector-art to pastoral paintings. CCP covers feature all of these and more.
Williams notes that cats are featured prominently on many cozies. Although we have “CAT” in our business name, actual cats do not appear on that many of our books. The books of Anna Kern are an exception. All of her “Murfy the Cat” series books feature her leading cat…um, man…Murphy.
Fonts on cozy covers tend to be serif or decorative. Here, CCP is split. We have some covers with elaborate serif fonts and some with sleeker, more modern fonts.
Titles on cozy covers tend to be larger than the author’s name. This is definitely true at CCP. No CCP book shows an author name in a font larger than the title. Well, after all, none of our authors are Stephen King or J. K. Rowling.
Titles on cozy covers often feature puns or word play. We have a number of books that do this: AN ICE WAY TO DIE, IT TAKES TWO TO STRANGLE, TO DEAD TO DANCE, DON’T CRY OVER KILLED MILK, HILL STREET CLUES, DEATHBED AND BREAKFAST, COUNTRY CLUBBED, Most cozy titles reference “murder” or “death” in some way. Again, CCP mysteries typically do this too. For example: A DEADLY COURSE, DEATH BY ASSOCIATION, RULES TO DIE BY, MURDER, SHE TWEETS, TIE DIED, HOT TUB OF DEATH.
Most cozy covers feature bright colors. With CCP covers, we do have quite a few that are brightly-colored. However, many are dark too.
What sort of cozy mystery book cover do you like? Let us know!
