It all began with me innocently browsing the Epic Reads website and noticed a very enticing title: "Winter 2014 Cover Reveals Roundup". So me being the cover junkie that I am, was quick to click on the post. Here are some of my personal favourite covers:

Cruel Beauty - Rosamund Hodge
January 28, 2014
Balzer & Bray
Goodreads 

My Thoughts: I'm really loving this one. From the title "Cruel Beauty" to the awesome cover and synopsis, this one is definitely being added to my never ending TBR list. I love the idea of spiral stairs turning into a rose almost, very nice and original. When publishers put a little more effort into the cover then just having a good looking girl in a dress doing a pose, it really pays of well. 





Frozen - Erin Bowman
April 15, 2014
Harper Teen
Goodreads

My Thoughts: I've seen the first in this series, Taken, around but never really stopped to look it up. This cover though, did the job for me. I really love the colours used, it's so simple yet beautiful and also futuristic. A great portrayal of the book, I feel!








Perfect Lies - Kiersten White 
February 18, 2014
Harper Teen
Goodreads

My Thoughts: This one is also a sequel, to Kiersten's popular book, Mind Games which I haven't read but heard great things about. Among those great things was it's amazing cover. The sequel doesn't disappoint either in that department. The best thing about these covers is the little scenes in the background, it really catches my attention and makes me want to look closely, such a great feature. Also I love the title font, nice and simple yet perfect.





Split Second - Kasie West
February 11, 2014
Harper Teen
Goodreads

My Thoughts: This one is another sequel of a popular book with a beautiful cover. I love the idea of this book and the cover. Yes, it has the stereotypical girl's face YA cover, but it also  represents the story pretty fell. I also really like the title font and position. The sideways style works really well here. The rain is another great feature.






No One Else Can Have You - Kathleen Hale
January 7, 2014
Harper Teen
Goodreads

My Thoughts: Can morbid be cute? Well either way, I love this one. Once again, its a simple one since that seems to be my style lately. I like the moose's . The knit shirt adds a small town feel to it and maybe even has a significance in the story. I love it when a cover makes me interested in a book and this one does for sure.




 

What Do You Guys Think? Any Particular Favourites?

-MARI 

I understand it's not the right Monday, however Book Blogger Confessions is one of my favourite features and I would like to participate, albeit a little late.

This is a really awesome feature hosted by Midnyte Reader and For What It's Worth all about discussing and venting about bookish topics  

This week's (or last week's, hehe) topic:

Does participating in book tours/cover reveals and author guests post drive traffic to your blog? What type of problems have you encountered when hosting them? (please keep it civil - no names or calling specific people out) As a blog follower, are you ever turned off by these kinds of posts? How much publicity is too much? 

P.E.'s thoughts

I've done some book tours/cover reveals on my old blog, Tantalizing Illusions and they did get some traffic. Mostly it was the author letting everyone know what happened on what day but I did get a few new visitors. I doubt any of them stayed. I didn't participate in them too much, maybe just a handful of times and never with any of the marquee tours or events. Some posts had a huge spike in views but this didn't mean much for my blog in general. 

To be honest, I don't like doing them too much. It's not very much original content and often it's someone that asks me. There's a schedule and it's pretty organized, but a little chaotic in my experience. It ends up clogging my inbox and I'm constantly thinking about posting it on the right date. The formatting also takes a lot of time and in general, I find it a lot of work. 

What I don't like is that often, the content isn't original when it comes to blog tours or cover reveals. There's dozens of other blogs posting similar posts and while that can help with exposure for an author, as a blogger it's important to have original, creative posts. I feel like my blog is just for promotions when it's really not. I always consider my posts more about the discussion of books than the promotion. 

I've also had some issues when some authors gave in content that was misspelled which totally threw me off. If I fix it, it makes them look good even though they should have done that themselves. If I leave it, it makes my blog look unprofessional. Of course the negative stuff didn't happen very often. Most authors are very professional and respectful. I prefer as a blogger to post my own content however I've always been open to guest posts and the like. 

As a blog reader, I very rarely seek out these types of posts. If it's available on my reader, I'll take a look at it but beyond that I prefer reading bloggers' features and reviews. I don't often check out blogs that post exclusively promotional material. The only thing that differentiates any blog from another is the blogger writing the posts so if a blogger seems to be posting almost exclusively promotional material, then they probably won't get a follow from me. 

There are exceptions though. If it's an author interview with my favourite author, I will definitely check it out. I guess it's a nice way for authors to show their personality. 

Those were just my thoughts. What do you think?