Say you’re a writer of religious self-help books, but you want your book to appeal to everyone. Do you design your title and cover with religion in mind or the general audience who’ll be reading it (hopefully)?

Author Michael Peters created a PickFu poll to answer that question for his own religious self-help book.

Option A’s title is a bit of a mouthful: Lost in Detroit: Bent Nails, Alien Life, and Jesus of Nazareth: The Journey to the Non-Religious Jesus. The cover features a clean black, white, and turquoise color scheme with the Detroit skyline below the title.

Option B’s title is much shorter: Tired of Religion? Come & See Jesus of Nazareth. The cover art is a blurred painting of Jesus.

Can you guess which one won?

There’s something appealing about reading a book from an insider’s perspective. It could be a book about being a paparazzo, or a midwife, or a maid. If there’s the magnetic pull of secret, insider information, we want to know it.

But there are ways to make even the most intriguing insider books stand out. One airline pilot wrote a book about tackling jetlag — from a pilot’s perspective — and created a PickFu poll to test two covers and titles.

Option A features a yellow-and-black illustration of a flight information display system. Option B shows two passports and an airplane laid over a map. The subtitle is long but neatly tucked under the prominent title.

Can you guess which one won?

While PickFu is incredibly useful for ebook authors, it’s also a vital testing tool for authors who plan to publish their books in print. One author recently tested four print book cover design options for a book about Canadian facts and trivia. She specifically asked poll respondents which cover they’d pick up in a store.

Option A crowds its cover with chunky illustrations and playful font.
Option B has a cleaner look, with the subtitle set in a circle surrounded by Canadian landmarks.
Option C is similar to Option B but with a different color scheme and illustration.
Option D neatly lays out the Canadian landmarks illustration on the bottom half of the page.

Can you guess which one won?

Are you a risk-taker, or do you usually stay away from, say, the edges of cliffs? Do you consider yourself a bold person, someone who radiates confidence? And finally, do you have to live dangerously in order to be bold?

One author set out to answer these questions when she created a PickFu poll to choose a cover for her book Live a Bold Life: Your 30 Day Mission to a Fearless Future.

Option A’s mustard-yellow cover doesn’t feature any danger-evoking images, but the word bold stands out from the rest of the title. In stark contrast, Option B features an illustration of a person standing at the edge of a cliff.

Can you guess which one won?