Risky Layout? - Feral Book Cover

So I tried to rework the composition and layout of my fish book cover in order to make the fish featured on the front look dead, which wasn't coming across on my original rough. After some thinking I came up with the idea to just feature one dead fish on the front, and leave a big blank space in between said fish, which has floated to the top of the page, and the title/author's name at the bottom.

I feel this more effectively portrays my concept of the fish being dead, as well as tapping into a part of the actual book where the numbers of fish are falling. It also creates a greater contrast between the rewilding happening on the back cover, which is full of alive, swimming fish.

I think as a layout, this rough is quite risky. Leaving such an empty space and being confident (who am I kidding?) in just having one stand alone drawing accompanied with a title is a bold move. But then I don't really know what constitutes a 'good' layout, or whether it is 'right' or if there's such a thing in the first place. I like it, anyway.