You’ve finished your manuscript. Now it’s time to really get to work! One of the most important tasks of publishing your book is designing a good book cover.
9 Important Elements of a Good Book Cover:
Overall Design
Title
Subtitle
Author Name
Back Cover Design
Back Cover or Panel Copy (text)
Endorsements and Reviews
Spine
Author Bio
Whether your book cover dresses an ebook or a paperbound treasure, it is your audience’s first impression and a key part of your marketing strategy. Take time to research, revise, and make sure your cover reflects what’s inside your book.
Here are 9 tips to designing a good book cover:
1. Overall Design:
All the elements of my book, from writing and photographs to interior and cover design, were a personal expression. I learned a great deal in the process and value the learning above all else. I did my research and made my cover with the best of the amateur skills I had.
That being said, I suggest that you hire a professional designer who has a portfolio of book covers you like. Your book cover should also be genre specific. Do a search of great book covers for books in your genre and take notes on what you like. Give your designer a list of the elements you like, as well as colors, or any meaningful symbols or images you like. It’s helpful to give them a bit of writing from the book that will inspire. But don’t be too specific. Your designer has talents that need freedom of expression.
Here are some helpful links to images of great covers:
bookcoverarchive.com Design Observer 50 Amazing Covers
If you insist on making your own book cover, here are a few more tips I learned about overall design:
Appeal to your audience. Marketers always say, know your audience. You want to create your cover to attract the attention of the readers you envision reading your book.
I wanted smokers to consider my book, so I opted to publicize myself smoking. I wanted non-smokers to be curious too, so I designed my title with that in mind. I was also writing primarily about women’s issues and my life as a woman, so I chose to show a woman.
Capture the essence of your book. Your cover should demonstrate a balance between imagery and text. Ultimately, it should also represent the essence of your content.
As my poetry is accompanied by photographs of women, I chose to use a photo of a woman. The book is also uniquely about my perspective and my life, so I decided a photo of me was the most appropriate way to communicate that. I intentionally credited the photographers to let readers know the book has photographs, with the hope they’d pick it up and look inside. I also credited my narrative editor, because I wanted people to know that the book was more than just poetry and photographs.
Use a single image. Simplicity is a strong element of design. Using a single image makes the cover memorable and allows the mind to focus on that representation. Being too complex or having unnecessary elements can be an inefficient way to communicate your message. Be wary of using a box image on your cover. This is considered very amateurish.
It was helpful to me that my design skills were so amateur. I have a complex mind, and might have gone crazy were I not limited. I used everything I had to take my photo and expand it beyond the box by layering photos and cloning/painting an expanded skyline.
Be aware of color and branding. Warm colors (red, orange, yellow) stimulate the senses and will draw the viewer in. They can also be seen from across the room. Cool colors (blue, green, purple) create low arousal and create a sense of relaxation and tranquility.
I chose warm colors in the skyline because I wanted my cover to capture attention. I placed the dark bands to balance the dark clothing and also allude to the content of my book; I refer to smoking as “black calm,” and my book addresses the dangers of smoking.
You want to think forward about whether your cover has style elements that you can brand for future publications. Many authors and publishers use repeated cover styling to make the books easily identifiable.
As to branding, I knew that I’d want to create additional poetry collections in the future, as well as create a second volume of the “When You Can’t Scream…” series. The second volume will include the stories of 10 women and how they cope with life. I’ll use another photo of a woman on the future cover. I decided I’d use images of myself or of birds in the sky for future poetry collections. This is a self-branding decision related to my association with words as a kind of song, and myself as a unique bird attempting to take flight.
Front cover text is important. Generally, you want to make sure that you choose no more than two fonts. Be wary of highly stylized fonts. It should be bold and easy to read. Your title needs to be BIG.
I chose two fonts for my cover, and utilized one of those fonts for the entirety of my interior. So there is a cohesive quality to my font choices. The “philosopher” font, which I sourced on Dafont, is very similar to my own printing so it felt like a further expression of my own branding. My book is 8 x 10 inches. When I put the dark bands down the sides, I limited space for my title. I really wanted it to be on one line, so I went with the largest size I could and then stretched the text to make it taller. I will be designing a specific cover for my ebook version, to make the title much larger.
2. Title
Picking the perfect title for your book is extremely important. Products and advertisers spend millions on development of titles. You should at least spend time and energy on creating your title. Then spend more time and energy getting feedback and revising your title.
I went to BOOK IN A BOX to get advice. My title, “When You Can’t Scream…Or 10 Reasons Why I Smoke,” probably satisfies 4 of the 5 important elements they describe.
According to BOOK IN A BOX, your title should:
Grab Attention
Be Memorable
Be Informative (give a good idea of what your book is about)
Be Easy to Say
Not be embarrassing or problematic for someone to say aloud to their friends
Whatever title you choose, it should be big and legible! In the age of digital thumbnails and ebook covers, the bigger your title the better.
For more information about creating your title, check this out:
BOOK IN A BOX — Titles
3. Subtitle
Subtitles are not always necessary. But if your book is non-fiction your subtitle contextualizes your content, and is important in helping readers decide if they will purchase it. Your subtitle communicates your book’s central premise, describes who your book is for, and what promise your book delivers on.
My book title is: “When You Can’t Scream…” But it could mean any number of things. My subtitle–which I attached to the title for printing purposes–is “Or 10 Reasons Why I Smoke.” The title doesn’t clarify what the book is about. But when the subtitle is attached, bam! The book is all about why I smoke.
4. Author Name
Just like with your title, you want your name to be legible and large on your cover. You basically have four choices about your author name. You can:
Use your name: Doren Damico
Use your full name: Doren Marie Damico
Use your initials: D. M. Damico
Use a pseudonym: Sylvanna Moore
There are advantages to each of these. Using your real name helps people who know you, find your book. If you have a common name, you might be confused with another author or person of the same name. When you add your full name you can sometimes avoid that confusion. Another way to avoid confusion is by using your initials. Do an internet search of your name and see what comes up. This is what others will see when they search for you. You’ll also want to consider how it sounds, the rhythm or roll of your name on the tongue.
As to using a pseudonym, you get to be really creative and name yourself! You can also design a name that is concise, appropriate to your genre, and memorable for readers. Using a pseudonym makes publishing a little more complicated when writing query letters, signing contracts and copyrights. People may not know it’s you and you may spend a lot of time explaining to them why you chose a pseudonym. But as long as you remember when to use your legal name and when to use your pseudonym, it can be an advantage.
I’ve struggled long and hard over whether or not to write using a pseudonym. Because I intend to write and market several educational and children’s books, I’ve wondered if I want those potential customers to catch my very honest Facebook feed, or even a whiff of what I’ve written in When You Can’t Scream… For me, it’s a question of ethics over marketing. But the truth is, I’ll be making a final decision on pseudonym when I publish my children’s book this year.
5. Back Cover Design
In order to stay away from the amateurish, blocky approach, it’s important to carry your front cover design over into your back cover. Design it with the whole image in mind. Some simple ways to do this is to have similar elements, images or colors on both the front and back covers. (Remember that the ISBN box will be placed on your back cover, so design it with that in mind.)
When I researched cover images, I found myself most attracted to those covers that had a balance of colors throughout the front and back. I did this by creating a gradient background color on the back that matched my front cover skyline. I also carried the smoke graphic over to the back, as well as the dark band.
First Cover Version
Second Cover
Once you’ve captured a potential reader’s attention with your good front cover design, they’ll hopefully pick it up and read the back cover. This is a critical part of your marketing.
6. Back Cover or Panel Copy (text)
There are three elements to include in your back cover copy (text).
Summary of Your Book Content
Endorsements and Reviews
Author Bio
Nonfiction books should summarize your book content, and often include bullet points describing what your book has to offer a reader. You want to draw the reader in, so it should be exciting or offer something your audience needs and wants. You want to give the reader a clear sense of what is in your book. The bullets can be used to list elements of your content, or what a reader will learn or take from reading your book.
Fiction books usually feature a summary of the story, or an excerpt. Be careful to not give away too much. End it with a mystery or some kind of foreshadowing that will make the reader want to find out what happens.
My book is an unlikely mix of genres. It has poetry, photography, and an intimate memoir. It is also non-fiction, with research-based information about smoking and the tobacco industry, as well as tips for mindfulness, compassion and dealing with trauma. I decided to brand it as a self help book dealing with trauma. My back copy gives the reader a sense of the content formats, and specifies that I teach through my personal experience. It also provides the information they’ll receive through bullet points highlighting the personal growth they might acquire by reading it.
7. Endorsements and Reviews
It’s really a good idea to get endorsements and reviews to excerpt on your back cover. These should be done by people who are writers, editors, or experts in your book’s content field. Make sure to get the book to them 6 weeks in advance of when you need your review. These reviews are part of your advertising, so you want professionals and excerpts that help sell your book. (If you have an endorsement from someone well known in your field, then you might want to mention them on the front cover of your book.)
I chose writers in my local community that I knew personally. I asked several people who couldn’t review because these people are busy and I gave them a short time frame. But fortunately, my creative friends value the benefits of crossover advertising and a couple people made time to give me feedback on my rushed timeline.
8. Author Bio
Your author bio is another important element of your advertising. You want it to lend credence and authority to your content. If you are writing an author bio keep it short and include a professional bio photo. Make sure to highlight elements of your biography that demonstrate why you know what you’re talking about.
In my case, I embedded my author bio into my summary information. I have a lengthier bio in the back of my book. My photo is on the front. The whole book is really about me, so I just wanted to indicate why I am a credible authority on the content I’m delivering. I made sure to let people know I’ve experienced trauma and dealt with it. I also included my credentials as an education specialist.
I researched several sites to get ideas and examples of great back cover copy. Here are some of the articles I found useful:
The Book Designer Examples from Jane Friedman More Examples
9. Spine
Depending on how your book is shelved, the spine may be the only thing potential readers see. So this goes back to how good your title is. The essential element of your spine should be that it’s easy to read. Some people use a small image or publisher’s mark on the spine. If you are going to do this, make sure it’s part of your whole branding vision.
I placed my logo on the back cover. So all I did for the spine was use the same font I’d used in the title, and I made it white against the charcoal gray of the spine.
Regardless of what you think of my cover. For a first attempt at self-design, I’m pleased. I did my due diligence in researching and learning about cover design and applied those principles.
Doren Damico is a lyricist and poet with a passion for the art of being human. Her book, When You Can’t Scream…Or 10 Reasons Why I Smoke, will be available on Amazon.com July 21, 2016. For more poems and poetic commentary check out her blog archive, Poetry, at: dorendamico.com
