Designing a Book Cover That Sells: A Guide for Aspiring Authors

While it’s never good to judge a book by its cover, it’s often the first element your readers will interact with, creating a lasting impression and ideally inspiring them to read it. A solid cover design will entice readers to the content of your book, so it should represent your story, theme, or world-building well. Just like bright, kid-friendly fonts and illustrations wouldn’t work well for a gritty adult horror novel, you’re going to want to represent your book accurately and engagingly. There are a few ways to get inspiration and ideas to design the perfect cover that best represents you and your story.

Browse Other Covers

Think of your favorite novels and what their covers look like. Visit a bookstore or library and browse other covers for your book’s genre. You’ll likely get some great ideas for imagery, color, and font style that may work well for your book. Of course, you’ll want to create a design unique to your novel, but there’s nothing wrong with gaining some light inspiration to start your brainstorming. You’ll also get a good idea of various formatting rules in terms of readability, bleed, and placement.

Consider Genre and Audience

When choosing cover imagery, you’re going to need to consider both the genre and audience of your cover. For example, a horror novel will usually warrant dark, vivid imagery with frightening illustrations or images. Still, you don’t want a horror cover to get too graphic or gory if your target audience is kids or teens. You’ll also want to consider specific story elements from your novel to decide on imagery. Including werewolves in a horror book about ghosts wouldn’t make much sense.

Select a Fitting Font

Many books incorporate the author’s name and title font to fit the overall theme of the cover. It makes the design look intentional and seamless. Font style, color, and size can also give readers more of an idea of what your book will be about. However, you will want most audiences to be able to read it easily. A childlike handwritten font may be fun for a children’s book, but if no one can read the color or style, you may want to revise it a bit.

Hire Professionals

As a writer, you may not be equipped with all the experience that cover designers and illustrators have when it comes to creating a book cover. Your insight is incredibly valuable, but professional artists and book designers can work with you to create an engaging cover that works well in all formats. They will be familiar with design limits like trim, bleed, and printing colors to develop the printer-friendly cover of your dreams. Consider getting book cover design services to set yourself up for success.

Stick to a Color Scheme

A cohesive color scheme on a book cover is easier to look at. Colors shouldn’t be too jarring or clashing without reason. Colors can also provide hints to the genre or theme of the book. Bright, calming pastel colors likely won’t be found in most horror novels, just like science fiction novels typically use metallic or chrome shades. Consider your audience, genre, and storyline when selecting colors for your cover’s illustration or images.

Draw Attention

Since the cover often makes the first impression, you’ll want to draw in the attention immediately. A vivid color, detailed illustration, or captivating tagline can entice readers to pick up your book to learn more. Put effort into your cover, and readers will put effort into considering your novel.

Check for Clutter

In an effort to draw attention to a cover, you may include too many elements or clashing colors. You don’t want to overcrowd the small space. Too many illustrations or busy fonts can be overwhelming to a common viewer. You want your novel to be easy to digest instead of overly complicated.

Try Multiple Options

You don’t need to settle for the first cover draft you create, especially when you work with professionals. You should explore at least two or three options before deciding which option works best. When you have a variety of cover designs, you can get a better feel of what looks fitting for your story.

Don’t Forget the Back and Spine

While the front cover is the most important aspect of cover design, many authors don’t take advantage of the extra design space of the back and spine. You can expand a large illustration or less important features of an image to extend around the entire book. You can also create smaller images to fit specifically for the back and spine. If a cover intrigues, many users will look at the back of the book, too. Don’t forget about the entire book cover!

Conclusion

Many books utilize photography, text, and illustration on the cover to engage audiences to read the story within. While it may be pricey to hire illustrators or designers for a cover, it’s a worthwhile investment into your book’s success. Aim for designs that capture your unique story and theme. Connect your readers to your unforgettable story with an extraordinary design!