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In traditional publishing houses, authors have little involvement with their books once the manuscript leaves their desks, but with self-publishing, authors have high involvement and interaction. This is an advantage when designing the cover. Cover design is crucial.
Though we have been told not to judge a book by its cover, your cover forms the reader’s first impression of the book’s content and your writing style. Your cover design is the front line of advertising for your book, a key marketing tool to sell your product.
Your Cover Should:1. Relate with your genre and visually stand out at the same time.
2. Appeal to your target audience and convince them to take a closer look at your book.
3. Reflect the content of your book.
4. Encourage your potential reader to take it home.
With these in mind, it is understandable that the designer creates the bridge between art and commerce. The best book design involves initial creative input from the author and his or her feedback to the designer. Communication is key.
To start getting involved in the process, the author could search for ideas while browsing a bookstore. Check out bestsellers and observe how the books are designed. Notice most of the covers are not overcrowded or busy. When the author wants to have the entire book expressed in the cover, it confuses the potential reader. A good front should have enough mystery to make the reader look at it then turn to the back cover to know more about it.
When making decisions about a cover design, consider the psychological responses certain colors evoke. Warm colors (red, orange, yellow) evoke passion and excitement. Cool colors (blue and green) tend to suggest calmness and relaxation. Cover designs can be primarily typographic, or primarily photographic which means that a design is only as good as the image used so make sure to have the image that you want or check if the designer has access to good images.
And lastly, from proper orientation of the book through the synopsis or the genre provided, the designer should be able to transform words to imagery.
This post is by Ivy Arnoco, a budding book cover designer. She is currently offering free services. For those who are interested, you can email her atcoverdesignbyivy@yahoo.com. Her current portfolio is available here.
View Comments (2)
Oh my, this is so well-timed it's slightly creepy! I just came of the phone to my best friend saying "I need a cover design, but don't know where to start!" Off to write to you right now! Thank you :)
This is a great opportunity for writers. I talk to authors being a book cover illustrator myself and often they're not sure how to tackle the design of their book cover. The book cover is the primary selling tool. It's the first thing you see on the shelf, on the amazon store, in news articles, everything. When putting thought into your cover, I find it helps authors to collect images, other book covers even film reference that evokes a mood and feeling that you feel somewhat represents your story. This is a great starting point for discussions. All the best!