In an ideal world, a book is never judged by its cover. In reality, a book cover is often the magnet that pulls in the reader. The reason is simple – the human brain is wired to process an image faster than words. So the book cover, which is the first thing a potential reader sees has to make a strong and lasting impression.
Fatal Errors for Book Covers
- A bland, unimaginative cover that will be passed over without a single glance.
- Text which is unclear or unreadable from a distance.
- Font that is illegible, clumsy or overused; causing the potential reader to lose interest.
- A cover that does not communicate the style and mood of the book.
Eg. A dark, heavy cover for a light romantic novel.
- Badly designed or poor quality book cover.
Since most of the readers do make their choice based on the cover of a book, any of the above mentioned factors could put the readers off your book. A less than impressive cover might lead the reader to believe that the contents of the book are equally sloppy.
Do your Research
Since your book cover is the first sales pitch for your book, don’t neglect it. Make it count. If you have the budget, hire a graphic artist to make a great cover for your book. After all a trained professional is better qualified to know the best way to make your book cover stand apart.
But eventually whether you decide to do-it-yourself or hire a professional, do the research and know what you need and what you want.
- Take a look around the bookstores, libraries and online sites. Make a note of the bestselling books in your genre. Check to see how the readers identify the book cover in this category.
- Do research on the workable fonts for the titles and the text.
- When it comes to book covers, less is more. Keep the book cover simple. Do not clutter the cover by adding too much of images or text.
- Shrink the image and text of the book cover down to the size seen on the search results page at e-retailers like Amazon. Make sure that the important bits are still clear and visible at this size.
- In case you are planning on both formats, note that the covers of both the print and e-book need not be the same. You can make changes to incorporate whatever works in each format.
- Check out the links given below to have a look at some award-winning book covers.
http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/minisites/penguindesignaward/puffin_previous_
