Part of the book cover design process requires collaborating with your designer to get a cover that will work best for your book while keeping your vision in mind. One of the things you’ll be asked to do is come up with your comparable book covers.
We’ll go over what you need to know so you can find appropriate comp book covers and get the most out of the process
What Are Comparable Book Covers?
Comparable book covers are the book covers you will share with your designer to give them a starting point. They serve both as inspiration for you and as a guide for your designer. Even if you’re creating your own book cover, this will be part of a successful design process.
How to Choose Your Comparable Book Covers to Get the Best Results
Your comparable book covers shouldn’t be chosen based on aesthetics and personal taste alone. Because book covers still need to fit genre and design conventions in order to grab the attention of your audience. Below are some tips on finding the most useful book covers to use as your comps.
Find Covers Within Your Genre
The place you need to look first is within your book’s genre. This means fully understanding what your book’s genre is of course. Your subgenre should also be considered if applicable. The goal is to find similar books, just like with comparable titles, so that you meet your audience’s expectations. It also allows you to get a sense of the overall appearance you want for your cover design.
These Covers Should Be Recent
When looking for potential comparable book covers in your genre, you’ll also want to narrow the search down to books published no more than three to five years ago. Relevant and contemporary comparable covers will serve you best. Remember, the end goal of this is to create a professional-looking, marketable book cover. Because cover design trends change and your audience is likely reading in your genre, they are familiar with what current book cover design should look like.
Similar Placement Matters Too
Another thing you’ll have to consider is placement. Ideally, your comp book covers will be from books with similar placement as yours. This means books that are sold in the same spaces, that speak to the same audience of readers. In other words, you can probably find one huge, best-selling title for a point of reference, but you’re better off not ONLY using best-sellers. These books appeal to everyone. You want your book to appeal to your audience, specifically.
Where Do I Look for These Comparable Book Covers?
Books are everywhere, so the hardest part of this may be knowing where to start the search for your comparable book covers. Because browning online and through Amazon yields results that are beholden to algorithms, it’s best not to rely on these methods entirely. This is an important step in your cover design process and will affect the end product, so it’s worth taking some care and time. You can research your comparable covers by:
- Going to bookstores and browsing your genre section.
- Checking out author websites and publishing company websites.
- Looking to social media and finding the authors and books readers and fans are talking about.
- Visiting Goodreads and spending some time there.
How Many Should I Find?
A good strategy for finding enough comparable book covers is to find more than you think you will need and then narrow it down after some consideration. But in the end, you should have as little as three excellent choices and as many as twelve to review. But coming to your designer with three to five is ideal.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to purchase these books. Simply take screen grabs, or save links. You can also take high-quality photos if you’d like.
What to Consider When Choosing Your Comparable Book Covers
When choosing your comparable book covers, keep in mind not just your genre and/or subgenre, but consider the tones and themes. Which fit best with your book? Notice the color scheme and design elements that stand out to you. Look through your list and make note of this to help you find what you like best. And what you dislike.
Take notes on these likes and dislikes. Heck, even throw in some covers that you despise. It can be helpful for the designer to know what you DON’T want as well.
TIP! You also don’t want to end up with a list of covers that are all wildly different from each other, or conversely, too much the same.
All this will help the designer get a better idea of where to start and assist you in being a helpful collaborator.
Remember, finding your comparable book covers should be fun, and the effort you put in will help you get the best end result possible. Follow these tips on what to look for, where to find them, and how many to choose and you’ll be off to a great start in the book cover design process.
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