Good book cover design isn’t just about a nice looking image. It’s necessary to follow conventions so that your book looks professional and fits within its genre. When you’re missing any of the below you’ll find yourself with a book cover that screams, “Self-published”, and not in a good way.
Good Book Cover Design Fits the Genre
It can’t be stated enough that your book cover design must fit squarely within your book’s genre. Even beautifully rendered artwork and a stellar layout won’t do you any good if your Fantasy novel’s cover is telling potential readers that it’s a historical romance.
So, what does this mean? Well, it means there are certain standards to conform to in order to relay the right tones, themes, and messages.
Everything from your font choice, spacing, artwork and color palette give readers clues as to what type of book they’re looking at. For instance, nonfiction books will often use more minimal art, and cleaner fonts—especially guides, business books and self-help books.
With fiction, you have more room for creativity and covers can be more elaborate. But you still have to stick to a theme. For example, romance novels will use colors that read as passionate, and script type fonts. Sci-fi tends to use retro and block lettering and deep, cool colors.
Do your research and find out what these standards are before beginning the book cover design process.
Compelling Back Cover Copy is Essential
Another equally important aspect to professional looking book cover design is having clear, concise and compelling book cover copy. This includes your book description and your bio— if you choose to use it on your back cover.
Your book description isn’t a just summary of your book. You need to tell just enough. Too much will not only take up too much space, it will give away the story. You don’t need to tell your readers the details. You need to convince them that this is the book they want to read.
You want to leave them wondering what will happen!
Your bio should also be concise and relevant to the book and your writing. You may have won a spelling bee in 6th grade, but that’s an anecdote to keep on longer bios like the kind you have on your website. Keep in mind, your book bio should be less than 180 words. There’s only so much room when considering the whole book cover design.
Good Book Cover Design Includes the Details
Every professionally published book out there needs to follow certain book cover conventions that often get overlooked by self-published authors. A professional looking book cover design always has these indicators.
For instance, did you know you need to include your imprint name on the back cover? And it needs to be in the right place. You also need to include a logo of your imprint on the spine. You also need to have an ISBN and barcode. These are so your book can be distributed and sold through online platforms and in stores.
A few other things you’ll need to include are:
- The genre of the book. Psst. There’s a place for that too!
- Your website URL if you have one. And you should!
- Blurbs and reviews—if they’re good ones and they fit on the cover
- A human readable price. This is the part of the barcode that shows the price in a dollar amount
Before you send your book to print, or even before you start the book cover design process, it’s essential that you know and follow these conventions. After all, you want your book to not only look appealing, but to be professional looking. Following these guidelines will help give your book its best chance at success. And we all want that, right?
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