When it comes to book cover design, every detail is important. The back cover of your book shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s just as important as front cover design. Below is a detailed list of everything your back cover needs to look polished and professional. We’ll start with the most obvious.
The Back of Your Book Cover Design Needs Back Cover Copy
Your Book Description
This is probably the most impactful and noticeable feature of your back book cover design. This description should be less than three hundred words(250 is even better) so they need to be carefully crafted.
Besides being a huge selling point for your book, there’s limited space on the back cover so you want to use your word count wisely. This is not the place to summarize your book. It’s where you convince people to buy it!
Your Bio and Author Photo
Now, you don’t have to use an author photo, but sometimes it’s nice to put names with faces. But authors add their bio to their back book cover design fairly often. This bio should be less than 200 words and placed at the bottom of your back cover.
Bios are mostly important if your story links to your book significantly. Memoirs, Self-Help and Business books will usually have a bio for this reason.
Blubs as Part of Your Book Cover Design
If you’re lucky enough to have a few really outstanding blubs, testimonials or review excerpts, you can definitely add these! Often times one will just be at the top of the back cover before the description.
You can also use them in place of an author bio—remember, space is limited—if you have quite a few from reputable sources. Blubs usually have a lot of impact because readers trust the opinions of others, especially when they’re from noteworthy sources.
The Tiny But Super Important Details!
These are the little things that are needed if to distribute your book and to make it fit professional publishing conventions. Without these, even to the untrained eye, something will seem off about your back book cover design. Plus, there’s valuable information in these little details!
The ISBN and Barcode are Essential to Your Book Cover Design
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. These are those numbers you see in the barcode at the bottom right of the back of books. You’ve probably used them to find books at the library. But an ISBN is super important because it’s what publishers, booksellers, libraries, internet retailers and distributors use for ordering and listing your book.
Your barcode should also have the price listed in a numeral code. Above that you need the human readable price. Which is exactly what it sounds like. The amount with the decimal and dollar sign so people can visually see the price of your book.
See the example below!
Your Book Genre
You need to include your book genre on your back book cover design. Whether it’s Sci-fi, Memoir, or Literary Fiction books are classified in genres. This information needs to be visible on your back cover and it should be placed in the upper left hand corner.
Imprint Name
The name of your imprint, or publisher(you never use your own name, even if self-published) also needs to be included. It sounds crazy but even if it is self-published you create an imprint/publisher name. This should be placed in the left bottom corner across from your barcode.
This imprint will also have a logo, which will be used on the spine of your book. Yes, the spine is also part of your back book cover design.
The Spine! It’s Part of Your Book Cover Design Too
Your book spine is actually a very important part of the full back book cover design! This is what readers see on the shelves after all. The spine of your book should have the title just as it appears on the front cover. It should read top to bottom. Directly beneath that is where the imprint logo is placed. A logo, rather than the imprint name is used here because of that very limited space on the spine.
Your Website URL
You don’t have to use your website URL on your back book cover design, but if you have a website, you may as well add it so readers can learn more about you. Because while your book cover is its best marketing tool, your website is yours!
If you do include your website, it should be placed to the left of the barcode and above the imprint name.
So, there’s your comprehensive list of everything you need on your back cover. If you’ve already published a book and some of this is missing or out of place, it may be time for a cover redesign. Because every detail of your book cover is important, and a bad cover can really hurt your book’s chances of success.
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