by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author
When you walk through a bookstore or a library, how do covers call out to you? Personally, my eyes are drawn first to the title of a book. What is it called? What does it mean? How can you interpret the title multiple ways to mean something different? I love a great title. But from what I have been told, I’m in the minority. A great title matters, yes, but what seems to matter much, much more is an excellent, genre-specific book cover.
So far in this series on self-publishing, we’ve talked about setting your goals, understanding your legal rights as a self-published author, ISBNs, distribution channels, and market research. This month, we’re going to talk about one of the most important investments you can make in your book: your book cover.
You really can judge a book by its cover. I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s true. If you see a cover that is professionally created with well-executed design elements, intentionally placed readable fonts, and captivating back cover copy, you’re probably safe in guessing that you’ve got a quality story on your hands. Or at least you can assume it’s a story that the author has invested a lot of time and effort into!
Why does a professional book cover matter so much?
Not only does a professional cover signal to a reader that the book itself has been professionally produced, a well-designed book cover will naturally attract attention. There is a science to design. If you haven’t studied design or made a habit of analyzing book covers, you might not understand how a cover needs to be engineered to make the eyes happy. This is an essential piece of information that you need in order to construct a book cover that will attract the kind of attention that will lead to a purchase.
Your book cover is your most valuable marketing piece. You will use this book cover on more than just your book; it needs to be all over your social media platforms, it needs to be on emails, bookmarks, postcards, websites, flyers, banners, posters, everywhere. Don’t just keep it on your book. It can be much more than that.
Some people are hesitant to spend so much money on a book cover because they aren’t confident that it will sell enough. And, to be honest, this is a valid concern. If you’re an indie author, your pockets may not be deep enough to drop a thousand dollars on a cover. Or, you could be releasing a novella intended to increase interest in a larger series, and you’d rather spend the money on the major series books rather than an introductory project.
What is the best choice to make?
Well, as always, it depends on your situation. How many books are you going to publish this year? How much is your budget for each book? How many books are in your series? What genre is your book?
If you are writing primarily in genres like romance, thriller, or mystery, you will probably be able to find a decent cover for not a lot of money. You might even be able to find a pre-made cover that will work for you. And if you hit the sales, you can find a high-quality, pre-made cover for less than $100 easily.
Where you will run into challenges, however, is in speculative genres or very specific historical eras. If your cover needs to be detailed in its representation of what is in the book, you will need a custom cover. You might be able to find a designer on a platform like 99designs that will work with you for less than $500, but you may have to provide your own stock photos.
This is the situation I’m in currently with a new title I have releasing either at the end of this year or the first quarter of next year. I have found a book cover designer I want to work with, but I need to provide my own stock photography.
That doesn’t have to break the bank though, considering that you can get special deals from stock photo sites like DepositPhotos (www.depositphotos.com) for a relatively inexpensive price.
Some authors I know have used Fivrr (www.fivrr.com) for their book covers, but I would be cautious about contacts on Fivrr. You can also search online sites like DeviantArt for artists you might want to work with. Some designers have a presence on Pinterest. Just make sure you do your research. That’s why a site like 99Designs (www.99designs.com) is so valuable. It’s vetted carefully and has high standards of quality.
But you don’t have to limit yourself to online searches either. Talk to people. Ask authors you know who did their book covers. Make time to browse the shelves at your favorite bookstore and pull covers that catch your eye. Usually you can identify who designed the cover on the copyright page at the front of a book. Google them. Email them. Try it.
Of course, you can try to make your own cover. There are some options for that, like DIYBookCovers (www.diybookcovers.com) which provides templates and training videos and even a web-based cover design tool. However, you can also use Canva (www.canva.com) with a professional subscription and access templates and images. However, if you haven’t studied design, you might be better off working with a professional.
Whether or not we should judge a book by its cover, most readers will. So you want to make sure that your cover communicates that your book is worth reading.
If you love your book cover designer, shout them out in the comments!
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Ken Raney created the perfect cover for my debut novella!
ReplyDeleteHannah Lindler created a wonderful cover for my novel "His Eyes" releasing in October. Highly recommended!
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