How to Create a Powerful Book Cover?

Do book covers affect sales?

If the cover can intrigue the reader, the book has a 50% higher chance of success.

It is true that people often judge a book by its cover. When readers see an appealing cover, they are motivated to pick it up and look closer. This applies not only in a bookstore but also browsing on a screen. An author cannot afford to downplay the importance of a book cover.

Getting involved in this stage of your publishing process is fun, but it also requires a lot of patience, talent and logic. The following tips will guide you on how to design an attractive book cover and covers questions like-

What makes a good book cover?

What book covers sell best?

Why Is a Book Cover a Marketing Tool?

Deciding on a book title for your book cover

As a first-time writer, you may think that deciding on a book title is the most important part of making a book cover. You will invest a lot of time and energy in the same. You finally have a title for your debut book. Great! But did you know that the title presentation is also an essential part of the designing process?

Take a look at the books on your shelves, especially books in different genres. You will notice that certain genres have a particular font/style, size, colour while others stick to a completely different style of font. For example, crime fiction books usually go with big and bold fonts, while romantic fiction goes with handwritten fonts. Non-fiction titles have a simple and straightforward style, while fantasy and science fiction books push the envelope even more by going in for striking designs. These ideas have gained currency over years of marketing and publishing. Ultimately, a book cover is a marketing tool and so it is important that to make an attractive book cover, one needs to keep in mind the target audience. If the title is in a cursive font and this isn’t working out, there’s a practical and well-tested reason for it!

Another tip on designing a book cover is to understand that your name will most probably be printed in a smaller font than the title. As a debut author, this is a given and in no way a means to discredit your work.

 

Internet inspiration for designing an attractive book cover

Stock images will become your best friend! There are photography sites all over the internet and we recommend jumping into them, be it Getty Images, Pinterest, Fotolia, etc. Look for stock images on these sites, which you can use to design a rough idea of your dream book cover. But don’t try to push too many elements into the cover. 

Ensure that the image you choose should be copyright free or buy the copyright to that image and be a high-resolution image.If a publishing house is to create a book cover, then the team at the publishing house will expect you to bring your ideas to the table to get a clear picture of what you want. Book covers need to communicate the correct genre. We would also recommend browsing through covers of debut books that have become popular. For example, the famous Twilight series is a vampire romance thriller, but instead of the stereotypical image of fangs and bite marks, the very first book had the image of pale hands holding an apple on its cover. The cover for The Invisible Girlfriend, has an intriguing image on the cover, that draws the reader in. It promises a story with a mystery. 

Should you use professional designers to design your book cover

Due to creative expertise and years of experience, professional book designers know what kind of images attracts target audiences. Which image would work best for someone looking for a mystery thriller? What kind of font would be more attractive to a person looking for comedy? The author is too close to the content to be objective. That is where the professionals step in and offer expert advice on making an attractive book design. Giving too many details and making demands at every step can ruin the creative process. It’s best to hand over a bunch of image references during brainstorming sessions

Some authors also get book designs made by an illustrator. This is then given to the book cover designer, who will arrange the images according to the illustration to create an attractive book cover

Writing a synopsis for your book 

The synopsis is a crucial factor in the decision of the reader to buy your book. Across all genres, a synopsis structure is simple: who is the character, what situation are they in, and what will be at stake for them?

The synopsis of Hunger Games is a good example:
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Still, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love if she is to win.

The summary gives a sense of what your story is about. It also tells us who the protagonist is and why she is in this particular situation. Here are some examples of synopsis you can read. Choose the book category and open the book page

Before you launch your cover officially, test it with your audience. Remember that your book cover is essentially a marketing tool. They say ‘never judge a book by its cover’, but not when actual books are involved!

To publish a book, connect with Zorba Books.

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