You wrote a book. Congratulations! Now you need a cover that conveys your story and entices readers. A powerful cover grabs attention, sparks curiosity, and compels browsing book lovers to pick up your book. The book cover design is the face of your book, the first impression you make on potential readers perusing shelves and websites.
Therefore, your cover must captivate in those crucial seconds when readers decide which books are worth further investigation. The cover sets the stage, positioning your book as one worth reading. It should align with your author brand while establishing genre, style, and mood.
An amateurish cover signals an amateurish book, deterring many readers from giving it a chance. But a cover that intrigues, excites, or provokes curiosity can lead readers to eagerly flip to the first page.
Why Invest in a Quality Book Cover Design?
They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but let’s be honest – readers absolutely judge books by covers, whether we care to admit it or not.
That cliché warning simply means we shouldn’t assume a book’s contents purely from superficial external appearance. But make no mistake: covers are profoundly influential. And readers do pre-judge books based on covers, even if unconsciously.
We’ve all been lured to books by captivating covers showcasing tantalizing titles, compelling images and intriguing color palettes. A cover’s aesthetic directs browser impressions and behaviors. An amateurish cover signals an amateurish book, not worth reading. But a cover that excites visually can spark deep interest, tempting browsers to give the book a chance.
Potential readers infer a lot from covers, fairly or not: level of professionalism, production quality, editing, genre. For indie authors seeking to attract readers in a crowded market, quality cover design is utterly essential. Your book’s cover is likely the first and possibly only impression you make on potential readers.
That impression must capture interest. A powerful, professional cover aligns with genre conventions while establishing intrigue. It positions your book not just as worth a closer look, but as a rewarding reading experience listeners won’t regret. While we shouldn’t judge books by covers, the reality is that covers judge books in readers’ eyes. Invest wisely for maximum impact.
Benefits of an Awesome Book Cover Design
Your book’s cover serves multiple functions, some obvious and some subtle. An effective book cover:
- Branding – The cover establishes genre, mood, style and personality, aligning with your author brand. It signals core attributes of your book and you as an author.
- Marketing – The cover visually markets your book at-a-glance, spurring impulse purchases in stores and online.
- Messaging – The design, font styles, colors and images subtly convey your book’s themes, emotions and ideas.
- Consistency – Covers in a series establish cohesion through elements like logo, palette and style, boosting discoverability.
- Curiosity – The cover intrigues and excites viewers, sparking an urge to start reading your book’s first pages.
Cover Design Traps to Avoid
Creating your book’s cover carries many potential pitfalls. Avoid these common traps indie authors fall victim to:
- DIY Covers – Well-meaning attempts at homemade cover design rarely achieve professional polish, no matter the apps or online tutorials used.
- Premade Templates – Premade cover templates available online save money but won’t uniquely capture the precise essence of your specific book.
- Amateur Designers – Friends, family and cheap novice designers often lack the artistic and marketing expertise needed for cover design.
- Clichés – Tired clichés and overused motifs fail to capture attention amid crowded shelves and sites.
- Rule Breaking – Disregard for genre conventions and market research confuses readers.
- Focus Groups – Design by committee dilutes effective concepts and uniqueness.
How We Craft Captivating Covers
Our trained cover designers have years of experience successfully creating bestselling covers across all major fiction and nonfiction genres. We’ve helped launch books by independent authors, boutique publishers and major publishing houses. Our covers are crafted to capture maximum reader attention while adhering to time-tested design principles and industry best practices.
Our Design Process
Creating compelling covers is both art and science. Our proven design process incorporates:
- We read your full manuscript to deeply understand your characters, scenes, themes, plot and moods.
- Through consultation, we determine your goals, ideal tone and target readers to design the most effective cover.
- Our designer researches comparable bestselling covers in your genre, noting conventions.
- We provide initial sketches of potential cover directions for your early feedback.
- After feedback incorporation, we create the full cover design from scratch, providing regular progress updates.
- You’re welcome to provide change requests as the design evolves toward the final vision.
- We seamlessly handle ebook conversions, spine text design and complete interior formatting for print and digital.
Throughout the process, we welcome collaboration and feedback to ensure the final cover exceeds your expectations. Our designers excel at bringing authors’ cover dreams to life.
Quality and Precision
Our cover design process utilizes industry-leading tools and stringent quality control:
- Our designers employ professional software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to craft covers.
- We create covers meeting commercial-level standards of polish, perfection, and precision.
- You get fully layered source files for updating later editions if desired.
- We optimize files for sharp rendering across platforms, stores, devices, and dimensions.
- Covers adhere to distributor technical specifications for images, text, bleeds, and spacing.
- We proof and refine covers through every phase, eliminating issues before publication.
FAQs
What if I Want Lots of Design Options?
We provide flexibility to satisfy authors. To start, you receive three professionally designed cover concepts to choose from. Should none suit your vision, we can generate additional options for reasonable fees until you’re fully satisfied.
Can I Make Tweaks During the Process?
Absolutely! We encourage collaboration to create your ideal cover. You’re welcome to provide feedback and change requests at every stage, from initial sketches through near-final drafts. Our goal is your complete satisfaction.
What If My Book is Part of a Series?
We specialize in designing cohesive covers for series! Our designers expertly ensure visual alignment across your series covers through fonts, colors, styles and motifs. This establishes brand consistency while allowing each cover’s unique personality and themes to shine.
What Genres Do You Specialize In?
Virtually every popular fiction and nonfiction genre. Our designers have created successful, bestselling covers across genres including fantasy, science fiction, romance, thriller, horror, memoir, business, self-help and more. We pride ourselves on genre versatility and flexibility.
What Rights Do You Grant?
Our agreements grant full rights to use the cover design for print, ebooks, audiobooks, website promotion and author branding across channels and platforms. For self-publishing, rights allow lifetime reuse of files.
What if my book has an obscure title or complex concept that’s hard to portray visually?
Our designers excel at brainstorming creative visual solutions for even the most complex titles and concepts. We may suggest symbolic imagery, typography-focused designs, or simplified representations to effectively communicate your book’s essence.
I’m writing literary fiction. How do you make those covers compelling yet classy?
Literary fiction covers require a delicate balance of intrigue and elegance. Our designers utilize fine-art-inspired imagery, sophisticated color palettes, and stylized typography to create classy covers that capture the book’s prestige.
Can you design the cover first so I can use it for inspiration while finishing the manuscript?
We recommend finalizing manuscripts before completing covers to allow deep understanding of the book first. However, we can design early concepts or prototypes to inspire your writing process if helpful.
I’m self-publishing a niche nonfiction book. How can the cover attract my very specific audience?
We recommend finalizing manuscripts before completing covers to allow deep understanding of the book first. However, we can design early concepts or prototypes to inspire your writing process if helpful.
I’m not sure what I want yet. Can you walk me through different cover options and styles?
Absolutely. We present diverse concepts during the design process specifically to explore possibilities and spark ideas. We walk through different options, styles, fonts, colors and compositions until you’re confident in a direction.
Can you make my cover look traditionally published instead of self-published?
Definitely. Our covers are indistinguishable from major publisher covers in quality, style and polish. We adhere to industry standards so readers don’t perceive books as self-published.
What if my co-author and I disagree on the cover direction during the process?
We facilitate productive discussions between co-authors to align on shared cover visions. We also design multiple concepts to satisfy different preferences. Our goal is designing a cover both authors love.
I might expand my standalone book into a series eventually. How can my cover allow for that?
Our designers can incorporate subtle brand elements like colors, framing, logos, and styling to establish continuity across potential series covers, while keeping the first cover flexible as a standalone.
Do It Before Your Competitor Does!
Our cover designs help indie authors like you make powerful first impressions, intrigue book lovers, increase clicks and sales, and propel successful book launches. We’re passionate about creating covers that capture your book’s heart and soul while adhering to industry best practices.
Ready to get started? Let’s have an intro call to discuss cover concepts and next steps!
Our expert designers are eager to collaborate with you on an eye-catching cover that sells your book. One that finally gives your book the face and first impression it deserves.
