There are four reasons why you’ve found yourself here. Perhaps you’re an author who wonders what would significantly contribute to a unique book cover design for your next bestseller, a reader who gets attracted by book covers, or you’re just a book cover designer wanting to expand your knowledge. If not any of the former, well, then you probably just like to read.
Whatever the case may be, it is no astonishment that the world of book cover designing is quite intriguing. There are plenty of things that need to be considered, studied, looked at thoroughly, and avoided to create a compelling book cover that does enough justice to the book as much as the inner content does. It’s probably not even humanly possible to create the same level of an engaging book cover as the inner account might be, but here’s what goes behind a brilliant book cover.
The Big Picture
The book cover’s image, no matter how obvious you called this one, is what attracts a reader to a book most significantly. You may have heard the quote; ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ The literal meaning implies that one small image is sufficient enough to portray something as big as one entire life story. When the same quote is looked at from the perspective of a book cover maker, it can be deduced that the image on the cover of a book, no matter what it’s like, is what attracts a reader to your book. This attraction or repulsion may take place according to how well the reader connects to the image, exactly as much as a book cover’s image relates to the story that lies inside.
Clarity of Titles
The text that goes on the cover of a book may surpass the significance of the text inside the book in the initial stage of impressing a potential reader. No reader would open up a random book and start reading from the very first chapter in a bookstore. Instead, a more rational approach would be looking at the book cover, trying to make the story out of what’s in front of them. As an author, it is your job to make sure your book cover’s title is compelling, engaging, or attractive enough to raise those curiosity levels in your potential customer’s mind and leave them with no choice than to buy the book and answer those questions.
Less is More
Sometimes, in the world of book cover designs, an idea given by every well-known book cover designer revolves somewhere around underdoing a book cover design is better than overdoing it. Simplicity is the key to attract a reader by giving them something they can absorb within a matter of seconds. Use fewer words, but make sure the impact they create on the reader is that of a thousand words. It may be easier saying this than getting it done, but as minimalistic and to-the-point your book cover may be, the higher would be the chances to evoke a reader’s interest in the book. It gets difficult for the brain to focus on one thing when there’s a lot going on.
Fonts and Colors
The phenomena of the fonts and colors of the book cover design may seem like secondary characteristics, but they’re highly impactful. It is interesting to note that the font of the text, as well as the colors of the text chosen, have much to do with the genre orientation of the book. Besides the genre, the font of the text somewhat contributes to setting the mood of the book as well. The colors portray the gravity of the book and perhaps give a vibe about the sort of book it would be in terms of the story.
Portraying the Genre
As hinted earlier, the genre portrayal is one of the most pivotal aspects of what goes behind an excellent book cover design. A book cover designer needs to set the genre on the cover of the book in order to attract the relevant audience. For instance, if the genre of your book is horror, the book cover design must portray or induce the idea of terror to the reader. Doing so will help your book reach that particular percentage of the population that holds interest in your book’s genre. If you’re a book cover maker who’s not very proficient at portraying the genre, here’s a secret tip: perhaps going over this blog one more time might help you see things more explicitly.
Professionalism over Amateurism
Being a proficient author doesn’t mean you can necessarily be an excellent book cover designer and vice versa. It is important to note that one must only do something they’re good at and nothing more than that. When it comes to something as massive as a book cover design, you cannot gamble your decades of diligent writing to save up a couple of hundreds of bucks. Value your work first, and then let others pass on their opinions. One way of valuing your words is by investing a generous amount of money in an extraordinary book cover maker who can do as terrific a job as you in converting your words into a cover. When the words in your book are written by the best in the industry, it’s only fair that your book cover is designed by the same level of experts in the design industry too.
Self-faith is Mandatory
Being a book author comes with numerous challenges in all shapes and sizes. The significance of the number of such challenges is not remotely as close as the way you deal with them. Whether you make the smart move of having your cover designed by a book cover maker, or you go ahead and try to do it all on your own, it is essential to remember that you must have faith in yourself at all times. You’re the author of the book, and you know what’s best for it more than any book cover designer. Hence, whenever you make a particular decision while designing your book cover, stay adamant on it, and do things your way. At the end of the day, it’s going to be your name on your book, not that of the book cover maker.
To conclude, this is what goes behind a brilliant book cover design. Those book covers you admire so wholeheartedly from your favorite authors have probably been designed by professionals. In order to compete with the best, you need to be the best. And the shortcut to doing so is hiring a professional book cover designer to do the job for you. You may be able to pull it off on your own, but a better choice would be to trust a professional.
