Getting The Cover Right
August 16, 2011 
7 Comments
Any author knows that while you aren’t supposed to judge a book by it’s cover, most readers do. So how do you know when you’ve got a winning cover?
Digital Constraints
If you are working with a traditional independent press, you will have to meet their image constraints but for most of the Print on Demand [PoD] publishers you will be given a template. Createspace’s template for book covers is configurable depending on what your interior will look like [black and white, black and white with bleed, full cover, etc.].
To achieve a professional quality graphic look, you are better off starting out with a High Def image. If you don’t have an artist working for you, then you can look through several free image sources. My personal favorite is the Creative Commons area over at Flickr.com. Make sure you know the usage rights as some images require attribution. iStockphoto is another great image site as images are downloadable for a small fee and do not require royalty or attribution depending on the license you pay for. Some images cost as little as $10-$15 and are perfect for graphic manipulation.
No matter what you choose to do, you are looking for a book cover that does not look pixelated or fuzzy. Such book covers come off looking incredibly ‘home-made’ and are a turn off to readers.
Make sure that, like a blog, you do not choose a text font or a text color that is hard to read. Make your test clear and make it stand out.
What Not To Do
Any good graphics designer can tell you that any piece is always a work in progress. Even when it’s finished it’s not complete. There is always something about a piece that the artist wants to fix or change. It is quite similar to writing in that way. So how do you know when the piece is acceptable?
A good book cover will have a striking image that can grab a book browser’s eye. It must be bold enough to stand out and yet muted enough to not look like you just crawled out of the 80s. Miss that graphical sweet-spot and you can find yourself being mocked.
Our object de mockery today will be the fine folks over at Do It Rhino Style. I think it’s only fair to say that they missed the boat on good taste. The flaw I’d love to point out the most is his foot. This is clearly a Photoshop job as you can practically see the rock he must have had his foot on top of for the photo.
While the photo itself is clear, the white background only serves to draw attention to the flaws in the artist’s concept. For example, a well-gelled gentleman with pointy hair-do and James Earl Jones sunglasses does not go well with the title “Do It Rhino Style”. The book is all about achieving goals rapidly, however this cover practically screams ‘Your Guide to Pimping in the 21st Century’.
I believe the words I’m looking for would be ‘avoid, avoid, avoid’. Do NOT be this book cover. It screams unprofessional or maybe it just screams. Either way, you can do better as a self-publisher than the cover artist at Bentley Graphics managed.
Take your artist’s advice and be willing to scrap that image of you on a rock. It might just help you sell your book. I’d also recommend finding a title that doesn’t drip with double entendre.
Know Your Limits
A good artist will be able to tell you what will or will not reproduce well. But you know your audience. Find a happy medium by coming up with two or three ideas for your artist to work off of. Don’t go into your meeting looking for one cover idea or you may just limit yourself into a corner.
If your artist seems wary about following through with an idea you are glued to, take them seriously or get another artist. As a graphics designer myself, it is a personal pride matter about the graphics I create. If your artist goes into the project feeling like the image is everything they hate most about art, you can probably assume you won’t get your moneys worth. And at that point it may be a good idea to walk.
If you don’t feel capable of creating your own cover art, you need an artist. If you are capable of making your own cover art, you need a second pair of eyes, and a third and a fourth. Getting the widest range of opinions will let you avoid such mistakes as misspellings in your text, bad taste, or even styling concerns between soft cover and hard cover.
Options
Currently, Outskirts press is offering a free cover package to self-published authors. It might be worth it if you are looking to pay someone to do the heavy lifting in your self-publishing endeavors.
If you are looking for a graphics artist, you should check out some of the larger outsourcing sites where artists can bid for your job.
Image Courtesy of Dan and Amazon.com
The old saying, first impressions are lasting impressions, so you do need an effective cover to catch peoples attention.
I enjoyed your article. Sometimes people equate shock value and shockingly off-putting taste.
Indeed, people judge a book by its cover, a person by his/her clothes, a house by its garden. If we had to look more deeply into everything we see, we would go nuts. Make the cover count. Make the topic clear. Make the quality beyond doubt. Pique the reader’s interest before they even turn to the back cover.
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Gosh when I saw that Rhino cover image for a moment I thought you were going to use it as an example of a good cover. That’s not even the worst example of a book cover, though. There is a collector’s item with a three-armed lady on the cover of a romance novel.
Twitter: AllisonDDuncan
August 21, 2011 at 12:29 PM
I would NEVER post that cover as ‘what to do’, though it would be awesome to try and play devil’s advocate for ‘what the artist must have been thinking’.
As to that other cover, maybe it’s a goddess from the indian pantheon. Ok, even I don’t believe that.
Thanks for reading!
Allison
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I think out look of book plays very important role in purchasing of a book.Cover of the book is reflection of material insight the book.
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Twitter: AllisonDDuncan
August 16, 2011 at 7:50 PM
In a lot of ways the book’s cover reflects the work and effort the author put into the work. That doesn’t necessarily mean the book itself is worthless. Unfortunately a lot of people make the same assumptions that you are drawing.
So it is up to the authors to do it properly.
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