Judging Books by Their Covers

Judging Books by Their Covers

Peggy Nehman, SLPA

Special speaker for the September 2016 Saturday Writer’s meeting:

Peggy Nehman with SLPA (St. Louis Publisher’s Association)

80% of books are sold based on their covers. 

A book cover is the single most important marketing tool used to sell your book.

Potential buyers spend 8 seconds looking at the front cover, and 15 seconds reading the back cover.

Your cover should appeal to your target audience and potential buyers.

Your cover should make your book sell-able.

Color is important.  Make it eye-catching.  Yellow is one of the 1^st colors your eyes see.

--Fonts, color, logos, images, title, author.  All are important.  They should have consistent type, style, palette of colors.  Branding should be included.  Repeating an image or logo on all titles by the same author gives consistency. (see book covers by author Bobbi Linkemer)

How to find a designer—through groups like SLPA; IBP—independent book publishers association.  Ask friends/fellow authors.  Referrals from local authors, networking.  Search book designers St. Louis in google, etc.

How to decide which designer—Review their portfolio, read testimonials, read their blog.  What experience does this person have?  What services are included? What is the Turn around time? 

The designer will help you with creativity and with the jargon of the job.  You can help the designer by listing your genre, tell who your competition is, give details on the book and any images you like or think would work with the cover.  (light box images). 

Check out the competition. 

Make sure your image can be turned into an itty bitty on screen icon for use in your social media and websites.  Make sure the cover stands out in small size.

Ebooks often have simplified covers.  Audio books have a square format.

Mistakes often made for covers:

Book size.  There are standard sizes and your designer should know this info. 

Page format—bleed or no bleed

Talk to your illustrator and designer prior to work, they can give you specifics so you don’t do a wrong size and have to redo the illustrations to fit the proper size.

Verso vs. recto pages.

The standard size is 6x9.  One person had a 6 ½ x 9 and this equated to a lot more expense. 

Local printers may not guarantee binding.  The designer will know who to work with.

If not set up correctly, this can also lead to more expense. 

Standard Book Cover Layout

Questions you should ask: 

            What is your goal?

What is your target audience?

First time author?  Marketing plan

Self-published or traditional?

Active on social media?

The cost of getting a designer varies with the job.

Typically phase 1—desgn and layout—fronts and back cover, some inside.

Phase 2—book pre=press:  page layout, submission PDF.

Extras—publisher logo/branding.  Bowker, create space, ingram/spark

Amazon author central, social media.

Good reads—free author program

Other marketing material.

$400-$1000 on design, then $5 per page text-only, $15/page if pictures and graphics included. 

This is business.  Get a contract.  No verbal agreements.  There is no endless alterations allowed.  Signed contract, you get one initial design, then you send in edits, and generally you get the second design with the edits and you take it or leave it. 

Books are usually at the Copy-edited stage, then the designer comes in. 

What type of book?  Build a buzz for it via web sites, blogs, book launch party.

Additional information/ideas can be found at:

Thebookdesigner.com

Use google “book cover inspiration”

Pinterest “book cover inspiration”

Bookcoverarchive.com

Thecreativepenn.com

Sandra Beckwith

Jane Friedman

The author hangout podcasts.

Sell more books show.

Bryan Cohen—how to write a synopsis