Defeating the Struggles of Book Cover Creation
In a publishing world that is now anyone's game, there are numerous moving parts to ensuring your success as a self-published author. Yet, two of them come to the forefront of the mind.
A great story: Every story needs characters that the readers relate to. Every story needs a unique plot that sucks the reader into its world, immersing them as if they are experiencing it right beside the characters. But...even if you have all of these great elements to your book, this is only half the battle.
An eye-catching cover: Yes, you will be marketing your tush off with promotions, advertisements, and people spreading the good word through word of mouth, but, your cover is going to do a good portion of the marketing for you. Reader's do judge books by their cover's, it's just a simple fact. When you shop for a book, I can almost guarantee you gravitate towards a book with an intriguing cover. One that draws the eye.
Thankfully, there are a handful of resources available to you, helping you to create a cover.
Canva.com- This is my typical choice for cover design and marketing/ promotional items. You can create a ton of stuff with the free option as they have a huge selection for free. You can also step up your game and expand your options by paying for Canva Pro for just 9.99 a month.
Adobe Spark- This is a tool designed for people with a design background, someone willing to work from the ground up. With the same price of 9.99 per month, you will have access to stock items that will help you to make videos and promotional things, including covers.
Design bold- If you have used Canva before, this is almost exactly the same except with more stock photos and templates. Everything is labeled and easy to navigate and the pro subscription price is just 7.99 per month.
Great, now we know why covers are important and what tools you can use to make them. We need to talk about the key elements to think of when designing the cover itself.
Parts of a cover: There are four parts for a hardcover, three parts for a paperback, and just one for an ebook format. Why am I bringing this up? Because you need to consider what is going to be placed on each part. For paperbacks, you design for the front and back cover, the spine, and the inside flaps of the jacket. For the paperback, you design for the front and back cover as well as the spine. For the ebook, you simply need to focus on the cover.
Market Research: It's crucial that you are taking a look at the market your genre is in. This means looking at other book covers in your genre. Taking in the themes, colors schemes, fonts, and more. Doing this is what is going to tell you what is working in the genre and what isn't. A book that has 300 reviews compared to a book that has 20 reviews, and has been out for the same amount of time has to have some difference in appearance. Between these two books, what grabs you more between the covers, and what don't you like about them?
Decisions, Decisions: Now we need to focus on the order to which the reader's eyes will follow. What should be the focus of your cover? Is it a visual clue for the reader (meaning, the largest picture or artwork on the cover)? Or is it the title? Does it weave through the cover? Does it combine itself with the images, for example, on someone's shirt or a sign? During your market research, look at each cover and determine what draws your eye first to the cover. Testing out numerous text fonts and narrowing them down is going to make the difference.
Bringing it all together: Not only should you be thinking about everything previously mentioned but stepping back and assessing what you have completed as a whole is important. Is the cover too busy? Is it too plain? If these are questions that you find difficult to answer, consider sharing it with people who read in your genre and ask for their feedback. Often times another impartial person can afford new ideas and help you with something you couldn't see yourself.
With all of this new information, I sincerely hope it helps you take steps in the right direction. Take your time, do the research, and get feedback. Once you have done these steps, you know you have done everything you can to create a cover that suites your book and the genre market.