- So I've designed my own book cover.
Maybe you've designed your own book cover.
But is it really gonna be all that good?
Today, we're gonna be talking about
how to design a book cover that doesn't suck, so stay tuned.
(soft rock music)
Hey, I'm Dale L. Roberts, best-selling author
as well as a self-publishing advocate
who wants to show you how to publish books that sell.
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So I just finished my book cover design
for my very next launch, and I am excited to share it!
- Hey Dale, what you got there?
- Rob, how did you get in?
- Oh, don't sweat it.
I've just been hanging out here
since our last interview together.
- The whole time?
- Yeah, but it's not a big deal
- Including?
- Yeah, sadly.
(sad horn music)
(crickets chirping)
But hey, let's go ahead and have a look at that cover, huh?
- Sure thing!
(playful music)
- [Rob] Oh, hmm.
- Okay, take it away buddy.
- Well Dale, that's great.
Congrats on that.
I think it's awesome that you tried.
It's not always easy to make your own cover.
So yeah, I think let's talk about that.
Let's talk about some of the common cover mistakes
that authors can make when trying to create their own cover.
I've got four different ideas for you.
Number one, you don't know your market.
What do I mean by that?
When you are creating your cover sometimes authors
have this idea that they are going to create
something totally new and original and out of the box.
They don't want to speak in cliches.
They don't want to look like every other cover out there
that is in their genre.
They want to be totally distinctive and original.
And that's great, that's a nice idea,
and that's a nice sentiment and sort of goal.
But when you're creating a cover,
you really do need to speak in cliches.
You want your cover to be immediately recognizable
by the people in your target demographic,
like people who are looking for
the sorts of book that you're creating.
Hopefully, you know your genre.
You're familiar with what it's about.
You're a fan, or you've done your market research,
and you kind of know what people are looking for,
and you want to provide them that.
You want to signal to them almost immediately
that yes, this is a book that belongs
with all those other books that you know and love already.
One specific example of that,
if you have a men's health or a men's fitness book,
if you look on Amazon, most of those are going to have
some sort of athletic male figure
often in some sort of athletic movement,
you know, doing a push-up or doing some sort of sport
or something like that.
If your men's health book or men's fitness book
is a floral arrangement with pastel colors,
you're just asking to be ignored.
You have to speak to the conventions of your genre
at least somewhat to signal the people that you belong,
that you know what you're talking about
and you're worth paying attention to.
Number two, you are trying to do too much.
When you are creating your cover,
keep in mind that most people are going to see it,
at least for the first time your broader audience,
the people who don't already know you,
they're gonna see you on a little
one-by-one inch Amazon thumbnail.
Your cover has to look cohesive.
It can't really be too busy.
You don't want it to have so much going on
that it's gonna be distracting or not appealing,
and you also don't want to necessarily try and tell
a story with your cover all by itself.
For example, we had an author whose initial vision
was basically a six-panel comic
describing the contents of their book.
It was kind of clever and a nice idea,
but in terms of visual execution,
there was just too much going on.
It was not going to capture the attention
of their broader prospective audience,
and so we encouraged them to consider something else,
and they were really happy ultimately
going with something a little bit more simple
and streamlined and more direct to the message
that you are trying to convey.
One other thing that you will sometimes see
when authors are trying to do too much
is they have some sort of Easter egg,
some sort of reference to the narrative,
something that goes on in the book later,
some sort of something that is going to be noticeable
to people who've already read the book.
But those aren't the people
that you're trying to reach out to.
You don't want to create some sort of visual queue
of people who've read the book
when you're trying to attract people
who have not yet read the book.
So you don't want to necessarily do too much.
Simplicity in many cases is going to be beneficial.
Number three is poor graphic selection.
The first and maybe the most paramount
for a commercial author is you want to make sure
that you have the license to the book.
You have the rights to use this cover, the cover image.
You don't want to just pull something from Google
or from someone's own personal website
that you don't have the access to
or don't have permission to.
Just make sure that your ducks are all lined up in a row
and that you're not subjecting yourself to any liability
when you're selecting your graphics.
Other things that sometimes people will see
when they create these graphics or create covers
that are issues with graphics,
if the graphic is not high resolution.
Some sort of low-res grainy image
may look okay on your desktop or laptop
as your putting the book together,
but when you're actually using it
to print on the cover of an actual print book,
then it may not look as good.
So just make sure the image is of an appropriate resolution
for what you're trying to accomplish.
Another thing, just make sure
that the images are appropriate.
For example, on Amazon you're not permitted
certain sorts of imagery, nudity, or swear words,
or that kind of thing.
Just make sure that the images that you use
are not going to disqualify you
from even entering the marketplace.
And then the fourth issue with poor graphic selection
is poorly manipulated images.
They're not blended appropriately.
There's no no gradient.
Maybe you see some sharp edges
and it looks like it was done in Microsoft Paint.
You don't want to do that.
If you're putting a book cover together,
you want to make sure that everything, again,
kind of blends and flows and is integrated
in some sort of cohesive whole.
Fourth and final issue that sometimes people will see,
your text is lousy or it's in the wrong place.
That doesn't necessarily speak to a particular font.
Probably lots of different fonts could work
depending on the genre that you're in,
but you want to make sure that your font is appropriate.
Follow the lead of what the other books
that are performing well in your category already are doing.
Don't choose something that's totally out of left field,
or if you're using multiple different types of fonts,
know what you're doing.
Don't blend two different things
just because you kind of like them
if they don't go together visually,
and you have to have a decent eye for design
in order to figure that out.
There are lots of resources out there,
so you can kind of do a little research.
Just make sure that it's not drawing attention
away from your book and making it interesting,
creating some sort of clashing effect
that makes people not as interested in clicking through.
And then the other issue with with text choices
is make sure it's not blocking important cover elements.
Something, for example, if it's a genre
where you have your own image on there,
it may be self-evident, but I'll say it anyway,
don't have text over your face,
or don't have text over important elements
of whatever else is going on visually with your graphics
or other elements of the book.
Just make sure that it's an appropriate
sort of placement on the cover.
Again, you want to look like you belong
among the top performers in your genre
and that you are a peer among those great
and successful people that you're trying to speak to
or the audience that you're trying to speak to.
Folks, if you want to learn more about my thoughts
on whether you should select matte or glossy
for your next print cover,
click on the link right down below.