How To Become a Book Cover Designer: A Basic Guide

Last Updated: 1 August 2022
Written by Chris Beach

Books aren't just about histories and discoveries. These are collections of the writers' perspectives, creativity, and feelings. It makes us revisit bygone eras or visit fantasies through the eyes of the writer.

These days, producers must deliver books with greater attention to detail and relevance. They need to be able to fit both the physical and digital platforms. It includes creative book cover design, excellent content, and memory-etching storylines. Books have to catch consumer attention. Otherwise, patronage and salability become even more challenging.

Some insights in this content may help you learn consumer triggers that can improve your book's sales and loyalty from customers.

Essential Keys In Today's Book Design

1. Know The Author's Brand

The author is the book's writer whose character must be imprinted with it. Before brainstorming about the book's design, first, know your author. Know the author's brand and genre and incorporate them into the book's design. Some authors may already have established followers in the industry.

Also, the author's name and preferences greatly influence the book's marketability. Avid fans may line up at the bookstalls for the author's creations even before they're published. It's also a salutation to the talent and efforts of the author.

So, as a book designer, you should consider the author's brand in the book's design. You should ask yourself, what are the prominent features in the author's previous book designs? Use them so that their fans may recognize the book; it could be a font, color scheme, or any visual element on their books.

Whether the book is an ink and paper publication or web-wide, the author's brand is one of the keys to a successful book design.

In the digital age, book design is as important as ever.

2. Be Conscious Of The Genre

When creating a book, it is essential to adhere to specific design principles, such as balance and alignment, emphasis, and movement. Other significant design considerations include color, texture, and contrast. You can broaden the scope of this list by including white space and repetition in its construction.

These principles determine the success or failure of the launch of your book. They should be considered to fit the book's intended genre.

For example, the young adult genre or the YA is a genre where covers are usually very creative and expressive. Your design should be more than the usual informative type to appeal to the YA group.

3. Maximize The Book Cover Advantages

eReaders have given authors' much greater audience reach

Your book's visual design must stand out on store shelves and online galleries to catch the eyes of potential buyers. Some publishers work with highly skilled visual artists and illustrators who are responsible for conveying the author's intentions as well as the reader's feelings throughout the entirety of the book.

Millions of books are on display, not only in bookstores but also online. Good and bad reviews flow uninterrupted on many platforms about books and eBooks. So much so that publishers must devise how to make books more appealing to their market.

Your aim should be to make the book stand out on store displays or on the racks of some of the most beautiful libraries in the world. Some people make visiting famous libraries a hobby. These patrons often have particular tastes in books. They're the type of consumers whose attention you need to impress with your book design, inside and out.

Here are the parts of the book you can maximize for design:

The Front Cover

Your book's front cover must be both revealing and intriguing. It must be worth a second look at bookshelves and actual handling. Like guide books in cooking, it must display delicious goodies that customers will have the irresistible impulse to look at it closely and browse through.

The most effective way to achieve a one-of-a-kind and original design for your book cover is to create a visual representation of a particular aspect or theme from your work. Your book's potential readers should be able to collect as much information as possible from the cover regarding the contents of your book.

The Spine

The spine of a quality book provides support whether the book is being read or displayed. The book's spine should offer a secure hold on the textbook and make reading more comfortable for the reader. The reader shouldn't have to worry about it collapsing or sliding through while they're concentrating on the material.

The book's title and the author's name are both printed on the book's spine. You should make an effort to make it as lively and attention-grabbing as possible if you want to reach the market or consumers the book serves.

The Back Cover

The book's back cover often has more meaningful materials like your author's profile, the book's summary, and words of praise from your literary colleagues. The back cover is where you display brief comments and other catchy reviews that may inspire the target readers to look into the book.

It's the selling part of the book that makes consumers want to browse and start reading through its pages. Sometimes a marketing copy is also attached to the book cover, prompting customers to flip through the book and begin marching to the payment counter to have a good read at home.

Readers often do judge a book by its cover.

4. Feed Intrigue To Your Content

The book's design needs to be more than just impressive to keep your audience's interest. Your book's design is the introduction to the entire book. But it's not the only deciding factor for your target consumers as to whether or not they will purchase and read the book.

You must ensure that the fantastic design goes well with intriguing and spell-bound content. It's usual for would-be readers to scan and browse through the contents before including the book in their cart for payment.

With digital media, you have to feed more colors or variations to provide a good sneak peek into the story your book wants to tell.

The Bottom Line

As a result of diversity and the shift in people's reading habits brought on by the rise of electronic media, books may no longer exist in their current form. Using gadgets and other digital media has become more accessible and efficient for the reading public.

Your book's design must go well with the heartbeat of the digital age. An avid reader may have a very exacting taste, especially with the influence of social media. Your eBook may die from insulting comments and detractors if you fail to appeal to their choosy preferences.

So make the best out of the insights in this content and make your book's design appeal more to human nature.

Portrait of the article author, Chris Beach

Author
Chris Beach

Hi, I'm Chris. My love of books started when I was a child visiting libraries with my Dad. The smell and feel of old pages still sparks something within me that can I can only express as an emotional attachment to books. Two decades later this evolved into a passion for collecting rare books, particularly 17th century early-English literature, and rare children's books. I believe every book has its own story and each one reveals something new about the world we live in.
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