The second in my series of BookMachine posts sponsored by Getty Images has gone live today. This fortnight’s article is all about how to design a book cover if you’re a self-published author. Read the whole thing over on the BookMachine blog, or get started with this little excerpt:
It’s a popular myth that the book cover is dead , but unless bricks and mortar bookstores and online cover thumbnails disappear, that simply isn’t true. In fact, a book’s cover is an integral part of the customer’s buying process because it acts as a signpost for the book’s contents. If your book has the right cover design, genre, intended age of reader and tone can all be communicated in a split second.
Most traditionally published authors have their book covers designed for them by their publishers but self-published authors have to do it all themselves and it’s a hard task. So, here are some top tips to help all you budding book cover designers out there!
Starting out: don’t try to different
There’s an old saying that we should never judge a book by its cover, but the truth is that browsing readers do it all the time because trends in cover design help indicate a book’s contents. Distressed fonts, for example, can indicate a dystopian setting, while images of couples tend to be used for romance. A cover needs to fit these trends in order to attract the right readership. [READ MORE]