Judging a book by its cover

We take it for granted we know the whole story. We judge a book by its cover and read what we want between selected lines.

Axl Rose

It comes to something when I’m citing Mr Rose as a source of literary and metaphysical wisdom. Moving swiftly on…

Human beings are curious in that prejudice and subjectivity is what happens when other people pass their opinion. Every single one of us believes to some degree that we are rational, human actors capable of impartial analysis of the facts before us. The sad truth is that we are products of our own backgrounds, instilled with the prejudices that our culture, family and social sphere impose on us. That’s how those evil marketing types know how to sell to us, we have a herd instinct predicated on what has previously provided pleasure. Monkey liked therefore monkey do.

Books are no different. We are attracted to objects subconsciously so we tend to gravitate towards new books that look like things we have enjoyed previously. That is why book design seems to coalesce around genre specific themes. Have a look through the genre areas on Amazon or elsewhere and you’ll see what I mean. Romance books are a good place to start. You would have to be blind not to spot a romance novel at a hundred paces. Check out this classic: 

Yes it is a little tawdry but the author clearly knows her market because that is what the readers expect. What people in the advertising game call a visual signifier.

There is course room for creativity but every genre, every type of novel has some of sort of template to follow. Wings of Contrition is a historical fiction novel and there were rules of sorts to follow with the design of its cover too. Historical fiction is a genre split vaguely along chronological lines. The Tudor period tends to gravitate around attractive young ladies in corsets or big bloody swords. The Roman period features legionary soldiers, gladius in hand with the odd pair of sandals thrown in. My book is concerned with the First World War and there too, there are common motifs – poppies, graves, sepia tinged photographs, tragic boyish faces framed against haunting backdrops. You get the idea. Hence I plumped for this:

I like it, it is a little clichéd but the point of this blog is to demonstrate that you should only seek to innovate so far. It is also visually arresting – I thought it would stand out and the flash of red on the poppies certainly helped. If I’m honest, I’m not too sure of the font though.

In terms of mechanics, how do you go about sorting out a cover? If you have the money or know a professional, use a designer. It really makes sense, they tend to know the market and they will produce something that meets all of the right criteria – visually arresting, stand-out, genre themed and aimed at the right readership. If you don’t know or can’t source someone local CreateSpace has a really good cover design service that gives you several optionts to choose from and several categories of complexity to choose from. That is what I did but I appreciate that not everybody would want to fork out the four or five hundred pounds (and way upwards for top designers) that it will cost. If you are in that category then it is imperative that you have access to decent software. You can’t produce a decent design in Paint or in most of the free online tools out there. Photoshop is the best option. You can source images online but always make sure that you check the copyright details on the website hosting them. When I was toying with the idea of designing my own cover I downloaded and played with a number of images. I used this site primarily: http://www.istockphoto.com/

However, there are loads of options out there. I hear Dreamtime is one of the best. It is critical though that you look for Royalty free images and even then you should check the small print in case there are terms of usage. A lot of images are fine to use in small volume but incur charges if you have a print run (or sales) in excess of ten thousand. Some images are even specifically prohibited from usage in self publishing projects. So the message is be very, very careful. Never think they won’t track you down either. There are people working for most image libraries routinely trawling the web to find infractions. And the fines, if you incur them are massive.

Your cover is vital to your project – it is your shop window for what you are trying to sell. I’ve seen a number of e-books on Amazon where the author hasn’t even bothered with a cover. I can’t imagine they sell anything so don’t think this is an area you can shirk on. Research your genre, know what works, track the best sellers and replicate within your own creative parameters. Finally, think what it will look like on the page – if you are lined up in a “customers who bought this also bought” list, you want to stand out but you also want people to immediately know what type of book you have on sale. Take the time, do the legwork and then put all of your creative juice into producing your design. You’ll get the investment back ten-fold.

I’m out of here to watch the cricket. Take it easy.

Tags: authors, books, cover design, creativity, images, publishing, self publishing