Book covers are undoubtedly the most important part of a book, second only to the writing. Cliché as it sounds, everyone does judge a book by its cover. Which is fine, because that’s literally what it’s there for!
The cover doesn’t just exist to physically cover the pages of a book, it figuratively covers the topic, genre, themes or mood of the book’s contents. A good book cover accurately tells the reader whether a particular book is something they’re interested in and enjoy reading, or not.
And if it doesn’t, that’s a big problem.
So, how do you get one that is just right for your book?
This is a big topic which I cover in my guide Your First Book Cover. But in short, you need to remember a few basics.
Your book cover serves a very simple function: to convince your ideal reader to buy your book. It does this by signalling all the aspects of the book I already outlined above. Genre, theme, mood, emotional pay-off. It needs to fit comfortably among its competitors, while also highlighting you as an author (branding). Readers browsing for their next book take just a split second to decide whether or not to click on something. They may look at colors, a certain illustration style, a striking image of something that interests them, or perhaps a familiar author name. They may also scan book titles, to see a particular theme or trope they enjoy reading about.
Your book cover is not there to make you, the author, happy, or to necessarily be to your taste. It’s not there to stand out among the crowd and be so unique there’s nothing else quite like it. You can certainly approach it that way, but it will more than likely damage your sales.
There are a few ways you can ensure you end up with a good cover that fits your book, and it starts with a bit of self awareness. Many newer authors aren’t entirely sure yet what kind of book they’ve written. They may have a sense of the books they like to read themselves, but unless they deliberately tried to emulate those same stories, they may also have ended up writing something rather more personal and autobiographical. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does make it a little harder to market your book.
Therefore, step one on your quest towards the perfect book cover is to properly identify your work. Do this by analysing it like you would in English Literature class. Or handing it to a few book loving friends, or avid readers in your broad genre. Ask them what your book reminds them of. If you have no one and you don’t mind consulting AI, you can even upload your manuscript to ChatGPT and ask it questions about where your story fits in the wider marketplace. Then, take these answers and go look for your “competitors.”
Note that I’m putting competitors in quotes here, because I don’t believe that authors to compete with each other in a negative sense. But that’s a different topic altogether.
Go on Amazon and browse your (sub)genre’s bestseller lists. Seek out books that seem similar in terms of tropes, themes, emotional tone and study their covers. See if you can identify trends. Then try to come up with something visually similar for your cover (or ideally, send a few examples to your chosen cover designer and have them come up with their own interpretation.)
On top of that, make sure your cover: is easy to read/recognise in thumbnail size (the way most people browse on Amazon and the like), doesn’t blatantly rip off one of your “competitors”, prominently displays your author name in such a way that readers will come to recognise it, fit your budget, and offers the potential to serve as a template for future books in the same series or genre.
That’s how it’s done, in a nutshell. Hope this helps! 🙂