Cover Me Part II

Chapter 12 -More insight for your outside

Last week we talked about how to get your research together to help you make your book cover. Basically, that part is the inspiration. This week I take you through the pitfalls of cover design.

Every genre has an established look. Unfortunately, you have to abide by these looks or create confusion. Now, what do I really think about that? I think it’s sad and ridiculous but, I want you to sell as many books as you can. And really, do you want a Cookbook cover to be in black and white? NO! That’s stupid. 

Look at this exercise I did in Canva. Same image but with different fonts and titles and color editing.

Horror! Cookbook! Mystery! Romance! 

I’ll take you through a few tips here.

When you get cover compositions back. Keep an open mind and even if you don’t like them, use them to ask questions.

Ask yourself questions like the following:

Do you like the idea of the cover? 

Do you like the image or the colors? 

Maybe the reverse is true, the cover has a really cool title font but something about the cover doesn’t work or obscures this. The question I always ask is, “Do we like  the neighborhood?” It’s a metaphor or course. It’s getting at, do we like the general idea? Would we be ok to live on this street? 

Once you get past the street you can go, “Well do you like the house?” You might answer, “Well, I like the neighborhood but I don’t like the font.” Just like you can paint a room or trade out sink fixtures, you can change a font, or you can move an author’s name around. One progress defeating  practice is getting covers and someone saying they don’t like a font and that cover getting pushed aside. Dig into your options!

If you don’t like anything that the designer has done you need to be as specific as you can about why. The goal in every cover meeting is to leave with actionable tasks with image examples to share with the designer. 

You need to ask yourself, “Why do I not like this cover?” and take answers like the following, “I don’t like the image.”
“I don’t like how it makes me feel.”
“I don’t like the colors.”
Then turn those answers into actionable items for your designer. Show them a book cover that you do like the image. Or say, “This cover makes me feel sad, the cover is supposed to make you feel more bittersweet than simply sad.”
Turn, “I don’t like the color” into, “Here is a PMS Number for a color that I love.” Sometimes, it’s as easy as changing Mustard Yellow out for Kelly Green. 

TIP If you call your book, “10 Ways to Start a Business” then the number 10 is now the star of your cover. It’s just how it works. Numbers in titles, they get top billing. It’s in their contract or something. 

TIP If you put a frame or rectangle or square on your book cover, prepare to lose sleep. It’s always going to look off center to someone. There are three types of people in the world. Ones that center the rectangle on the front board of the book, ones that center the rectangle on the book cover in totality, far left to the far right, and there are those that center from the middle of the hinge to the far right of the cover. If you are self publishing and do not have a professional designer DO NOT put a rectangle on your cover. 

TIP Why do business books look so dang intense? They print them in solid PMS colors. 100% pow of the colors. This is as opposed to 4c which are what Fiction, Cookbooks, History, Crime, in general are all printed. Some Gift Books are printed PMS solids. This can only be done with conventional printing so if you are doing Short Run or digital press you’ll have to go for a bright saturated four color cover. 

TIP Print your book at 1” x 2” and see if you can read it.
Who is the author? What is the title? This is how most books will be seen on Amazon. I used to take a screenshot of an Amazon page for an author then plug a screenshot of the proposed cover into the image to see how it looked in context. Did it make sense with the author's other covers? Can you read it at that size? Does it look compelling at that size? Can you read all the information easily? 

Who’s the boss? 

Before you start putting text on a cover, find out who is the boss and let your designer know. Of the information you have, who is the star? The author’s name? The compelling title? Or is it the blurb from a more famous author that you hope to attract readers with? Maybe it’s that New York Times Bestselling Author descriptor. 

Take this Salem’s Lot cover for instance. What do you think happened? One of them is the first edition. One of them is a more recent paperback version. After the book sold lot’s of copies the Publisher knew that the name Stephen King sells a lot more copies than any other thing the buyer needs to know about the book when they pick it up. Also, instead of saying “By the Author of Carrie” it says “#1 Bestseller.”

Two last things.

You aren’t everyone. You might not like the cover but that doesn't mean it’s bad, that doesn't mean it doesn’t work and that it won’t sell books.  Here’s another thing: if you're an author early in your career listen to your publisher. They’ve been here before. Once you’ve sold 100,000 of your debut novel, then you can get a bigger seat at the opinion table. 

This ties into point number two. The main thing is to get valuable opinions. Don’t put too much weight on someone who doesn’t like your cover because they don’t like yellow. Or it’s called Nancy Drew and they had an Uncle Drew who was a jerk. Don't poison the well with comments that are reactions from folks who aren’t worth listening to. Is it your editor? Listen. Is it your husband’s cousin who works for some completely unrelated field? Don’t sweat it so much. Unless she’s buying 1,000 copies. 

Maybe one bonus point on opinions. Don’t get too many opinions. Three good ones is probably the best amount. 

Happy Hunting! 
P.S. I’ve noticed a lot of new subscribers this past week. Welcome to the fun. I hope it’s helpful.