Book Cover Ideas

How important do you think the cover of your book is? Based on the premise that you can't judge a book by it's cover, do you believe the cover even really matters? Well, the truth is that the cover of your book is immensely important. It is the final “selling point” in getting your book out of inventory and into the hands of a consumer and reader.

When we are consulting with authors as to what they would like for an image on the cover of their book, I am always astounded that almost none of them have give any thought to what the cover of their book should look like. In almost every case they have absolutely no idea in terms of colors that should be used or any inkling ofwhat the cover could look like.

Perhaps in some ways this is good. The real person to make decisions like this is an experienced graphic artist. Very often taking a more subjective approach to what the cover of a book should look like can make for a better cover.

In the past when a author was looking for book cover idea, I would simply ask the author two questions:

1. Do you have any ideas on what the cover of your book should look like (In almost every case the answer was no, so I could move immediately to question two, which was)
2. In 5 sentences, tell me what your book is about.  

Of course NO author could ever describe their book in only five sentences so they would describe it in one lengthy paragraph, which is what I was looking for. With this information I would talk to our graphic artist for a few minutes and relate in 5 sentences what the author had told me in 500 sentences and from that the graphic artist could begin his work.
You see, the point of the book is two fold, first of all the cover needs to reflect that essence or spirit of the book is. It should not give away the plot, but it should the potential buyer something of an idea what is contained in the book. Sure, they have probably read the table of contents and or the back cover of the book, but now all of that needs to come together in the cover.
The second thing the cover needs to do is to attract the potential buyer to make the decision to actually purchase the book. This is where all the elements of the cover come together in one package.

Some books are relatively easy to come up with book covers ideas for, they include photo books, cook books and in many cases children's books. The books that are more challenging are those that are novels, some self help books and books that are less direct in their messages to the readers. An abstract type book, like a poetry book can be quite challenging to come up with a cover idea for because the whole book needs to be taken into account. A book with uplifting poems might want to have a color cover that reflected the joy the book is to convey, and as such would have a brighter looking cover that would incorporate reds and yellows.

On the other hand a book that talked about more sombre topics would want to have a blue or green color scheme, with perhaps some black to add drama.

Of course the last element to consider is the image, should it be recognizable or abstract? Again these questions will be answered by the book it's self, by what it contains and what it is about. A good graphic artist should be able to bring these features out and create a cover that will not only “sell” the book but also be an excellent representation of what it is about.

If you are agonizing about book cover ideas, take some time, go to the library or a good book store and seek out what the competitors are doing. See which covers ideas you like and which ones you believe reflect the essence of the book best. These are stepping stones in creating an excellent book cover for your book.

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