Top 10 Book Cover Tips for Indie Authors
Guest post by book designer Tamian Wood of BeyondDesignBooks.com.
1. Start Saving Your Money from Day ONE
I’m giving you my #1 piece of advice right up front. If this is your only takeaway, I want to make sure you get this one nugget. I can’t stress this one enough. . . .
Start saving your money from the FIRST day you start writing your masterpiece.
You know that baby’s going to need a cover. There’s no gettin’ around it. And that cover is going to be your most important marketing tool. Make sure you can afford the BEST by planning ahead.
If it takes you a year to write, you will have had that long to save up every week to afford the BEST designer for you.
Don’t let your book cover be an afterthought.
2. Know Your Genre/Audience/Market
Research the best-selling books in your genre from the big publishing houses. These will be your competition. Your cover has to be up to snuff. Big publishers all have marketing specialists on staff. They know what sells and how to appeal to your target market. Use this information to your advantage. The more you know, the better you’ll be at discerning good design from bad.
3. Don’t Let Money Be the Only Deciding Factor
Budget is important, absolutely. Most indie authors have to consider costs. But don’t let price be your only deciding factor. You want quality. A good designer will cost more than a crappy one.
This is NOT the time to hire your niece, who got an A in art class, because she’ll do it for free.
4. Look at the Designer’s Portfolio and Experience
Research your potential cover designer’s style and experience. Have they just gone into business last month? Was their website published last week? They could still be a good artist, but they might not know things that an experienced designer would know (e.g., setting up files, allowing for bleed, safety margins, using vector fonts, using the correct dpi, and color space).
Look for a designer whose style closely matches the books you found in your research from Tip #2. Pay attention to details like the fonts they use and the way they present their titles. Are their covers generally busy and hard to read? (If so, RUN, run fast! Find someone else.)
5. Good Designers Cost $$ and Here’s Why
There is a lot more to good design than just making something pretty. You’re not only paying for the work, but the education, experience, knowledge, and expertise that comes along with that work.
Designers have to keep on top of the latest trends and keep extremely expensive software and hardware up to date and in good working condition. Designers have to purchase font licenses, image rights, education, training, advertising, utilities, social security, tax preparation, health insurance, and professional associations. And I think I speak for most of us when I say, we are also quite fond of eating and sleeping indoors. ;-)
6. Illustrators vs. Digital Artists
Do you need an illustrator or do you need a digital artist? Are the images from your research in Tip #2 hand drawn, mostly text, or photo compilations? Here are some examples:
Sometimes an illustrator is absolutely the only way to go, especially for children’s books. But it’s not unusual to need an illustrator and a designer, since not all illustrators are designers or typesetters.
One downside to using an illustrator is they tend to be a good bit more expensive because typically their work is all done by hand. So you’ll want to start saving early. (Remember Tip #1?!)
Digital artists, or photo compilers (like me), are generally a bit more affordable because we use stock images (photographs) melded together to create a unique custom design for your cover.
7. Get a Contract
It’s always best to get a contract. This way you’ll have, in writing, exactly what is expected of you and your designer. It should cover these things: How many design concepts are included? How many revisions are included? If you go over that number of revisions, what is the additional cost? What is the expected timeline for deliverables? How long do you have to review the deliverables? Is a deposit required? What forms of payment are acceptable? Are there any additional fees or expenses?
8. The Cover Is Not for You
The first thing to keep in mind when you start thinking about your cover is . . . (brace yourself) . . . your book’s cover is NOT for you. Yes, you read that right.
Your book’s cover is for your potential audience. Not for you.
It doesn’t necessarily matter what you think is pretty. Good design, the kind of design your audience expects, plays a key role in reaching the people who need your words of wisdom. Unless you are Michelle Obama, Stephen King, or someone equally well-known, it's not the author name that's selling the book. J. K. Rowling can have a simple yellow X on her cover, and folks will still buy her book. We all hope that you will someday become that famous, but for now, it’s the cover art that will sell.
9. KISS — Keep It Simple . . . “Sweetie”
What is your vision for the cover? Save samples of what you found in Tip #2 to share with your designer. Share your likes and dislikes with them. But keep it simple, sweetie.
It’s a bad idea to include the spinning cat, taco truck, tanning salon, AND the angels with flaming swords, even if ALL of those elements are in your story. You will only confuse your audience and send them running (much like in Tip #4).
10. Let the Designer Design
Assuming you’ve chosen a good designer with lots of experience and expertise and you’ve expressed your clear, simple vision, you can now step back and let your designer design. It’s important to listen to their advice. They are the professional. If you micromanage at this point, you will not get your designer’s best work.