BOOK COVER DESIGN

There's Just Something About the Word "Just"

Book Cover Express averages about 70 inquiries a week. Quite often the people who contact us are not sure what they want. They know they want a book cover, but beyond that they don't know if they want a graphic designer, an illustrator, a photographer or a painter. I'm sure there are artists out there who can do it all, but I focus mostly on graphic design. By definition this means I might take a photo for a book cover, or I might create a simple piece of vector artwork in Adobe Illustrator. Most often it means creating an abstract background and making the text the focal point, or it means manipulating images so they work on the cover.

On more than one occasion I've had someone say, "oh, you JUST work with stock images." Well, no...no I don't, but in defense of designers everywhere there's very little "just" about working with stock images.

Even a cover with one image will require a lot of work...in fact, just finding the right image can take days of searching, reading licenses and testing different images using watermarked "comped" versions.

Sometimes you need to combine several images, which is the case in a project I just completed. It took five images (four I licensed from Canstock.com and one I took myself) to make the cover. For three of the images, I had to completely remove the background, which meant blowing the image up really large and carefully going around the entire thing, catching and smoothing every pixel to lift out the portion I wanted. Then I had to repeat the process to blend the images into the background and do layer upon layer of shading and lighting to make them all seem like they're part of one picture.

Here's the project I'm talking about. The images I used are below I'm not sure I'm going to keep the text in that font or color.

Images that I used to make cover:

 



 

Most Popular Fonts Used on Book Covers

A few years ago Stephen Coles wrote a great article on book cover fonts for FontFeed.com. I think it's still relevant today, and many of my favourites made the list. I recommend you read the whole article, which includes images.

Cole's top 10 list of book cover fonts:

• Minion
• ITC New Bakserville
• FF Scala & FF Scala Sans
• Adobe Garamond (one of my all-time favorite fonts)
• Trade Gothic
• Electra
• Fornier
• Dante
• Din

Book Design

A Distinctive Design Should Be Carried Throughout the Book

Since my site is mainly one for book cover design, I work with a lot of clients who come to me for just that one element of the book.

There is no problem with this, but I like to at least make contact with the interior designer, or if that part of the job is already done, see the finished product. This is so I can create a cohesive look that carries from front cover, through every page and onto the back cover.

The fonts you’ve used; any graphic elements, such as dingbats or lines; drop caps or other features used on the books interior can be mirrored on the cover, and vice versa.

This is not always possible of course, sometimes covers change for various reasons, but the interior of the book stays the same. One good example is once a movie has been made about the book, a new cover will immediately be produced that reflects the move characters and title, but quite often the interior is not altered.

 Book Cover Express has a wonderful, very experienced interior designer and through the years we’ve formed friendly working relationships with many others. Collaboration is not usually an issue.

One problem I do run into is with do-it-yourselfers who are creating very amateurish interiors, using Times and Ariel, mixing too many fonts, not spacing paragraphs properly and not understanding punctuation (there is a difference between a hyphen, an em dash and an en dash). Since the cover is the handshake that greets the world, you can’t really afford to display anything that’s no able to hold its own in a competitive world with professionally-designed books.

Try to remember your book is one project and it should have a distinctive look that identifies it throughout.

Text Legibility and Readability

At age 40, most of us can read something 10 inches away. By age 50, that distance is usually closer to 16 inches and it increases as you get older. This condition, called presbyopia, is caused by the eye loosing its ability to focus and approximately 90 million Americans suffer from it.

When you consider this and other eye conditions that affect vision, you can understand how essential it is for publishers to choose fonts with great care. This doesn’t apply just to the interior of the book, but to the title, back cover text, online ads, websites, posters and any printed matter that will be used in promoting your books.

Here’s a little trick that will test the legibility of your font under less than ideal circumstances: just set a few lines and blur the text in Photoshop or similar software. Do letters such as a, o and d fill in? Do tall letters like i and t and l look alike? Are the letters so close together they’re just one big blur? Do narrow parts of the glyph (glyphs are the letters, numbers, punctuation marks, etc.. that we use to write with) vanish all together?

Paying close attention to the height difference in letters, the spacing between letters and worlds and the thickness of each stroke that makes up a glyph

Deep leading (space between the lines) aids legibility. Generally, 1.5 to 2 times the space between the words is sufficient. This can vary depending on the typeface.

For larger printed matter like posters, The Americans with Disabilities Act suggests height and weight ratios for signage should be between 60% and 100% of the height and that each stroke weight should be between 10% and 20% of the height.

Some fonts that fit this criteria include: Futura, Futura Condensed Bold, Futura Book, (but not Futura Light, condensed or bold), Frutiger Light, Frutiger, Frutiger Bold, Gill Sans, Gill Sans Bold (but not Gill Sans Light) Otpima, Bodoni, Bodini Book. Century Schoolbook, (not Century Schoolbook Bold) Garamond, Garamond Semibold, (but not Garamond Bold), Palatino and Palatino Bold.

Remember, no one is going to struggle to read your message.

Image Desperation: The Kiss of Death for Independent Publishers

A Picture Might Be Worth A Thousand Words,

But There Are Times It Should Just Shut Up

The book cover is the first thing people see when they are browsing in bricks and mortar bookstores or online. It’s often the first impression people have of the book. While those released by large publishing houses might have been pre-sold via reviews or the fact they have a celebrity author, few independently published books enjoy such benefits. For this reason, self-publishers have to be extra cautious when deciding on a cover design.

One of the biggest mistakes is “image desperation.” That’s when a novice publisher is so desperate to have an image, any image, that he or she will “make do” with completely unsuitable photos or amateur illustrations that virtually shout, “self-published.” Sometimes the publisher simply doesn’t have the “eye” that can discern a good image from a bad one; Sometimes he or she does not understand what the image should be; Sometimes it’s a budgeting issue. No matter the reason, it’s not only unacceptable, it’s completely unnecessary. It costs just as much to produce a bad book cover as it does to produce a good book cover.

Everyone has seen the poorly rendered 3d-style images that look like robotic mannequins. Sometimes people will combine these with photos and even clipart. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad. It would be far better to go with a nice font and use the title to fill the cover. If you really must have some graphic detail, consider an abstract background or even a faded sunset to suggest romance, or an object that is significant to the story. Traditional publishers have been using this style for years. Check out Something Borrowed, by Emily Giffin, which is currently on the New York Times Bestsellers List.   

Image desperation isn’t limited to fiction by any means. Independent publishers of non-fiction are just as likely to succumb. How many times have you seen a book for freelance writers with a manual typewriter on the cover? How many freelancers are still using manual typewriters? What does a manual typewriter even have to do with freelancing in today’s world? I recently saw a manual typewriter on a book about blogging. Even a modern computer keyboard probably isn’t going to be interesting enough or unique enough to catch someone’s eye. Again, if you don’t have the budget or creativity to get to “wow”, consider a text-only cover. It didn’t hurt sales for the bestseller, The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell.

You can also manipulate the text to create interest like the designers did for the book cover for Drive, by Daniel H. Pink and Heat, by Bill Buford.

Another big mistake is the cliché image. Using chess pieces on books about business strategies has been done — to death! One book production company recently published a book that not only used the old chess cliché, it actually had the pawn featured on the book cover. Whose goal is to be a pawn? Other overused cliché’s that smaller presses can’t seem to let go of include puzzle pieces, people shaking hands and locks and keys. Unless you’ve thought of a completely fresh way to use these elements, come up with another idea. They have simply been used too often.

Image desperation sometimes leads people into choosing the wrong illustration all together. The cover should demonstrate the solution, not the problem. If your book is about raising a happy child, don’t put a crying toddler on the cover. Your solution — the topic of the book, the information people want — is the happy child, not the weepy one. When’s the last time you saw an obese model on the cover of a weight loss book? Hint: never! That’s because they’re selling thin, thin is the solution. And avoid the temptation to be too clever. If your book is called A Blueprint to Happiness, do not put the blueprints for a house on the cover.

Also stay away from anything that could be construed as offensive on a cover. One publishing company has its own promotional book cover featuring a naked statue with the male appendage almost dead-center. As if this weren’t bad enough, there is also an elbow poking onto the cover from the right, with no body.

I’m not suggesting these elements can never work, they just need to be handled carefully and with originality, otherwise your book will get lost in the crowd, look dated or worse, shout “amateur”. Amateur projects get rejected by the Barnes and Noble small press program, independent bookstore owners and even distributors and reviewers. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the public is your first line for sales . . . they’re not. Getting past the professional eye of retailers, reviewers and distributors isn’t easy, but having a solid, professional cover design greet them increases you’re chances of getting noticed.

Learn, Promote, Get Connected

LinkedIn Offers More Than Meets The Eye

Years ago there were a number of forums and eMail groups for self-publishers. These days, there are very few, and many of those that are there don’t seem to be doing the job they once did. The same groups that once had 50 or more posts a day are now lucky to get that many posts in a month. The “old timers” — members who could offer information based on years of experience, have gone (or were forced to leave, during one of the many infamous “flame wars” that took place); Some forums became too burdensome for volunteer moderators to keep up with and a few seemed to go down a dark path and ended up on Angela Hoy’s Whispers and Warnings list, one writing forum is there for not paying freelance writers of all things!

In some cases blogs fill a void. There are numerous blogs geared towards self-publishers that are run by very knowledgeable people in the design and publishing industries, who also know what a possessive noun is and does. They’re also quite entertaining writers, and interesting conversations sprout up in the comments’ sections.

Many more though, are run by people who are posting their own learning experiences with self-publishing as they go, and while that too can be both helpful and entertaining, the misinformation from lack of knowledge is worrisome. I often read things like, “well, I typeset my book in Word and it looks fine.” It’s just not a good thing to encourage someone to set a book in Word, with the possible exception of a someone whose Word mastery is at the level of  Aaron Shephard’s, but even there are issues involving color and spacing that simply cannot be handled in Word. One “expert” (his word, not mine) actually refers to sans-serif fonts as “san serf” fonts, periodically throughout the text. I guess spell check and proofreading were too much effort. That little gem also had a cover “decorated” with Microsoft clip art, which usually isn’t licensed for commercial purposes and even if he did obtain permission, Microsoft clipart rarely has any business on a book cover.

Oh, there was a day when clipart was self-publishers really had to choose from, but with the advent of micro-stock companies, reasonable images can be legally licensed for as little as $2, some offer free images even for commercial use. If that still doesn’t work for you, go with a text-only cover and make your title stand out as the feature element.

I will admit I missed the old forums, the lively discussions and the interesting cast of characters from all over the world, with all different levels of experience…and then one day a few months ago, I found them again! Maybe not the same cast, but a few of them were there, and many more who were just as brilliant and just as interesting. There were at LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn has numerous groups for writers, communications and marketing experts, publishers, authors, designers, and most that I belong to are fairly active. But it doesn’t really matter if any one group is active or not, because there are so many you can join, that each day there will surely be something on one of them that interests you.

Aside from the camaraderie and convenience of finding answers to your questions, LinkedIn’s social networking offers a wonderful profile page for its members, and I can tell you through experience that head hunting firms are tracking down potential job seekers using LinkedIn. I worked on a contract position in an office a few weeks ago and that was part of the job — finding qualified candidates who might be interested in a senior position with another company, if the offer was right.. Not only that, but I have recently been contacted about a contract position by a local company who found my profile on LinkedIn.

Artists can display their work on LinkIn via the free Behance Network. I am also going to have to gush over the Behance Network interface which is so remarkably simple (unlike the ever-changing interface of a certain blogging host I deal with), anyone should be able to figure it out in a matter of minutes. For example, I recently added a new image to my portfolio and then wanted to move that image to the top. On my left a bar appeared with a big white arrow that said “top.” Like Alice drinking the bottle that read “drink me,” I dared to click top, assuming it would take me to the top of the page. No! It moved the image I wanted to the top. Does it get any easier?

I also experimented with LinkIn ads. They were great for getting directly to my potential clients, but I did find the service a little expensive and it operated quite a bit like Goolge’s Ad Words, a system that confuses Google’s Ad Words’ staff at times, so I will continue advertising on Facebook. Facebook ads are both easier to use and inexpensive. The only drawback with them is your credit card number is linked to any games you play. That’s fine if you’re aware of it, but I accidently made a purchase one night that I hadn’t intended to make, and it processed through the credit card I had on Facebook. Thankfully I only made a $2 purchase, there was a $1000 option there I could have just as easily clicked on when trying to figure out how the game system worked.

What Went On at the Self-publishing Seminar Debate

“...writers are delusional...”

Laughter broke out at a recent web seminar when Publisher’s Weekly Reviews Director, Louisa Ermelino said, “And writers are delusional; no matter how they’re published.”

Many interesting points on the topic of self-publishing were discussed, most of a more serious nature.

Panelist and author Jason Pinter expressed frustration at frequently hearing the same success stories of self-publishing. “What annoys me is that the same names are always used: Godin, Konrath, Hocking, The Shack.”

Pinter also said that poor marketing is the reason so many self-published books fail, a point Carolyn Pittis, SVP of Global Author Services at HarperCollins, agreed with. “Marketing is the issue of our time. Book marketing is the biggest challenge that anyone in the book business is facing today, purely because there’s so much noise and so much content getting created and so many potential distractions.” Phil Sexton, of Writer’s Digest, also believes that the efforts authors put behind their marketing plans influence the success—or failure, of their books.

Ermelino made another very interesting observation, “Maybe self-publishing is going to be an extra step added to publishing … Maybe what’s going to happen is you self-publish a book, someone notices it … an agent? ... and it goes from there into the traditional sphere.”

Seminar moderator Guy LeCharles Gonzalez asked the group how programs such as Harlequin’s self-publishing imprint can help self-published writers, to which one panelist responded, “It’s all about the money; it’s not about finding wonderful books—come on.”

The event was sponsored by PW and Digital Book World and held on February 22, 2011.

The entire article, written by Lynn Andriani can be read on the Publishers Weekly Website.

Visual Vibration: Lose It

Visual Vibration

It has to be discussed…again. Visual vibration. So many independent publishers don’t seem to think it’s an issue and I’d bet my last chocolate-covered almond it’s resulting in lost sales.

What is it? Visual vibration is caused when two bright colors are mixed together on a book cover or website or ad and they create an “afterimage” effect. It’s almost as if a dancing halo has been placed around the word or shape, making it nearly impossible to look at the image for any amount of time. It’s painful.

It’s the last thing you want happening on your website or your book cover.

You can avoid visual vibration by introducing a less vibrant, neutral color to the mix.

 

 

10 Greats Sites for Independent Publishers

 

Self-publishing guru Dan Poynter still has one of the most informative sites around for self-publishers. Much of the information is free and his experience in the industry goes back decades.

 

This is one of my favourite sites! This site offers so much from so many, it's impossible to write a useful definition for it. Sign up at The Self-Publishing Review and share your own experiences.

 

Ron Pramschufer has also been around for a long, long time. On his site, you'll find a free eBook that offers loads of tips and useful advice. I got the print version years ago and it's still here on my desk (it has a list of keyboard shortcuts to all of those useful alternates such as the copyright symbol ©, em dashes — and the accent over the é.)self-publishing.com,

 

Marion Gropen's reference desk offers loads of useful links and information to ease a publisher's way in the business.

 

Negative remarks about self-publishing getting you down? Read verifiable success stories from some of Booklocker's clients! I've worked on the original covers for many of the books mentioned on that list, and a few that aren't included. 

If you don't belong to Linked in, you should. I find the group Book Publishing Professionals, (one of the Linked in groups), to be one of the best around. Years ago, there were a half dozen wonderful online groups for publishers, but they seem to have faded out or changed direction. This one seems to offer the advice and debate forum the way it was back in the good old days.

 

 
If you want to convert your print book to Kindle format, then do it right, with tips from Word-layout and self-publishing expert, Aaron Shepard.

 

Just discovered Author Tech Tips and I'm loving it! A site filled with wonderful ideas to promote authors, their products and the technical how-dos that make them all work.

  

I was sold on this blog as soon as I saw that book preview widget!  A Book Inside is worth the click.

 

The Dummies' site offers a lot really concise, useful information. I started off using the search terms "self-publishing" and "publish," but ended up reading so many related articles and how-tos I lost track of time. Their ISBN article is excellent for newbies.

Information for Self-Publishers

Self-publishers usually prefer a very traditional book design, even when they say they don't. I usually try to steer people away from sunsets and puzzle pieces, and images that look more like ad posters than book covers, but all I can do is gently suggest. They are, after all, my bosses.

Traditional designs aren't a bad thing, don't get me wrong. I love, love, love doing them. They're "my thing" and the buying public seems attracted to them, so that's where the design has to go, but it never hurts to get a feel for the entire market. A visit to, http://bookcoverarchive.com/ is a good place to study alternative design that works on a more metaphorical level. Not everyone's cup of tea and not suitable for every project, but most definitely winning designs.

I'm a big fan of Henry Sene Yee, too. He's the creative director at Picador and walks that fine line between cutting-edge and traditional, managing to combine creativity and familiarity without going over the top. If you read his blog, you'll see that his job as a designer often (or usually) involves an illustrator or photographer and a team of people working on the cover. It's a bit different than a sole designer working with an often inexperienced, independent publisher/author. I find both have pros and cons, but much depends on the client. He discusses working with private clients in this post, and why he avoids it.

Another area that smaller publishers often don't pay enough attention to is the back cover blurb. Personally, I'd have it professionally written, or at least edited, because I've seen some awful blurbs that are filled with grammatical errors and tell me nothing about the book. Penguin UK has a five part series on how to write a blurb on their blog (click at the top for the subsequent posts in the series. There seems to be a random blog post on another topic between #4 and #5, for some reason). Although the UK and NA markets are different for sure, sound advice is sound advice.

And while you're there, check out their blog on marketing outside of bookstores, and no, you won't see one suggestion for fridge magnets or t-shirts. ;)