After the front cover, which grabbed the customer’s eye and got him or her to pick up your book, the back cover is the most important part—if your back cover doesn’t grab the reader’s attention, the book will go back on the shelf rather than into the shopping cart.

The number of books printed with blank back covers constantly amazes me. If you don’t tell me what your book is about, I have no reason to buy it. Most people are in a hurry—they aren’t going to take the time in the store to open the book and read several pages to find out what you have to say. If you don’t grab them with the back cover, you aren’t going to make a sale.

What do you need on the back cover? There are some practical business items required, besides fantastic content.

The Practical Items:

To get a store to carry your book, you need an ISBN number, a barcode, the book’s price, and its category.

An ISBN number is the International Standard Book Number that allows bookstores to list your book in their databases and to order your book. It differentiates your book from all other books out there, including ones with similar titles. Although 10-digit numbers were common in the past, today an ISBN has 13 digits, and it is located above the barcode.

The barcode is that little white box with black stripes and a lot of numbers. It is what allows the store to scan your book so the price doesn’t have to be rung up manually. Without an ISBN and a barcode, a store is unlikely to want your book because it creates problems for entering the book into the store’s database.

The price should also be on your book. Customers do not like to ask how much something is, and price is always a deciding factor for whether a sale is made.

Finally, you need to list the book’s category on the back. At the very least, it should state “Fiction” or “Nonfiction” but most of the time it would also have a subcategory such as “Historical Fiction,” “Mystery,” “Romance,” “Humor,” “Travel” etc. This listing is very important because it tells bookstores where to put the book in the store. If a store doesn’t know where your book belongs, it may choose not to carry the book, or the store may put your book in the wrong section, in which case the store might as well not carry it because no one will find it.

Bottom line, if you don’t have these four items on your back cover, you probably aren’t going to get any stores to sell your books, no matter how wonderful your book’s content.

The Content:

A few different parts of the back cover’s content can make it effective.

The worst thing to do, in my opinion, is simply to have a string of endorsements on the back cover praising your book. Only to read, “Terrific. Fantastic! A must-read!” will frustrate customers because those descriptions don’t tell them what the book is about, and while some people will buy books based on these blurbs, I suspect other readers prefer to decide for themselves and don’t read the endorsements, so walk the fine line here. I suggest you include no more than three endorsements on the back cover. If you collect more, put them on the inside front pages or in your marketing pieces. Make sure also to get endorsements from people who are well-known experts in the area in which you are writing. If you’ve written a cookbook, an endorsement from Julia Child will help. An endorsement from Dr. Phil probably won’t. Also, make sure you plan well ahead so you have several months to let people read your manuscript and give you endorsements.

You may choose to quote a passage from the book. It needs to be a key passage, one that catches the reader’s attention right away. For example: “Gerald was struggling to keep his head above water. Clara did not know what to do. He was clearly drowning, and she could not swim. There was no boat nearby. No life preserver to throw. Had they spent all these years separated and longing for one another only to have it end like this?” The passage should only be a few lines, a very short paragraph at most. You can italicize it or set off the font somehow from the rest of the writing on the back, or simply put a tagline under it clarifying it’s a quote from your book. Usually, this passage should go above the descriptive paragraphs about the book.

The most important part of the content is one or two paragraphs that describe what the book is about. This content must grab the reader’s attention. If the book is fiction, the copy should give a basic idea of the plot and what is at stake for the character. For example, “Flossie Snow had it all—money, good looks, and glamour—everything that is except the man she loved. When Rick told her he could only love a woman who liked to do yoga, Flossie did her best, but she was just not flexible. How could Flossie make Rick see there was more to life than just yoga?” Okay, admittedly cheesy, but you get the idea. Character has a problem—how is the problem going to be solved? It helps if the reader can relate to the character, so women frustrated in love are going to want to read about Flossie, hoping they’ll learn from her how to get a man themselves.

If the book is non-fiction, it’s the reader you want to assume has the problem. You, the author, must convince the reader you can solve that problem. For example, if you wrote a self-help book, your back cover copy might read something like, “Do you want more time, money, and happiness in your life? Joe Dollar spent years studying economics and Ancient Eastern wisdom to learn how spirituality can make you rich. Let Joe show you how to live the life you’ve always wanted.” Again, cheesy, but you get the point. Other types of non-fiction should follow the same example. Whatever your topic, your book is going to provide a solution to the reader’s problem, however broadly you want to define “problem.” If your book is about wildflowers of North America, your back cover might read, “Do you get confused between a daffodil and a dandelion? Do you ever see flowers in the wild and wonder what they are called? This book, with its easy index, photographs, and flower descriptions will help you to identify more than 500,000 varieties of wildflowers in North America so you never need to wonder again.”

Be sure to write several versions of your back cover copy to try different approaches. Look at similar books to yours and decide which back cover copy works and which doesn’t. Look at the books you own and try to recall what made you buy them—including whether the back cover helped you make the decision. Then use why you bought certain books as research for why people will buy your book.

Finally, depending on your book’s subject and the amount of space left, it’s optional whether you decide to include your photograph and a brief author biography on the back cover. If you don’t have room, include these items in the book’s final pages or the inside back cover. If you are writing a non-fiction book, your biography may help prove you are an expert in the field so it may convince the reader you have information to help them, in which case, put it on the back cover. If you are writing fiction, you may choose to leave your photo and biography off the back cover so you can provide more room to describe your book.

A back cover that meets the standards required of book stores and also meets the needs or desires of readers is what will be effective enough to move your book off store shelves. It is the place to do your very best writing so people will say, “I have to read this book!”

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

As important as it is to write the best book possible (quality will lead to word-of-mouth sales), the book may never leave the bookstore shelf if the cover doesn’t grab the reader’s eye. Bottom line, what your book cover looks like is probably the most important aspect of the entire book design and marketing process.

In designing your book cover, remember, “Less is more.” A simple straightforward concept on the cover will do more than complicated designs and fancy artwork. If the cover doesn’t grab the readers’ eyes and make them curious about your book within a couple of seconds, the sale is lost.

Here are a few tips to make sure your book cover is as visually effective as possible.

Study Similar Book Covers:

Go to your local bookstore (you can look at books online as well but you do not get as immediate an effect nor see books next to each other). Look at books in the same category as yours, whether it’s romance novels, cookbooks, self-help, or fishing. When you go to the section of the store where someday your book will be, what’s the first cover that grabs your eye? Why that cover? Is it the color, the people or scenery on the cover, the boldness of the title? What makes the cover stand out compared to the other covers? Look at what you consider the best cover(s) and also the worst covers. What makes you judge a book by its cover the way you do?

Colors:

Think about the psychological effect of the colors you will use on your cover. If you’re writing a book on meditation, you probably don’t want a black or red cover because those colors traditionally suggest danger, fear, guilt, death, or anger. White or blue—colors that are more soothing and peaceful, are probably more appropriate. Again look at other books in the same category and consider the colors they use. How do you want people to feel about your book’s content? What color makes you feel that way?

As an interesting side note, in the 1980s when Helen Hooven Santmyer’s bestseller “…And Ladies of the Club” was published, the publisher printed four different covers. Each book had the same artwork, but the book came out in different colors—pink, yellow, green, and blue. I’m sure the multiple colors resulted in more sales because the blue cover appealed to people who might not have paid attention to the yellow one. I remember seeing all four versions beside each other in the department store on a center aisle table. It was hard not to pay attention.

Title and Author’s Name:

Unless you’re Stephen King, your name should appear at the bottom of the cover. Your name is unlikely to be what sells your book so it shouldn’t be the first words the customer reads. Instead, put your title at the top and make it as large and preferably larger than your name. Make sure it is easily readable, clear, and stands out. Simple fonts are better than fancy scripts that might make a letter difficult to read or your title misunderstood. Make sure you choose a neutral color like white or black, but one that will not blend in with the color behind it.

Artwork:

Make sure the artwork matches the content of your book and does not distort what the book is about. An excellent example of what not to do is the marketing that has been done for some of Agatha Christie’s murder mystery novels. Christie is not a bloody or gory writer, but various publishers since her death have created book covers that have mouths with blood streaming out of them and knitting needles in people’s heads. These covers may be sensational and grab attention, but they also do a disservice because readers who might otherwise enjoy the books will stay away under the impression the books are gruesome. Similarly, people who like a gruesome story will feel cheated when they pay for the book only to find no guts or gore in it.

I have seen books with pictures on their covers that have nothing to do with the book’s content, but the author simply liked the artwork. While the author should have a say in the cover, they should give some ideas or concepts to the artist and then let the artist, the expert, create the cover. Make sure the artist hired has designed book covers before and is willing to give multiple samples and will continue to tweak the cover until you are satisfied. Especially if you want to have people or animals on your cover, ask for samples of the artist’s work—nothing looks worse than a poorly drawn person.

Do not hire an amateur to do your book cover. It will look unprofessional and may even be laughable. Do not let hurting the feelings of your niece, the art major, stand in the way of your book sales. Do not try to save money by doing your own cover. Book covers are not a reason to become sentimental, nor should you spare expense on them. Paying a professional to design the cover is the best investment in your book that you will make.

Make sure the cover is not too busy. Do a distance test. Have the cover reduced to one inch in height, about the size it will be on the Internet. If at that size the artwork cannot be easily distinguished, the artwork is too complicated. Also take the cover art at book size and stand ten or twenty feet away from it to make sure it is distinguishable.

Occasionally, photographs are used on book covers. Photographs are fine if the photograph clearly represents the book. Nature scenes are preferable for self-help, spirituality type books. Historical books, fiction and non-fiction, might use a historical photograph. Authors should avoid putting photographs of themselves on their covers unless their faces are well-known (Dr. Phil, Bill Cosby, or Barack Obama well-known). Sadly, unless you’re drop-dead gorgeous, your face will probably hurt your sales.

Spine Design:

What to include on your back cover will be a separate article, but I’ll include what to do with the book cover spine here. Chances are that only your book’s spine will be visible in the bookstore, so make sure your name and book title are clear and easily readable on the spine. Do something simple to make the spine stand out, such as including a small version or detail from the front cover. I’m a big fan of book covers that carry the artwork from the front cover across the spine and to the back—this design makes books feel lush and exciting in my opinion. This larger picture will make the spine stand out, but make sure it does not make the spine too busy. You might have a ship on the front cover and a lighthouse on the back cover, but on the spine, just have some ocean waves toward the bottom so it does not take away from the book’s title.

Final Tips:

No book cover is perfect, and different covers will appeal to different readers. Do your best to create the cover that will appeal to the largest number of people. Don’t settle for the first option, but look at your book with various covers and various colors, and get as much feedback from people as possible. Don’t just ask friends, but take your samples to bookstores and ask the workers what they think will sell. Once the book is published, if you get positive comments on the covers, great. If sales are slow and you get no comments on the book cover, consider changing it for the next print run.

Remember, your cover is your first selling point so take the time and invest the money needed to make sure it’s done right.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Choosing what size to make your book can be simple or difficult depending on the kind of book you are writing. Most importantly, you need to consider what your readers will want and what size will make your book sell.

What size should your book be? Both beginning and longtime authors have to make this decision with each book, and depending on the kind of book, it can be an easy or a difficult decision. Here are some basic guidelines for determining your book’s size depending on the kind of book you are publishing.

Fiction

Fiction books are the easiest for choosing a size. Most novels and short story collections are one of two sizes—the mass market paperback size (4.1×6.6) and the slightly larger 6×9 size (occasionally some are 4.1×7.4). Books that are 6×9 have become more popular in recent years—they also usually cost more to buy than mass market paperback sizes—partly I think so publishers can charge more because they look more substantial. In any case, either size is acceptable for fiction. These sizes are appropriate because novels are some of the most portable books from how readers use them. Novels should be easy to hold, relatively light, and portable so readers can take them on airplanes, read them on the beach, etc.

The only real consideration in choosing between the two sizes of fiction books is how thick the book will be. A large novel like Gone With the Wind (my mass market copy has 1,024 pages) would be easier to read as a 6×9 which I would guess would run more around 800 pages, simply because your hand would have to apply less pressure to hold it open, especially if you’re able to hold a book open with one hand—a small feat for most men who have larger hands, but more difficult for women. You don’t want to make your book a size that is awkward for your readers to handle, no matter what kind of book you are publishing.

Children’s Books

Children’s books come in a wide variety of sizes. If they are novels with chapters, then I’d recommend the above sizes for fiction, but for picture books, you want a larger book that will display the pictures to more advantage. Even if you pick a hardcover book, you want it to be lightweight so children can easily open it. Larger sizes also mean the book is thinner and easier to hold. Books that can stay open by themselves are a definite advantage; a larger size and the right binding will make them do so.

You also want a book that is easy to hold open. Remember that with picture books, adults often read them out loud, and they will hold them open wide so children can see the pictures.

With picture books, you want to make sure you determine the size of your book before you get far into your project so you can plan out the individual page layouts. With children’s books, you’ll want pictures to match the text, so you’ll want to plan out what the illustrations will represent, and if you have pictures on each page or every other page, you’ll want to figure out how much text will go on each page, which requires you to know the book’s size so you can write the proper amount of text to fit the page.

Knowing the book’s size beforehand is imperative for the illustrations so they can be drawn at the size of the final book; otherwise, you’ll have problems later with the resolution when you try to shrink or enlarge the photographs to match the book size.

Nonfiction

Nonfiction books allow the most flexibility when determining size. Depending on the book’s purpose and contents, a simple non-fiction book is appropriately sized at the same options for fiction books. More complicated books with photographs or charts may benefit from a larger size.

The main thing is to make the book look substantial enough that readers will feel they are getting their money’s worth. A large but thin book with 50,000 words in it may make the reader feel it is overpriced at $15.95, but a book at the same price with the same word count may look like a good buy if it is smaller and thicker.

One small publisher of non-fiction titles told me his goal is for all their books to be roughly 200 pages. The company sells books ranging in size from 6×9 to 8.5×11, but the size is determined by what will result in that 200 page goal. Why 200 pages? They’ve determined that size makes readers feel they are getting their money’s worth without feeling the book is too long and intimidating to read it.

If you’re going to have photographs in your book, you probably want a larger size so the pictures do not look small or cramped but can be viewed easily, and the larger the book, the more the photographs will stand out. Depending on your audience, books with lots of photographs or illustrations, including pictorial histories and art books, or books with lots of graphs, timelines, genealogy charts, or other special design elements may be best in coffee table sizes.

Covers

Finally, consider your book cover. When posted online, your book will look small regardless—book images at Amazon are at most two inches in size. But in a bookstore, a larger book is going to stand out amid stacks of mass market paperbacks. Books too large to fit on a regular bookshelf might make some bookstores less willing to carry them, but in most cases, large books are more likely to end up on display tables where they will easily be noticed rather than be buried on a shelf with only their spines showing.

Remember that the cover is the first thing the customer will see, and it is first and foremost what will affect the vast majority of customers’ buying decisions. A bigger book might well make the difference between it being bought over another simply because it stands out more.

Other Considerations and Recommendations

The size of your book has many other considerations involved with it such as the size of the font in the book. Larger books can have larger fonts so they are easier to read. You might even be considering producing a large print book for people who have difficulty reading.

Most importantly, you need to consider your potential customers. Go to the bookstore and look at books on topics similar to yours. See what you like and don’t like about their sizes. Ask bookstore owners what they would recommend. Talk to printers and book designers to see what they would recommend as well.

In the end, size does matter, so find the book size to satisfy your customers.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

As a book cover designer I can tell you no one should feel guilty about judging a book by its cover.

Why?

Because humans are, by nature, extremely sensitive to first impressions. The corporate world has known this for a long time. That’s why they spend tens of millions of dollars every year on market surveys and research to determine the effectiveness of their product packaging.

Two important things for authors to remember:
1. A potential reader’s first impression of your book is the cover.

There is an entire psychology built around the concept of “first impressions” that should be understood by anyone whose product (a book, in this case) is just one among many in competition for the public’s attention.

2. Think of the cover of your book in terms of “product packaging” in the same way that manufacturers regard the packaging of their products. The cover of your book is the “packaging”, the “box” (metaphorically speaking) that contains the “product”. The product is the story inside the “box”.

More often than not, a potential buyer’s assumption about the quality of the product is determined by their perception of the quality of the packaging.
Research has shown that people tend to make purchasing decisions within a matter of just a few seconds based on their perception of the product (that “first impression”) which is influenced by the packaging.

It’s pretty simple really. You’re at the store. You see two products from two different manufacturers, side by side, and both products are exactly the same and so are the prices. But one is packaged very attractively with a polished, professional look and the other packaging is rather generic and boring. Which one are you likely to purchase?

**********************
Gary Val Tenuta
Author and Designer of Low-Cost, High-Quality Book Covers
www.bookcoversandvideos.webs.com

1. Title text often tends to crowd the space. Ideally it should either sit comfortably within the cover and have some breathing room, or alternatively, it should expand past the margins altogether and bleed off the page.

2. Though it’s common to center text on book covers, I rarely center text unless I’m designing a wedding invitation or the lines of text are roughly similar in length. The eye likes to jump to a left edge to read the next line and with centered text, it has to hunt for where the next line begins. Centered text is a natural and logical, but predictable approach. With a little exploration, there are almost always more elegant solutions.

3. Setting text on top of a photo is often difficult. The common solution is to add bevels, glows and drop shadows. Better to use photos with large areas of light, dark or solid color. Photoshop filters look like the hand of a computer – not the hand of an artist.

4. Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stretch or compress type. Look around and you’ll find poorly made signs where the middle of the “S” is disproportionately fattened by compressing the text. There are compressed and extended typefaces designed to do that job without losing their proportions. It’s like staring into a fun house mirror.

5. Use comic sans; go to jail. It’s the law.

6. Understand the temporal context of your type choices. Most people choose type indiscriminately from a dropdown menu offering 200 choices without any awareness of whether the typeface is classic or cliche. A friend of mine has art nouveau type on the titles of his self-designed martial arts/vampire books. It’s incongruous, but he doesn’t even know it. Different typefaces have the ability to place your work in the correct-or incorrect-temporal setting. When I first started working with computers, I couldn’t understand what was so futuristic about the typeface Futura. Later, I learned that when Paul Renner designed it in 1929, it was part of a modernist, progressive revolution in geometric sans-serif typefaces. It was futuristic for it’s time, and though it’s still used and useful, it suggests more of a 1930′s feel than a futuristic one.

7. When designing ANYTHING, do some research. Look at book covers by pros like Chipp Kidd. One of my favorite “design bibles” is a book of Blue Note album covers designed by Reid Miles in the 1950s and 60?s. As a matter of fact, the cover of my most recent book was intentionally adapted from his album covers to establish that very point. My design students typically sit down at a computer and start moving text and images around, hoping to come up with something inspiring. This is the “white cane” approach to design. You can come up with something perfectly original based on the work of brilliant people who came before you. Your work will be better, and you’ll grow as a designer by assuming their vocabulary.

8. Challenge yourself to write a colophon for your book-even if you don’t include it in the content. This is the section where you explain your choices of typeface, imagery, color, etc. If you can’t justify it, it’s uninformed choice – not conscious design.

A book cover is not a box or a label. It’s a visual poem that has to immediately create interest in readers. It may be attractive, and it may be legible, but it has to exert its own gravitational pull. A very small percentage of covers achieve this. Like many things in life, book cover designs are often ruined by the things we don’t know we don’t know. Keeping a few simple rules in mind and exposing yourself to the work of brilliant designers is the fastest path to success whether you’re an experienced pro or just starting out on your first cover.

Dave Bricker is a novelist and the author of The One Hour Guide to Self-Publishing: Straight Talk for Fiction and Nonfiction Writers About Producing and Marketing Your Own Books. He teaches Graphic and Interactive design at an arts University in Miami. Read more about self-publishing on his blog at http://www.oneHourSelfPub.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dave_Bricker

When authors finish their books, they may have ideas for how they want their books to look; however, too often authors either over-communicate with their book designers, or they fail to communicate clearly. Here are some tips for preparing your manuscript so it is ready to go to your book design/layout person without your driving him or her crazy.

Rewriting Before, Not After, Layout

Do not send your book to your book designer until you are absolutely sure it is finished. You should not be rewriting anything once your layout person has the book in his hands. Nothing is worse than trying to correct a book already laid out because the programs used for layout, such as InDesign, are not as flexible as writing software programs like Word, and rewriting a paragraph or adding or subtracting text can result in photographs moving, or mess up the text from widows and orphans on pages to a piece of text accidentally hiding itself. Furthermore, every change made after the book is laid out is an error waiting to happen that might be missed before the book is printed. Only the most minor changes are permissible once the book is laid out so make sure you submit your very best writing to the layout person.

Fonts and Good Writing:
Too many authors try to emphasize their points by using special fonts and sizes. Beyond just overusing italics, underlining and bold, they also use special fonts and font sizes for titles and subtitles.

If you are a GOOD writer you do not “need” to over-emphasize the KEY words in your book.

For one thing, all those italics, different fonts, bold and underlined words are a distraction and make the book not only visually unappealing, but difficult to read. Furthermore, they distract the reader from your content and meaning. In short, they are almost never necessary. I cannot tell you how many books I have seen where everything with dashes around it is in italics, or there are quotation marks around words ad nauseam. Trust me, save the fancy fonts and italics for when you really need to emphasize something. That doesn’t mean the one word in a sentence or the one sentence in a paragraph. It means the one word or phrase in a chapter—yes, a chapter, and even that is pushing it. More emphasis than that will just irritate your reader—in fact, it sometimes will make your reader feel like you are hammering your point to death because you think your reader is not smart enough to understand what you are saying. More likely, if you feel you need to hammer your point home, you need to make your point clearer.

Fonts, bold words, and italics are never a substitute for good writing. If you can’t get your point across with good writing, you won’t succeed through overemphasis and fancy fonts.

Titles, Subtitles and Sub-subtitles
If you’re writing a novel, you probably only have chapter titles and perhaps the occasional scene shift. However, you must make it clear in your manuscript where one part ends and the next begins. That doesn’t mean going crazy with the fonts or sizes, making the section titles Algerian 18, the chapter titles Garamond 16, the subtitles New Times Roman 14, and the dates on the stories within the stories Arial 12. The best thing to do is simply to use New Times Roman 12, and where necessary, center a title and leave a space between it. For a new scene, insert an asterisk * between the old and new scenes so the layout person knows a break will go there. Using all those fancy fonts ultimately just is more work for your layout person who will end up having to change them anyway. The more work you give your designer, the more he’ll probably charge you as well.

In non-fiction books, the layout can be more complicated as you may have many points to make with sections and subsections and even charts and graphs to include. The best advice is to lay everything out simply. You may want to number titles or subtitles like in an outline. For accuracy, submit a Table of Contents with your manuscript to your layout person to reference. In the Table of Contents, include all the chapter titles and subtitles so they are clear and so your layout person can find them. For example, you might create a Table of Contents that looks like this:

Part I: Why Am I Fat?
Chapter 1: My Family is Fat
Food is Love
Eat Everything on Your Plate
You’re Fat Like Your Mother
Chapter 2: I Eat When I’m Depressed
The Vicious Cycle of Dieting
Finding Substitutes to Cheer Us Up
Part II: Diet and Exercise

Remember, your layout person is not going to read your book, just lay it out, so make things clear for him.

Images
Be sure you have all your images collected before you start the book layout. That includes making sure you have permission to use them. Few things are more frustrating for a layout person than to be told the images are coming and not to know where they will be placed in the book.

When you submit the manuscript, insert, perhaps in red on a separate line, something clear such as “Insert photo of Annie Oakley here.” Make sure your images are also clearly labeled—for example, name the Annie Oakley jpeg “Annie Oakley” not “SH_83739” which might be the item name of the museum you got it from. If you only have a few images, naming the images is a good idea. If you are doing a book with numerous images, you may simply want to number them 1-100 and then insert in the text directions such as “Photo 27 goes here.”

Be sure to ask your layout person how the images need to be submitted and in what format—jpegs, tiffs, etc., and what dpi (resolution)? Images downloaded from the Internet will not usually have a good enough resolution to be reproduced on paper in a book—and don’t forget they are usually copyrighted.

Be Open to Suggestions
Before you choose a book designer, be sure to get recommendations from other authors. You might ask for samples of the designer’s work. Discuss your book with the designer and see what he recommends and what ideas he has for its design to make sure you are both “on the same page.”

Book designers have generally been doing their jobs for a long time. They will have reasons why they choose certain fonts, type sizes, or margins for your book, primarily so the book will be appealing visually and also accessible to your readers. Convey your ideas to your designer, but do not micromanage the process.

Ask the book designer to layout just a few pages so you can see them and approve the font, size, and headers. Then once you like the look of the book, let the book designer do his or her job. Wait until you see the proofs and then you can make whatever small adjustments necessary.

By following these simple common sense guidelines, you’ll end up with a beautiful book that will meet or exceed your expectations. Not only will you and your book designer both still be on speaking terms, but you can both be proud of the end result.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

First of all, there are probably many designers who could do an excellent job creating a cover for you. Selecting the right designer is a process of balancing price, process, portfolio—and the gut feeling you have about them.

Price – You can pay anywhere from $150 to $5000 for a single cover design. Although a $150 cover may not represent your book as well as you would like, it does not automatically follow that the most expensive designer will be the best one for your book. Your budget may dictate a maximum price, but this is not the place to cut corners. Expect to pay something in the range of $750 – $2000 for a quality cover.

Process – What is the expected timeline for delivering the finished cover? How many revisions do they allow as part of their standard contract? Will they work with the printer to resolve any issues with their files? How does the designer work with you? Many will read the book (or parts of it), talk with you, then develop a few concepts for the cover. After they present these initial concepts, they will get your feedback, make revisions and create the final version.

Portfolio – Make sure the designer’s style meshes with your vision for your book. Although most designers are capable of creating attractive covers for a variety of books, most have a style that may or may not be right for your book. Look at sample covers not just to see which are most attractive, but which designers seem to understand books like yours.

Trust Your Gut – When I was reviewing designer portfolios, I found one showcasing two covers that told me that the designer knew my book. These books were not on the same subject as mine, and I didn’t want my book cover to look exactly like the ones I saw; however, both covers evoked the feeling I wanted for my book. I got the designer on the phone and immediately felt comfortable with her. That was the designer I hired, and she did an excellent job.

Do not rush the process of choosing a book cover designer. Do your homework and choose someone who will help you create a finished book of which you can be proud.

Learn more about self-publishing and selling books here at SellingBooks.com.

Everyone judges a book by its cover. No one reads the book before they make a buying decision. Consumers do not read it in the store. Sales reps only carry book covers and jackets to show bookstore owners/buyers while wholesalers and distributors say “just send us the cover copy.” All buying decisions are made on the illustration/design and the ad-sales copy on the outside of the book. Yes, packaging is everything.

The bookstore browser averages less than eight seconds looking at the front cover and fifteen seconds reading the back cover. You must hook them immediately and keep them reading the back cover or they will put the book back on the shelf.

Most of Lightbourne’s cover-design work is done long distance, so when the new client walked in wearing buckskin and natural cotton attire, Gaelyn and Bram Larrick knew that this project would be unique and fun. Matt Richards had written a book on taking raw deerskin and creating beautiful buckskin garments and useful goods, a process that was more of a lifestyle for him.

He had located the cover-design company as a result of reading Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual, but was still nervous about spending his money on a professionally-designed cover.

Matt lived in the wilderness and his way of life didn’t require him to earn much money. The cover would cost one-quarter of his entire annual income.

Six months later, Matt wrote that his book was selling so well in both his niche market and bookstores that his annual income had already increased 4-5 times. His professionally-designed cover not only made him prouder of his book, it gave the contents more credibility and helped the book to sell.

“Anyone who says ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’ has never met the category buyer from Barnes & Noble.”
— Terri Lonier, author, Working Solo.

Good packaging sells soap, breakfast food and pantyhose. It can also be used to sell books. Put your imagination into your title and your advertising money into your cover. Since everyone from the distributor, to wholesalers, to bookstore buyers, to the ultimate customer judges a book by its cover, give them what they need—a compelling cover with art and a sales message that will encourage a buying decision.

Dan Poynter, the Voice of Self-Publishing, has written more than 100 books since 1969 including Writing Nonfiction and The Self-Publishing Manual. Dan is a past vice-president of the Publishers Marketing Association. For more help on book publishing and promoting, see http://ParaPub.com.

While this page primarily provides book facts, it is commonly also the most decorative display page in a book. As the rest of the book is devoted to the author’s thoughts, here the page is often used for expressions of design and graphics.

This is of interest to publishers as well as self-publishers. In addition, authors who hire their own book designers and pay for their own book design will have something to say about the way that their books are constructed.

In fact, throughout history these pages have provided a way for printers, publishers, book designers and authors to express the meaning or contents of the book in a decorative way.

William Morris, who began the book arts revolution at the end of the nineteenth century, would create a woodcut look for his title pages that covered the complete page, from edge to edge. He worked the name of the book, the name of the author and the name of his press into the designs, which were often floral in nature, with leaves and branches intertwined over the whole design.

The first printed books didn’t have title pages. They began on the first page of the author’s writing and were identified by those initial words instead of by a separate title. This may be why some consider the this page somewhat irrelevant; however, it does provide considerable information, including:

• Full title of the book
• Subtitle, if any
• Author’s name
• Editor’s name, in the case of anthologies or compilations
• Translator’s name, for works originally in a different language
• Illustrator or photographer’s name, for illustrated books
• Number of the edition, in the case of revised editions
• Series notice, if part of a series
• Name and location of publisher
• Year of publication

Setting the book’s tone

In addition to listing pertinent information about their respective books, title pages have also provided an opportunity for the author and book designer to paint a picture of what is to come in the body of the work. For example, the book designer may opt to include a ‘ghosting’ of a particular image reflected repeatedly throughout the book. Choosing typography for the title page that ties the cover and interior of the book together in subtle fashion results in a very atmospheric quality.

For a book updated regularly (i.e., a manual), the book designer may select a more modern typographic design that places emphasis in some way on the numbered edition of the manual. Besides being a clean, updated, professional image, it also immediately identifies the manual as the most current edition.

Make the Most of the Title Page – It’s Yours

While you as a reader may have taken the title page for granted, you as an author can utilize the title page in a variety of ways. Using the same book type fonts as for the title on the cover and the text of the interior helps integrate the various parts of the book, making for a more harmonious reading experience. And if you have illustrations, artwork for your cover, or thoughts of a bold typographic design, don’t hesitate to put them to use here.

In short, even though the title page is used primarily to share factual information about the book, take advantage of the opportunity to be creative. It’s yours!

Joel Friedlander has launched many self-publishers. Joel is an award-winning book designer, a self-published author, and blogs about publishing and book design. To learn more about self-publishing a book, book and cover design, and the intricacies of the publishing process, please visit Joel’s blog at http://www.theBookDesigner.com today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joel_Friedlander

One reason the task becomes so daunting and painful is that authors too often wait until the end of the process, instead of nearer the beginning, to think through book cover design.

As a book publicist and book marketer I cannot caution authors enough – do not underestimate the importance of a book cover’s design.  Not only do potential book buyers judge a book by its cover but so do members of the media.

I have personally seen a major book reviewer for a large magazine hold a client’s book, run her fingers over the cover and say, “I’ve not heard of this author or publisher, but this book looks very nicely done, tell me more about.” Conversely, I’ve heard a reviewer quickly respond “We don’t review self-published books,” because the cover screamed cheap!

While we often hear “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” everybody – book buyers, reviewers, media and consumers alike – most certainly do judge a book by its cover.

Here are some important items to consider when making decisions on book cover design:

• Use a subhead to create more description. If you have a 10-word title, you have not properly named the book in the first place.
• Check with Google on the words that are most searched on your topic. To do this, type in the word that best describes your book in the search box and then see what the next most important or popular words are in that list. That ranking is very relevant marketing- wise so try to use those words in your title or subtitle.
• Visit book stores and look at the covers of all types of books. What catches your eye? Look at the book face and look at the spines. Which ones are readable and why?
• Will it play on Amazon? Go to Amazon.com, BN.com, Borders.com and search on competitive books in your space. Notice the book covers that catch your eye and the ones that do not. If your cover does not show up well in an Amazon thumbnail then you are going to lose sales.
• Contrast. Don’t let your graphic designer get started without keeping contrast in mind. The reason black ink works so well on white paper is because it produces the best contrast possible. Yellow ink on green paper in a small font simply does not work.
• How does your book look in black and white? Not every publication will be printing it in color.
• Font size. Many designers are young with great eyesight. But your buyer may not be able to read the tiny font some designers insist upon using. Be practical.
• The spine. Can you read it from five feet away? If not, neither can browsers in a book store.
• Blurbs. Keep them relevant and short. The best highway billboards are 5-11 words because motorists are driving by at 70 m.p.h. Guess what? Consumers are driving by your book sitting on a table at the same relevant speed. The human mind cannot comprehend too many words at a glance. So give them short, sweet blurbs. If you are in love with your blurbs, than print them all in full on the last inside pages of the book.
• Consider including a mention on the cover of a forward written by a famous person. “Forward by Barack Obama” or “Forward by Oprah Winfrey” or  “Forward by Best Selling Author John Grisham.”
• Do not overlook creating content on the back inside flaps because consumers pick up a book after looking at the spine, front cover and back and then open the book to find the price or more information.
• Print your cover out on a laser printer. Don’t just review your cover on a computer screen which will make it look considerably better. Print it out actual size and make a determination using that printed version.
• Pictures are worth 1000 words. Use photos and illustrations to describe what would take too long to explain.
• When choosing a book design ask yourself how the cover will look on your website home page. Consistency and redundancy are important so you’ll want to use the same design elements on your website that you do on your book cover. For this reason, I suggest using the same designer for your book cover and for your website if possible.
• Show your cover designs to as many people in your target group of potential readers. Get their reactions and opinions. It costs you nothing and you’ll likely find out something you did not realize before.

Bottom line: Get involved early in the entire book publishing design process and get at least three creative concepts for the front cover, back cover, and spine. Don’t let it be the ‘last thing’ you do.

And finally, the most important rule in book publishing and marketing – Know Your Reader! All books have a target reader and in all genres there are varying degrees of readers. Targeting the reader who is most likely to purchase your book is critical.  Authors who know the demographics of their readers are equipped to assemble the fonts and graphics best able to grab the reader’s eye and instantly convey the message that “this book is for you.”

When you work with your graphic designer on the book covers and spine, your chances of success are greatly increased. If your designer does not welcome your participation, hire another designer.

Scott Lorenz – Book publicist Scott Lorenz is President of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that has a special knack for working with authors to help them get all the publicity they deserve and more. Lorenz works with bestselling authors and self-published authors promoting all types of books, whether it’s their first book or their 15th book. He’s handled publicity for books by CEOs, CIA Officers, Navy SEALS, Homemakers, Fitness Gurus, Doctors, Lawyers and Adventurers. His clients have been featured by Good Morning America, FOX & Friends, CNN, ABC News, New York Times, Nightline, TIME, PBS, LA Times, USA Today, Washington Post, Woman’s World, & Howard Stern to name a few. Learn more about Westwind Communications’ book marketing approach at www.book-marketing-expert.com or contact Lorenz at scottlorenz@westwindcos.com or by phone at 734-667-2090.