Tips and Talk on Book Cover Design

Cover Design is one of 9 new topics for A Writer of History. So, I thought I would search out some resources from the web that might be helpful.

Here’s Janie Tousignant with 10 Book Cover Design Best Practices … “A great book cover design is essential if you want your book to sell. Here are 10 best practices to follow to make sure your cover is up to par.” More here.

Book Cover Design Funamentals from Rapido Books … “The publishing world has transformed in significant ways over the past several decades—with the emergence of the Internet, print-on-demand and ebooks, each having contributed to the birth of the indie author movement.” More here.

Latest New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers

Tobias van Schneider who has a blog focused on design takes us behind the scenes in an interview with cover designer Janet Hansen. “It’s also important to remember too that while writing is an art form, ultimately a book is a product and its cover is an advertisement. My job is to find a balance between capturing the essence of the book while also making it “commercial” enough to entice retailers into marketing it and readers into buying it.” The interview includes six of seven images showing the evolution of a particular cover design that I found fascinating.

On Reedsy.com there’s an entire article on back cover design. “When it comes to book design, your thoughts probably don’t jump straight to a book’s back — it’s not as sexy or attention-grabbing as, say, the front. But it happens to be one of the most important sales tools at your disposal.”

From mybestseller.com.uk we have Tips from a Professional Designer. In this article, Mila of Mila Book Covers brings her expertise to the interview. “In my opinion, the most common mistake people make when designing book covers is definitely using poor, inappropriate, and outdated fonts. Add an obvious drop shadow to it and you’ll get a “DIY – looking” cover. Also, using non-complementary colors pretty much destroys the cover too, as well as using too many colors.”

In Judge Away: A cover can actually tell you a lot about a book, CBC’s Philip Drost shares thoughts from designers, authors and booksellers on the topic of cover design. “If you’ve got that shirtless cowboy looking out into the field, his truck nearby, you know what’s going to be in that book,” cover designer Brigid Pearson told The Sunday Magazine.”

Enjoy!

FOR MORE ON READING & WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION FOLLOW A WRITER OF HISTORY 

M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel is THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, a dual timeline set in Hong Kong. Mary’s other novels, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from AmazonNookKoboGoogle Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on FacebookTwitter and Goodreads or on her website www.mktod.com.

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2 Responses

  1. My uncle had a historical novel, set in 12th-century Italy, published with a scene on the front cover of a half-naked woman fleeing from a sinister house in the background. There is no such scene in the book.
    I suspect that the cover had been commissioned for another book, which was never published. It happens, and I have heard of worse examples.

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