Posts filed under ‘Book Design’
Where’s the Fairest Cover of Them All?
Mirror, mirror on the wall. How do I look? Do you see the connection between my story and face? Does my name intrigue you? Will they, the readers, like me?
It is fair to say, as readers, we are blanketed by vanity. When browsing for books, the seeker in us scans for an eye catching cover. We read the back blip of storyline and look again at the front cover. We then fan through the interior pages to scan the blocks of text. Appearance matters. Your cover is the representative to your story, your writing and you.
A professional-looking book cover is a key factor in how your book will be perceived. Like it or not, it’s an inescapable truth in the business of book marketing. The outer appearance, or face of your book, is the initial point of contact with your reader. You have three seconds to make a first impression and another eight once your book is in hand to grab and hold the potential reader’s attention.
Invest time in selecting the right cover idea. Understand that your concept, title and design all need to fluently intertwine. Capture certain elements in your mind during your brainstorming:
- Establish credibility: Is the book cover design visually attractive? Does it have congruent elements? Is it in good taste?
- Incorporate theme: Does the book cover design effectively convey your author message and style? Will it appeal to your target market?
- Creative and Original: Does the book cover design create intrigue and interest? Does it stand out among other books in your genre?
An Assignment: Take a trip to the bookstore. Pick out several books similar to your subject matter in varying sizes and colors. Lay the books together and step back a few feet. Take note of which sizes and colors attract your attention. Are you able to read the titles? At that distance you should be able to. Now take a closer look. Read the back and compare that to the front image. Is there a direct representation or subtle interpretation? Try to understand the relationship between cover and story. Don’t forget to jot down what appeals to you or any ideas that inspire you.
Where does your cover inspiration come from? The plot, your main character, the street they grew up on, or maybe some subtle cue within your story. Find the moment in your book that ties everything together — that harmonious moment that interprets the definition of your story.
[Mirror to Book Cover] And yes, if you follow these suggestions, they will love you.
–Melissa
A Breakdown of Your Cover
Do first impressions matter? The answer is yes, even if the opinion is later altered due to, let’s say, your book’s content. And so, for the sake of your three-second introduction to the reading public, your book will need to flaunt its gist through a creative and custom-inspired book cover.
A book is a book is a book, and when readers are browsing the cyber shelves, your cover needs to measure up to your interior content. Preview your book successfully by evaluating each element of the book cover and make it relevant to your story.
Title — Place yourself in the reader’s shoes when making your final decision for your book’s title. Does your selection make sense to the reader? Is it easy to remember? When choosing your title make sure it conveys your message and fits the design you have in mind. As a writer, try not to get too caught up in creating a clever title, sometimes straightforward is better.
Subtitle — If needed, elaborate further into your book’s subject with a subtitle. A good subtitle specifically explains your book through a descriptive line complimenting your title. Include any searchable key words that are not in your title, where appropriate, into your subtitle.
Cover Design — Apply a professional design service to your cover. Your title should be legible at a glance, avoiding small or faint text as well as busy backgrounds. Select a font or two for your text, staying away from decorative fonts to continue the professional appeal.
Choose a strong image that conveys your book and integrates with your title. A single image usually impacts more than multiple images. Remember that your image is second to your title, so beware of overpowering.
Continue your congruent design of colors and fonts through the spine and back cover. Make sure all text is easy to read.
Back or Panel Copy — Summarize your book with directness. Describe the premise of your story while highlighting the feeling intertwined.
Blurb — Endorsements by readers do help. They are references for your work and we all appreciate recommendations. Place your endorsement on your back cover, unless it is from a well-known personality in which you may then add it to the front cover.
Spine — Simple, easy to read, and viewable sideways. Usually will not include subtitle due to space and design.
Bio — Briefly and eloquently state who you are and your most recent accomplishments. Try to keep your author description around three sentences.
Invest in your cover design and layout. Your story is one of a kind and your cover should be as well. Make an impact on potential readers and create a marketing edge to your book. As a strong contributor to book sales, prepare your book to be judged by its cover.
-Melissa
Visit Wordclay to review options for enhancing your book’s appeal and cover design.
Wordclay Launches New, Improved Cover Design Wizard: Take the Poll & Provide Helpful Feedback on Our Online Publishing Program
That’s right! Wordclay has given the cover design wizard a complete overhaul, so our authors can now layout their covers as well as test different styles and themes with even better, more accessible online design tools.
But building and maintaining a free self-publishing company is work that is never completely finished, and that’s the reason we need your help. By simply logging in to your account, uploading a manuscript and testing our cover wizard, you can submit the informative feedback that keeps our company evolving.
Remember too, if you don’t have an account with Wordclay, registration is easy in addition to being free, and we never distributed your contract information to any other company, so you can be certain annoying spam and unwanted e-mails are never a problem.
So if you can spare 15 minutes and help us reshape the future of publishing, log in to your account and test any many design tools, themes and cover layouts as you desire. Once you’ve formed an opinion, take our simple poll (located below) and perhaps even submit a comment about your experience.
We’re always looking to improve our program and services, and here’s your chance to ensure that our company grows to meet your specific publishing needs and desires. Thanks again for your participation!
Introducing Wordclay’s New Cover Service: DIY Cover Conversion
Greetings, Earthlings,
Wordbot here, and today Wordclay has authorized this publishing robot to announce our new cover service.
Wordclay and its professional publishing staff have done it again. Since beginning the development and adaptation of our free online publishing software, we have always remembered the author’s desire for control. Now, you can control your cover down to the last detail with Wordclay’s DIY Cover Conversion Service.
But what exactly is the DIY Cover Conversion service?
Good question. Where before your publishing options were limited to the free template cover you could easily design using the publishing wizard, now you can e-mail us the print-ready PDF of your cover, which we’ll promptly submit to our printers. This way, you can control every detail about your new book’s cover. From the back cover text to the images on your front cover to the placement of your author photograph, you choose the best representation for your publication.
What’s the catch?
No catch. Honestly. Would a robot like me lie? If you have the design experience and you can design your own cover using InDesign or another comparable program, simply follow our cover dimension guidelines, leave room for your barcode (should you purchase the Wordclay ISBN and Channel Distribution) and e-mail us your final copy in a PDF form – it’s that easy.
So what does it cost?
Base cost is only $25.00, which guarantees that your personalized cover is linked to your book and title. As you’ll read in the service description, there may be an added fee should your file need tweaking. Say the spine is slightly off because of the page count, or perhaps your trim lines need to be nudged a certain direction – our designers are happy to help. But we have to cover their time, so you may experience an extremely small markup. Or you can always make the adjustments yourself. Contact a costumer representative with your file and the tentative page count of your publication in order to ensure your cover is picture perfect.
What will you need for the Cover Conversion service?
All you need are your images and your design expertise. Of course, your images have to be original, or you have to possess the permission to use them for the cover of your book. Wordclay may ask about these permissions, so we can avoid claims of plagiarism. But if you’re submitting your own artwork, artwork you have express permission to use or artwork that you’ve bought, you’re in the clear. Simply lay out your cover per our guidelines, PDF that sucker and send your finished cover our way.
Are there other options?
Sure. You can always upgrade to a custom cover design and contract one of our illustrators to design a specific cover to your preference. Or you can purchase Stock Cover Art, submit a jpeg or tiff file that contains original artwork (for which you have the permission) and have our experienced designers incorporate the image into your elegant cover design for you. That’s what Wordclay is about: Options!
For more information, feel free to contact a customer service representative via Live Chat or e-mail. Or simply leave a question in the comments box below. After all, as our newest video states, we’re not out to get you. We just want to provide the best online publishing service out there today!
Wordbot upload completed. Transmission ended.
The Series Publication Sequel: How Print-On-Demand Can Benefit Literary Magazines and Trade Periodicals
For those of you who haven’t yet read the comments on the Periodical and ISSN blogs, Valya is thinking of starting a journal, and she’s wondering if Wordclay, a free print-on-demand publisher, is the right choice.
Who can blame her? The idea of a print-on-demand periodical is a relatively new concept, even though I’m not sure exactly why. To me at least, it just makes sense to order as many copies of a journal as you need, so you aren’t out hundreds of dollars on unused copies that end up collecting dust in your cramped office.
Still, Valya has questions, and I aim to answer them.
Valya: “You say, ‘You can always pay a small price for the Stock Cover Art and submit artwork with directions for our professional designers.’ What if I want to design my own cover with my own photography? Is there an acceptable format that I can send to you to have printed?
Justin: You can design the complete cover if you are capable of doing so. You can also contract your own designer to lay it out for you. The exact specs for each of our formats are in the FAQs toolbox. The best formats to use when sending the cover would be a layered .psd file or .tiff file, and if possible a PDF of the full cover as well.
But unless you’re an experienced designer, I don’t recommend laying the cover out yourself. The whole concept behind Wordclay is DIY publishing through being affordable.
Not only will you devote tons of time to laying out a cover, or perhaps tons of money hiring a designer (and you’ll still have to pay Wordclay a custom quoted fee to use the cover you provide anyway), but often times the smallest formatting error can throw the whole design off for the printers.
For example, you may miss a trim line or you may not leave enough room for the imprint or barcode – what then? Your cover looks only half as good as it could have – that’s what.
That said, the two best options (in my opinion), are either (more…)
The horror of book formatting – House of Leaves
Had I thought about this morning’s blog a bit sooner, I would have brought in my copy of House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, to illustrate the epitome of a book designer’s nightmare (kind of apropos, considering the subject matter of the book).
But I didn’t expect to find all the crazy formatting inside (and trust me, the few pages from the book posted on Amazon don’t even begin to show all the craziness). I mean, you’ve got the basics: quotes on the chapter starts, footnotes, pull quotes within the text.
But there’s actually three styles of footnotes: one from the author of the book within the book, one from the main character researching the book, the house, the film about the house, and one from the publishers—I cannot even begin to describe how convoluted everything is. (more…)
When creativity is too much of a good thing.
I freakin’ love designing title pages and chapter starts. It’s a small thing, but brings me a little bit of joy, everyday.
The best is when an author, who’s purchased Custom Typesetting, has no real preference for the design. They don’t care about the font style, the font size, where I place the text, or my adding a glyph to dress up the page. They tell me that I’m the professional and I know what’ll work best for their book.
So, I watermark an innocuous glyph behind the chapter title, dropping the chapter start about a third of the way down on the page. Or I right-align the chapter title, choose a really big font, and make it 50% black. Or find a really graphic, crazy-looking font, letting the letters in the title dress up the page.
And the book looks good. And, mostly, the author was right to trust in me. I’ve surprised them with what we’re capable of doing… I’ve helped them realize their vision when they didn’t even know they had one… I’ve made real, in black (or gray) characters on a white page, what they saw in their head but didn’t know how to tell me. And I feel great!
But sometimes, not very often, I mess up. I overestimate their flexibility, doing something way too modern for their tastes, and making them think I don’t know what I’m doing. I create a design that’s the exact opposite of their vision, though they didn’t specifically tell me what their vision entails, or I wasn’t hearing right when they tried to communicate it. Or I just go overboard, using an element from an image they’ve supplied as a repeating motif in the book — and choosing their least favorite part of the image. (more…)
