Even though many people subscribe to the aphorism that states one should never judge a book based on its cover, when it comes to publishing and marketing a book, the cover is still a very important part since most of the time, it will decide whether a potential reader will even bother to check your book out instead of the book sitting next to it on the shelf. If you already have a functional cover design for your book and are content with it, there are still good reasons why you need to change the cover design of your book…such as:
The back cover is filled with a wall of text
It can be tempting to use the back cover to tell readers everything that they can expect from the book, but don’t go overboard with the text. If you put too much text on the back cover, you end up making the design look too cluttered and unappealing, which means it’s going to do the opposite of what you intended: it’s going to turn off readers. The better way is to use bullet points and clear, straight to the point statements. This approach will make the information easy to glean with just a glance (which means you may even end up attracting potential readers who weren’t intending to read the back cover, but ended up catching a sentence or two).
The spine is neglected
Unless the book is part of a series that needs a uniform spine design (so that it looks good when stacked together on the shelf), you need to make sure that the book spine is consistent with the rest of the cover. Additionally, don’t forget all the necessary information such as the logo of the business/publisher and the title and author name.
The front cover lacks a tagline or one-line synopsis
Unless you’re a world-famous author who can sell books on name recognition alone, your book cover should include a tagline or a single sentence synopsis that will tell readers what the book is about. This will help the book stand out and make it easier for readers to decide whether they need to check what’s inside or not.
The image isn’t of high quality
In this day and age of self-publishing, it has become easy for self-published authors to let slip some poor quality or mediocre photos on their covers. Remember that images on your screen do not necessarily look the same when printed out, and there are cases where images that looked fine on the computer monitor ended up being pixilated and washed out in print. If you’re not experienced enough in this area, it is best to work with a graphic artist or your printer in order to print some copies for proofing.
You don’t have rights to use the artwork or photo
Once again, this has become an issue when the self-publishing industry expanded, thanks to the Internet. Many self-published authors tend to use stock photos that they don’t have legal rights to use, not because they want to infringe anybody’s copyright, but because they don’t completely understand the complexities of Intellectual Property Laws. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re legally covered just because a photo has been modified slightly or because you’ve credited the photographer. Brush up on basic copyrights law or consult an IP lawyer if you’re not sure whether you have rights to use a specific image.
Image credit: wetwebwork on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]