Self Publishing and You- Part 4: Get a Good Cover

#4 Get a good cover.  This is another slam on indie authors and it has merit.  Even as an artist with a graphic design background, I still pick novels based on the cover.  Sometimes just the spine will do it for me.  We all do this.  The cover tells me, as a reader, a lot of things about the book and the author instantly that I'm not even consciously aware of at the time, whether it’s really true of the story or its creator.  It’s all about first impressions.

If the art grabs my attention and takes me on a journey, you've teased my interest enough to want to know more.  Clicking on a book jacket thumbnail on Amazon is the equivalent of picking up a book in a physical, brick and mortar store.  Just like a test drive, I'm already associating ownership with the book, all because of the picture.  This picture also tells me how deep the author is.  The tones set the mood of the book, be they dark or light.  Colors evoke emotions: passion, fear, excitement.

I got all that out of a book jacket.  The problem is the same true if I don't like the picture.  The worst thing that can happen to you is for me to not click on it.  That's it.  Your jacket didn't even catch my eye.  I didn't even see it.  I would say that your book is dead to me, but that would imply that I ever knew it existed.

What could be worse than that?  Well, I could look at your picture and think that it looks amateurish which, to my subconscious mind,  means you're an amateur and not worth my time because there are so many other books that do catch my attention, that do look professional and interesting.  And if I think your cover is lame, weak, poorly thought out, overly simplistic, unprofessional, I also think the very same about your story.  Your story could be excellent.  If I even went so far as to read your description, it was from a perspective of skepticism.

When I was in college, the art director was my professor for a color theory class.  He told us a story about going to a nice restaurant out of town.  He went in the place was dead on a Friday night in a large city.  The place was clean and well maintained.  The service was excellent and friendly and the food was top notch.  It was so dead, in fact that the owner came out to see how the meal was.  Tom, my professor, asked his if business was always so slow and he confirmed that it had been.  They had recently bought the place and renovated, had a big opening night to rave reviews from the customers only for none of them to return.

At this point Tom had taken in the atmosphere pretty well and what he’d already noticed was that it color scheme was a pale, somber blue with yellow trim and lighting.  Tom pointed this out and said that blue was a very calming color but, just like its other meaning, it could bring people down.  When they thought of his restaurant they weren’t thinking about the great food and service, they were remembering something of the atmosphere of the place and decided to eat somewhere livelier that make them feel happy.  This was likely a subconscious decision.  

A few months later, Tom returned to town and decided to stop back into the restaurant.  This time was during the week and the place was packed.  It also had an entirely new color scheme with a lot of greens, bright yellows and oranges.

What makes for a great cover?   

It’s going to vary depending on your genre, subject matter and tone.   Study your genre.

What makes for a bad cover?  

 This one is easier to answer.  

·        Grainy or blurry pictures (and not blurry in an artistic way) say you did it yourself without the right tools or know how. 

·        Font type, color and place are off.  Any of these can kill it but often I find all three to be in question.  

o       You want your title to leap off the page. 

o       Dark background light font, which white has been done to death because IT WORKS! 

o       Light background, dark and bold fonts. 

o       The title needs to be placed top center usually. If you can pull off putting it bottom center, that’s fine.  What you find a lot of times, amateurs push the title and author to the corners so that they don’t cover up their pretty image.  You title needs to be bold and dramatic like your art.  It’s all part of your graphic design message and it’s important that images and text work together to create a visually appealing product.

·        Too much going on at once.  You can do a lot with Photoshop to blend one image element into another but it confuses the message you’re trying to send about what this book is about.  

So how do you get a good cover or, better, a GREAT cover?

If you're artistically inclined and have the skill set to make your own cover, you probably can save yourself some time and money.  I would study jackets first.  Go to your personal library of books and look at the cover art of those books you’ve bought.  Look at the New York Times Best Seller list and then look up the covers for those books and see what has already proven to work.  Then just browse books in your genre on Amazon.  Immediately you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.  There will be plenty of standouts, so go in with the intention of finding the bad ones.  It won’t take you long.  Now, the trick is to get that polished look and feel without ripped anything off.

If you’re not a visual artist with digital art skills, maybe you have a friend or family member that is.  If you've built a good network, hopefully you included artists in it.  Like I said before, you may be able to get a free or cheap cover of high quality simply by promoting the artist in your network.  Just like you, artists want to get their name out there.  Promote the hell outta them.  Anytime someone says, “Hey I love your cover,” say thanks I was done by Jill Schmill, who is an excellent artist, even if she has an unfortunate name.”

We are sensory creatures.  We see people we’re attracted to and it evokes emotions and a physical reaction.  The same can be said of a nice car.  The Challenger makes me wet, which is an odd reaction for a guy.  We are attracted to the things we want in an aesthetic way and you want your cover art to be one of the things that people are attracted to, not repelled by.  And it’s your baby.  Don’t accept second rate work.  If the artist returns something that you don’t like, stand your ground and get it or take your business somewhere else.

Next post in the series: Bring Multiple Products to the Market.

Listening to Metric: Gold Guns Girls