Get it covered
Despite the old adage, the first thing anyone judges a book on is its cover… and many readers won’t go much further if it doesn’t appeal. Ensure your cover makes the first impression your book deserves with advice from Silver Wood Publishing
Silver Wood Publishing
An outstanding cover makes a vital contribution to your book’s success in an increasingly competitive marketplace. But what constitutes outstanding when it comes to cover design?
Professional cover designers use their years of experience, along with knowledge of the marketplace and current trends, to inform their work. At SilverWood, our three book cover design keywords are:
• Attract
• Inform
• Sell
Attract the book browser. Inform the potential reader. Sell to your target readership.
A trained cover designer is a specialist in making books impactful while ensuring they conform to current market trends. They will select the right images and make the right typographic (fonts, spacing and style) choices to clearly communicate the tone and flavour of your book. Usually they will present a strong and simple design that suits your book’s genre while avoiding cliché.
Realities of the marketplace
Many indie and self-publishing authors request a book cover design that re-defines a genre. However, it doesn’t always work to be too experimental and innovative unless you are a known brand or have a massive author platform. At SilverWood, our experience tells us that self-published books must fit within a genre and meet reader’s expectations.
Our cover design team advises against anything too experimental. A successful cover design for a self-published book treads a careful line between being bold and avoiding a formulaic appearance. A self-published cover that is too quirky or unusual can be unappealing to the book buyer because it strikes an odd note compared to what they’re used to seeing within a particular genre.