We’ve all heard the idiom, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Unfortunately, when it comes to selling books, these are not words to live by.  

After the hardest part is behind you (writing your book), you then have to start thinking about designing your cover. Whether you design it yourself or hire a professional to create your book cover, it’s important that a concept is readily established to guide the process.

Depending on book genre, your cover may have a pre-established aesthetic to follow. It’s helpful to look at books you own or go to the bookstore to examine different covers from your genre.  This can give you an idea of what you like or dislike about cover design.

It’s exciting to see the different design routes taken to convey the contents of a book. Think about some of your favorite classics and their different covers.  What stands out to you?  Take Animal Farm by George Orwell, for example.  While there have been many versions printed, most of the covers depict its allegorical figure, the pig, “Old Major.”

In many cases, book covers do not follow a design pattern to reflect its contents in a literal way.  Choosing instead to focus on typography, a single image, or color scheme, this approach can be an effective and evocative way to sell books by simply creating a feeling. 

Regardless of genre, book covers are meant to entice the reader to want to know more. Whether you go for bold graphics with more design elements or minimalistic lines and text, your book cover should be eye-catching.

Once you have a book cover design concept in mind, then you just have to execute it!

If you’re designing your book cover on your own, image quality is extremely important. A lot of graphics found online may be low-resolution. If you want the graphics to print clearly and look professional, the DPI (dots per inch) of your images should be at least 300 dpi! 

No matter what design approach you take, you may want to think about highlighting different elements to make your book stand out even more. There are many ways to do this - here’s where we can help:

Our Diamond 3D covers highlight a couple of elements on your cover to make them pop! Diamond 3D itself is a raised coating that accentuates the printed colors beneath it. We have it available in three options:

Diamond 3D Clear is a clear, raised coating that is printed on top of your artwork to give it a high-gloss raised “3D” effect that you can see and feel!

Diamond 3D Foil is a raised metallic foil coating that can be used to highlight elements of your book cover (most often your book title) to really catch the eye.
Currently available in gold, silver, red, or blue.

Diamond 3D Smart Textures use the same technology as our Diamond 3D Clear coating. We’ll apply one of our available textures to your entire cover to imitate the feel of a non-paper cover (such as linen or leather). Our graphic designers will customize the background to make sure printed elements of your cover aren’t overshadowed and that all of your text is still legible.

Now more than ever it’s important to put time and thought into the execution of your book cover. In a competitive market, it’s necessary to stand out and create an identity through not only your words, but the quality of your product. An enticing book cover can be the best marketing tool you have to sell your books.

Interested in learning more about our book printing services? Partner with us to self-publish your next book.