Judge the Book by Its Cover: A Book Cover Design How-To

I recently had the opportunity to guest blog for Curiouser Editing, a company focused on helping authors write their books. My blog post was about book cover design, and gave a few ideas on how to make a book cover design look good.

The five main points I listed were: Intrigue, Relevance, Originality, Readability, and Drawing or Photo?

• With any design, you want to draw your audience in with intrigue. There must be something to hook them; to make them take a closer look at what you’re marketing.

• Your design must also be relevant to what you’re promoting. You wouldn’t put a picture of Great Aunt Susan on your daughter’s first birthday invitations unless there was some sort of relevant connection, would you?
• Your design must be original! This is especially true with a book cover design. You’re not writing a story we’ve already read, so make sure the design is unique, too!
• Make sure the text on your design is legible. We live in a lazy society; don’t make us work hard to read your message, because we probably just won’t read it!
• The choice between a drawing or photo for a design can be tough, but there are pros and cons for each!

Read the full post at Curiouser Editing.