A Book's Cover Can Sell the BookThe old saying that you can’t tell a book by its cover may be true, but a book’s cover will usually determine how well it is going to sell. In fact, a book cover is likely the most important part of the entire design of a book because it has the power to make or break sales. “Many books sell well even though they aren’t really good books simply because they’re well-designed, well-packaged, and seem to get the exposure that others don’t,” says John Peterson, an independent designer with Koechel Peterson & Associates Inc., a firm that creates covers for a number of publishers. The book cover has been described as the book’s billboard. Because most books have small marketing budgets, the cover design is often a consumer’s first introduction to it. A book's cover simply must make a favourable first impression! “Cover design becomes even more important when the author is unknown,” says Matthew Wall of Gospel Supplies in Tucson, Arizona. “Unless the author is somebody with instant recognition, the cover is the only thing that prompts a person to pick up a book.” Your book’s title and cover have about five seconds to grab the attention of a casual browser. Designers are also paying more attention to the back cover. If the front cover is able to draw attention to the book, most people will then flip to the back for more information. Your back cover has about thirty seconds to hook the reader, and often includes details such as endorsements and some information about the author. The book that is most likely to be purchased has an eye-catching front cover that gets the customer to pick it up, and an informative back cover that stresses benefits, and convinces the reader there is something between the covers for him or her. But it’s not just the cover! Other things that are part of the larger question of book design include: interior, trim size, paper, photographs, illustrations, chapter title pages and subheads, font size, ink colour, footnotes, front and back matter, and typesetting. More on marketing:
A good cover means good distribution.
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