Your Book Cover, the Book Marketing Element You Don’t Want to Skip and Reasonably Priced Resources, Part One
Countdown to Book Launch: #2 - the making of a book cover
My book with co-author Julie Murkette releases Sept 2023. When it comes to book marketing, I practice what I preach. It is April 2023, five months before pub date. Launch date diary posts document our pre-launch activities with resources and tasks for your use in your own book marketing.
Book Cover: Diary Entry #2, Part One of Two
First, your Book Cover IS Book Marketing.
What do I mean by this?
You have heard the expression “don’t judge a book by its cover.” That sentiment is simply NOT true.
Book buyers DO judge books by their covers. A book cover is not just something that you have to have to publish a book. It is not simply a part of the book.
Your book cover is the first book marketing that your prospective book buyer sees. Think of your book cover as your ad. It should match and convey all of the fantastic content in the pages within.
The Many Book Marketing Jobs of a Book Cover
Inform
Entertain
Entice
Brand
Finally, your book cover must convince your target audience to pick up your book and to buy it! It’s a tall order. We had a guest on the podcast, Auhtor, Kelly Simmons, who joked about the decision to purchase a book - “It’s 12 dollars, people, why is buying a book such a hard decision?” The reason, we decided, is because the decision to buy a book is a decision to take the time to read the book. Buying = Commitment. It is also a commitment to bring the book into your home. A book buyer wants to bring a beautiful book into their home.
I beg you, do NOT skimp on the book cover. It should be a budget item on even the smallest book marketing plan budgets.
Think of your book cover as your ad. It should match and convey all of the fantastic content in the pages within.
My new book, written with my co-author, Julie Murkette, titled Get Your Book Seen and Sold: The Essential Book Marketing and Publishing Guide launches on September 22, 2023.
Our Book Cover Creation Process
First, we reached out to reasonably priced book cover designers in September of 2022. That’s a full year before publication of the book. Why a full year? So many reasons, but the two most important reasons:
Your book cover will set the tone for your book marketing - it’s the representation of your book.
Many book distribution outlets allow you to add your book cover image well before launch for pre-sales of your book. You want to take advantage of these opportunities.
Back to book designers. There ARE reasonably priced book cover designers who will come up with a professionally designed book cover that can compete with any other trade book cover out there.
The book designer you select should provide a critical items. Check to make your designer provides the following BEFORE you sign:
Trade book cover file for print book ( if you plan to sell a print book)
Ebook cover file
(note: a print book cover file is different with different specs from an ebook cover file)
Psd files for each cover file. The psd files give you the option to change something before publishing if you need to change something on the cover.
You want to make sure that your contract says that you own the image, that you can use it everywhere - on your website, in your social media, etc.
Finally, ask the cover designer if they require attribution to them on your book cover as the designer - most request this attribution and with a good job done, you would be happy to give it to them.
Julie and I hired two designers to come up with ideas for my book cover. For less than $500 we had two designers coming up with ideas - that is how important a book cover is. We wanted to compare and contrast different ideas.
Our plan was to get two designer’s ideas, share the cover with BETA readers and decide on a final cover.
BETA reader is a fancy term for people that you trust to give you an honest opinion on your book cover - what they liked, what they didn’t like, and overall impressions
More book cover designer ideas can be found at this link, by Reedsy. Although I have not used Reedsy for book cover design, their “marketplace” seems well-vetted. Do your due diligence before hiring anyone.
In Part Two of Your Book Cover
In the next post, I’ll show you what the two book designers that we hired came up with, the feedback from out beta readers and how we came up with a final version of our book cover. Plus, a special discount for readers of the Get Your Book Seen and Sold newsletter / podcast from the owner of the book designer firm, ILMC.
Feel free to ask any questions on hiring a book cover designer and the elements needed for a kick-butt book cover design.
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