
A book cover is always the number one marketing tool. At Virtue Book Publishers, the careless adage that you never judge a book by its cover is a proclamation overtaken by time. We keep getting more questions about secrets to good book design, production, and layout as more authors opt for independent publishing routes.
Here are a few tips on good book cover design!
1. The title should be big and easy to read. This is more important than ever. It is easy for a customer to pass over a good book in a bookshop display shelf just because the book title is not legible or visible. To make a book title visible one should avoid calligraphic fonts in the founding text (first) and rather employ a bold choice of colours.
2. No font explosions! (And avoid special styling.) Usually, a cover should not use more than 2 fonts. Avoid the temptation to put words in caps, italics caps, outlined caps, etc. Do not “shape” the type either.
3. Do not use cheap clip art on your cover. I’m talking about the stuff that comes free with Microsoft Word or other cheap layout programs. Quality stock photography is OK.
4. Finally: Don’t design your cover. The only people who should consider designing their covers are professional graphic designers—and even then, it’s not advisable.
Here is one of our great covers at Virtue Books!
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