So, covers should be eye-catching, and consistent with a book’s promise and/or genre. That is, they should deliver “break-through” and “convey meaning.”  In my previous article, “Five ways to ‘SPARC’ Great Design,” I share these principles of book cover design: 

1. Simplicity breaks through, so don’t try to stuff everything onto the cover. Rather, focus! 
2. Prioritize your communications hierarchy.
3. Assess designs against the brief, not personal taste
4. Real-life: assess design in situ
5. Consistency, consistency, consistency

In case you missed that piece, here’s a link https://diymfa.com/community/book-cover-design.

Today, let’s take a look at some book cover trends from 2021. These covers are mainly sourced from “the best of 2021” lists, compiled by Kirkus, Goodreads, and other industry sources. The below designs illustrate trends, but can certainly be grouped in different ways. Note that this list isn’t meant to be exhaustive or used prescriptively.

With those caveats in mind, see if you’ve noticed any of these book cover trends:

1. Simple, yet Evocative

As digital book sales and ads continue to grow, there’s been a long-term trend towards simplicity to break through. This helps designs register at a glance or as a small thumbnail image. The below examples use bold, sans serif fonts with a color contrast that improve readability, especially in an online environment. At the same time, the imagery behind the bold titles are emotional or evocative. 

2. Jewel Tones

Another effect that can be seen layered with the bold fonts are jewel-toned colors. See how the rich patina of purple, blue, and magenta hues is paired with a high contrast font color to allow the titles to visually pop? These particular examples contain floral elements, which also played a big role in the cover of my novel, Goodbye, Orchid.

3. Abstract

In addition to the use of clean, bold fonts, another trend that can add distinctiveness is an abstract art background. This use of shapes and colors in unique combinations can create a one-of-a-kind look. At first glance, these designs may appear to be pure abstraction. However, as the cover draws you in, the reader starts to observe recognizable objects within the subtle images. For instance, notice the human eye shape in Detransition, Baby, and facial profiles in the Rorshach-like inkblot in The Push. These details add visual interest that can lead the reader to continue to study the design.

Geometric abstraction 

A sub-style of abstract designs are covers that use geometric, or hard-edged, shapes. Here are some examples:

4. Illustrated vs. Realistic vs. Graphical

When it comes to depicting people or objects on covers, there’s a decision point between illustrated, realistic or graphics images. Romance, in particular, has increasingly animated its characters (see Talia Hibbert, Emily Henry, Lucy Parker, and Farrah Rochon’s cover examples). 

Compare that generally lighter tone with the gravitas of the more realistic images from Namina Forma, Karin Tanabe and Fiona Davis’ books below.

Another treatment can be highly designed, ornate graphics. 

Review all the styles we’ve studied so far. What emotions do each evoke? How do they differ from one another? 

5. Special Topics: Monochrome, Retro

There are, of course, many more style routes that designers can choose. Let’s contemplate two final trends. First, a monochrome background with a contrasting color can be visually arresting. The below black-hued covers create an understated, somber tone. The generous use of negative (empty) space contributes to a feeling of gravitas. 

Monochrome can be another way to deliver the simplicity we discussed earlier. In these examples, the simple black and gold combination can effectively break-through in a sea of color:

One final special trend is the use of retro covers and fonts. These can be chosen deliberately to convey a certain feel to readers. For instance, Harlem Shuffle is set in the 1960’s, and The Final Revival of Opal & Nev takes place in the 1970’s, making the old-timey colors, fonts and images consistent with the stories’ setting. How do these make you feel versus the other types of covers?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look through these book cover trends, spanning simple yet evocative, jewel tones, and abstract covers; the comparison of illustrated vs. realistic vs. graphical covers; and a peek into some special trends, including monochrome and retro covers.  

Remember, none of these book cover trends are “right” or “wrong.” Book cover assessment is more about the fit of the cover to convey the book’s promise to the reader, and as with all art, is highly subjective!

Tell us in the comments: What are your favorite book cover trends from 2021?

Carol Van Den Hende is the award-winning author of Goodbye, Orchid, a public speaker, and MBA with 20+ years’ experience in marketing, strategy and insights.. Carol is passionate about simplifying marketing concepts into actionable steps that authors need for publishing success. Please sign up for Carol’s newsletter at https://carolvandenhende.com/contact or linktr.ee/cvdh

The post #5onFri: Five Book Cover Trends from 2021 appeared first on DIY MFA.

By nature of what we do as writers, it can be easy to forget that visuals are incredibly powerful for promotion and delivering messages. But their power can’t be ignored: 

• Visuals with color increase readers’ recall and attention spans by 82%
• Facebook posts with graphics perform 37% better than posts with just text
• People can process images significantly faster than they process words

But it’s a rare author that’s a graphic design expert—I’m certainly not! And you don’t have to be, either. Fortunately for us, there are excellent tools available that simplify the design process and allow any author to create excellent graphics to promote their books with minimal stress. 

For the purposes of this post, I’ll be focusing on Canva, a free design tool that I rely on for do it yourself book promotion. 

Step One: Gather Your Graphics

The first thing you’ll need is a high-res (high resolution) image of your book cover. To really max your optics, ask your publisher or cover designer if it’s possible to get elements from the cover image too—especially the background. 

You can also get creative with this if you like, and create some additional images inspired by your book. For example, for my most recent novel, I collaborated with a talented artist to create an illustration of a fictional creature from the world I created for the story. 

Step Two: Take Inventory 

What kinds of graphics will you need for your campaign? Each social media channel has different optimal dimensions, as does your website, your newsletter, and other channels you might wish to include!

For me, this list of graphics tends to look something like this: 

• Twitter header
• Facebook header
• LinkedIn header
• Twitter post graphic
• Facebook post igraphic
• Instagram post graphic
• Stories graphic
• Newsletter graphic

Luckily, most of these are universal enough that design tools like Canva offer easy grab-and-go presets for these dimensions—just browse the library or search for what you need. 

Now, upload your book cover, elements, and any other graphics you want to work with and you have everything ready at your fingertips. 

Step Three: Set Your Templates

Your promotion graphics will likely be an opportunity to not only show off the cover of your book, but also key supporting teaser or blurb text. 

Start with one of your larger dimensions, or one that you feel is particularly important for your campaign—I often start with my Instagram template since the images are the full focus in the feed. Then: 

• Consider the rule of thirds. It’s tempting to center the elements of your design, but in fact, it’s better to divide your designs into thirds. Once you see it, you’ll recognize what’s made so many other pro-level images you’ve seen look so polished. 
• Keep text short! You want it to be skimmable at first glance. An elaborate, dense quote of praise does you no good if no one takes the time to read it. 
• Know your color codes. In design, color consistency is everything. Pick colors that complement your book cover or author brand (the dropper tool is great for this), but once you choose them, note those HEX codes and use the exact same hues everywhere. 
• Use templates. Canva (and other graphic tools) offer templates for all sorts of purposes and dimensions. If you’re not sure what to do, pick one that speaks to you and stay as close to the original as possible. 

For me, a tried-and-true formula has been book cover on one-third line, and a brief review quote centered on the other one-third line. This will still look pretty flat, so this is where having your book cover elements on hand can be a game-changer. Use it (or a zoomed-in segment of it) as the background to the image. 

Step Four: Adjust for Other Sizes

Once you have the first version how you like it, you can copy and paste those elements over to the others and quickly have a consistent look to your graphics with just a few tweaks to account for each one. Don’t overthink it! You want your book promotion to be quickly recognizable across all channels. 

Step Five: Create Your Collections

There’s one thing left to do. Now that your template is set for each channel you wish to use graphics on, you’ll want to create variations of each to feature different teasers or quotes. In Canva, you can simply create copies of your first graphic in each version of it for as many different variations you want to create. Easy as A-B-C. 

Your Book Promotion is in Your Hands

Graphics are an important part of a book launch campaign, but you don’t have to be a graphic design expert to create some stellar visuals. The right tools, an understanding of a few key design principles, and a couple hours. Then, trust your gut, have some fun, and don’t be shy about pulling out a trusty template.

By day, E. J. Wenstrom is a digital strategy pro with over 10 years at communications firms. By early-early morning, she’s an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author of Departures and the Chronicles of the Third Realm War novels. She believes in complicated characters, terrifying monsters, and purple hair dye.

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I’m thrilled to be joining you here at DIY MFA to share actionable insights.

Last time, we discussed author brand as a promise to readers and how a brand framework can help you articulate yours. Next is translating the brand promise into a visual identity. Book cover design is a critical aspect of this, so today we’ll cover five tips to spark great design.

Why Design?

When we consider storytelling, we usually think of the written or spoken words that make up the tale. However, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of book covers to evoke emotion and spark interest in a story. After all, humans are visual creatures. Vision activates more than 50% of the brain’s cortex!¹ Think about how you feel when you see an image of a cub versus a fierce lion, or a contrast of colors compared to a harmonious palette.

As a brand marketer, I witnessed firsthand the impact of visuals on packaged good purchase decisions. Red and yellow can be paired to interrupt a package design and scream “discount.” Green is often used to connote environmental sustainability. Certain shades of blue can be calming and rational, which is useful to communicate efficacy.

The power of design applies to books too. It’s a critical element in a publisher or author’s toolset to break through and convey meaning. Let’s examine each of these concepts, and five tips to spark great cover design (which can be described using the mnemonic “SPARC”). Note: these tips are for authors who have a collaborative role in the design briefing and assessment process and may be less actionable for others.

Break through is the ability to stand out in a cluttered environment. This is necessary because your book is competing in bookstores that carry thousands of titles or online marketplaces with millions of options. To navigate this sea of choice, readers rely on various means to pick a book, such as credible sources (bestseller/best of lists, awards, news outlets and other media), friend/library/bookstore/Goodreads recommendations, or simply by browsing and picking up a book that “catches attention.”

Catching attention can come from a title that grabs, well-written copy, an enticing endorsement blurb, or a known author. All of that together, what the cover communicates to the reader, is what we call “meaning.”

Tip #1: Simplicity breaks through, so don’t try to stuff everything onto the cover. Rather, focus!

It’s hard enough to summarize our full-length books into a publisher synopsis, back cover blurb, log line, or title. It’s that same intensity of focus that’s needed to determine what key aspect of the book will most motivate a reader on the cover. That single-minded insight can be shared with designers in a creative brief, sometimes called an author questionnaire. For instance, I briefed my publisher that Goodbye, Orchid’s central tension was the emotional and physical shattering of the main characters, Phoenix and Orchid. That tension is captured through the image of shattered orchids on the cover.

Tip #2: Prioritize your communications hierarchy.

To focus, it can help to determine what you’d like your reader to notice first, second, and third (recalling that tip #1 exhorts simplicity, we likely shouldn’t have more than 3-5 priorities). We call this prioritization a “communications hierarchy.” For example, the prominence of James Patterson’s name on his covers indicates that his team prioritizes his author name fairly high in the hierarchy. Smart, since his well-known name will break-through and motivate readers.

As a debut author, I prioritized: 

1. The shattering image and title,
2. My author name and subtitle, and finally 
3. My front cover blurb and award, just below those other important elements. 

You can see the resulting cover here:

Tip #3: Assess cover designs against the brief, not personal taste.

Once you’ve done all the hard work to write and communicate a single-minded brief, it’s more powerful to assess your designs versus the brief, not based on personal taste. So, rather than telling designers “I like this” or “I don’t like that,” it’s more helpful to share which designs (or parts of designs) communicate the single-minded insight, and whether the communications hierarchy is delivered. Don’t fall into the trap of telling the designer what to change (that’s their expertise) but rather, what you’re trying to achieve! This will help make you a great collaborator and that collaboration is what contributes to great designs.

Tip #4: Real-life: assess cover design in situ.

Be sure to assess design not only at full-size, but as a thumbnail, next to other covers from the same genre. It’s tempting to view your cover oversized on your screen, and to nitpick about the little details. But especially for titles that primarily sell as ebooks, it’s more important to see them in a real-life situation. After all, thumbnails are often all online shoppers first see of your cover. So shrink them to real-life screen size and assess the title legibility, whether the cover will be distinctive and easily recognizable, as well as whether it can “pop” versus other books in your genre. Designers have a bevy of strategies to achieve this break-through, including the contrast of colors, font weight, and mix of serif and sans serif fonts. Here’s an example of an online Amazon “shelf”:

If your book will be in physical distribution, pay attention to the spine, as that may be all readers see of your cover design in bookstores or libraries. Check to see if the title and author name are legible at a glance. Take a look at these spines, many of which are simple and clean:

Source: Instagram @the_unwined (used with permission)

Tip #5 Consistency, consistency, consistency.

After you have designs in hand, consistency is king.

The truth is, the path to purchase is rarely linear. Because most of our lives are busy and full, research has found that it can take two to seven exposures for a new product or item to break its way into our consciousness. As authors, that means it benefits us to stack our impressions, be relevant in content and placement, and be visually consistent. This helps break through because human brains naturally scan for patterns and once readers have seen your cover(s) multiple times, they will be more quickly recognized next time. Readers have told me that because my publisher has consistently used a specific font for my title, and shattered orchids in my graphics, they’ve come to associate my cover and orchids with Goodbye, Orchid. See an example banner here:

In summary, design is important because in crowded physical or digital spaces, a book may only have seconds to catch a reader’s attention. Good book cover design can break through. Mediocre design can get lost. So remember the five tips to “SPARC” great design:

1. Simplicity breaks through, so don’t try to stuff everything onto the cover. Rather, focus!
2. Prioritize your communications hierarchy.
3. Assess designs against the brief, not personal taste
4. Real-life: assess design in situ
5. Consistency, consistency, consistency

Please let me know the ways in which these concepts helped clarify your visual identity thinking. I’ll look forward to chatting more next time, when we’ll dive into more marketing concepts. Meanwhile, connect with me on any of these social media sites https://linktr.ee/cvdh and let me know what else you’d love to learn about marketing and brand strategy.

Wishing you peace, meaning and orchids of course. Happy writing!

Carol Van Den Hende, MBA

Award-winning author of Goodbye, Orchid

¹ University of Rochester https://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V74N4/0402_brainscience.html

Carol Van Den Hende is the award-winning author of Goodbye, Orchid, a public speaker, and MBA with 20+ years’ experience in marketing, strategy and insights. Carol is passionate about simplifying marketing concepts into actionable steps that authors need for publishing success. Please sign up for Carol’s newsletter at https://carolvandenhende.com/contact or linktr.ee/cvdh

The post Judge a Book by Its Cover: How to SPARC Great Cover Design appeared first on DIY MFA.

Remember, your brand is more than just a snazzy logo or website. It represents who you are as a writer. It’s your values, your personality, and the unique stories that you contribute to the literary community. Additionally, when you work on building your author brand, you should also be considering your ideal readers. Who are you writing for? What do they like? And perhaps most importantly, how does your brand work to attract those ideal readers? 

Once you’ve clearly defined your author brand and your ideal readers, it’s important to begin thinking about how you might apply that information to your “products.” In this case, the most important product you have to sell as an author is your book (or books!). Everything else, such as a website, social media, or newsletters (while definitely important) should come second.

For today’s article, I’ll be focusing on one of the first things your readers will notice when looking at your book: the cover.  

If you’ve decided to go the self-publication route with your work, the entire cover design process will fall to you, so it’s important to understand how a good book cover can positively impact your author brand. Even if you ultimately decide to hire a cover designer, you should still be aware of what makes a good, on-brand cover. 

At the end of the day, an awesome cover will help you sell more books, so read on for some tips on how to create a cover that closely aligns with your author brand. 

1) Study Covers In Your Genre

Whether you’re writing a steamy romance or a thriller, it’s important to first look at and analyze the covers of the top-selling books in your chosen genre. An easy way to do this is to utilize Amazon. For example, if I were writing in the paranormal romance genre, I would want to select and study that sub-category on Amazon. If you take a look at Amazon’s current best selling paranormal romance novels, you’ll notice that the majority of the covers feature darker colors and imagery. Additionally, the majority of the covers utilize similar fonts. 

How do you use this information? Ultimately, you will want to emulate the best-selling covers as much as you can. This isn’t to say that your cover can’t be unique to your own personal brand. As a matter of fact, your book cover should be unique and include information unique to your brand! However, it’s important to stick to genre conventions. 

For example, if I were to design my own paranormal romance cover, I might want to stick to the darker colors and imagery, in addition to using a font that is similar to those found on the best-seller list. I wouldn’t want to stray too far from those conventions (perhaps by creating a bright pink cover with loopy fonts), as that might alienate my ideal readers who have come to expect certain tropes and elements within the paranormal romance genre. 

2) Embrace Simplicity

If you’re just starting out with cover design, or have chosen to hire a designer, it can be tempting to try and fit a bunch of symbols, characters, colors, and fonts into a single design. Resist this temptation!  

When in doubt, it’s always best to keep your covers simple. If you are self-publishing on Amazon, you need to keep in mind that your cover will appear as a thumbnail on the page until a potential reader clicks on it. Even on a book’s full Amazon page, the cover isn’t all that big. As such, make sure that your title and author name are prominent and readable. They shouldn’t be drowning in a bunch of images or symbols.

3) Use High-Quality Images and Good Color Contrast

When it comes to images, you will want to make sure that they are of high quality (not pixelated, or blurry). Additionally, don’t just pull images from Google and slap them on your cover. When using any kind of image for a book cover, you need to make sure that you are legally able to use it. Some stock images and fonts do require that you purchase a license, so be careful.

With any color schemes you use, ensure that there is adequate contrast. As cover designer Derek Murphy writes over at CreativIndie, “A lot of authors ask for covers that ‘pop.’ And many designers have no idea what this means. But I’ve narrowed it down to contrast. You want a strong light to dark transition, with strong shadows.” 

4) Consult With a Professional Designer If You Can

Many authors who are self-publishing for the first time likely don’t have a lot of money set aside for things like marketing materials and cover design. However, if you are not inclined towards learning how to design your own covers, it would definitely be beneficial to invest in and work with a professional designer. I would argue that a good cover is a lot more important than paid advertising, or even a premium-style website, especially if you’re just starting out. Focus on making your book as appealing as possible to your ideal readers, then focus on the rest! 

Back to you, writers! What kinds of book covers are you most drawn to? Let me know in the comments! 

Manuela Williams is a Las Vegas-based writer and editor. She is the author of Ghost In Girl Costume, which won the 2017 Hard To Swallow Chapbook Contest. Her second poetry chapbook, Witch, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. When she’s not writing, Manuela is busy drinking coffee and spending time with her blind Pomeranian, Redford. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Pinterest.

The post Four Tips For Creating An On-Brand Book Cover appeared first on DIY MFA.

You’re not in a traditional bookstore. In the fast-paced world of digital publishing, users demand instant gratification. They swipe, click, tap, and some barely spend 3-5 seconds looking at a page of book results, let alone one thumbnail. It is now more important than ever to have a cover that stands out. That’s professional. That’s intriguing.

As a self-publisher, you have control over your book cover. You can choose your designer, and tell them exactly what you want. A good designer will take that and bring it to the next level. However, A great designer will read your synopsis, perhaps ask a few questions, and come up with an amazing concept birthed from years of training. If you are hiring a capable designer, you may want to give him the space to really get creative.

Things to look for in a successful cover:

Does my cover stand out?

This involves great balance. Each genre has a specific look, and that’s good. It’s how a reader knows he’s in the right place. But your cover also has to grab someone’s attention. Designers need to avoid clichés just as much as writers do, and strive to always be unique.

How does it make me feel?

The cover needs to appeal to our emotions. A romance cover should turn us on. A thriller cover should make us feel anxious. A memoir cover should intrigue us. A non-fiction cover should inform us. Readers will be relying on emotion as they scroll through thousands of results, finding the cover that exactly fits their mood. A book cover is a promise, conveying an expression of things to come. A good design will make you feel. 

In my pre-made book cover shown here, I found an image of a doll which looked rather creepy. It’s those eyes. They grab your own, and fill you with unease. The darkness under her chin makes her appear beheaded. The tilted and off-centered text contributes to the anxiety. It stands out, draws the reader in, and immediately makes them feel.

Does it convey my story?

This should actually be: Does it convey the emotion of my story, and allude to the storyline? The cover does not need to be too literal, as readers often like to let their imagination determine some aspects of the story. I was browsing through Amazon when this cover caught my eye. “The Dinner” by Herman Koch.

It is conceptual, showing tension in what would be considered an intimate setting– a meal. And that’s just what the book is about. Other books, such as Life of Pi, have such an incredible story that it’s obvious what should be on the cover. A boy, a tiger, a boat. I don’t even need to read a description to be intrigued.

Is it clear?

When browsing on their computer, tablet, or phone, the thumbnail could be as small as a quarter. Some designs may look great when large, but when shrunk down, they could be misleading, too busy, or unreadable. With that in mind, do not be afraid to go with a simple cover design.

Is it good quality?

As a designer, poor quality jumps out at me. Here are just some things that will cause me to stop and frown. Bad kerning (letter spacing). Blurriness caused by over-compressed JPGs or up-scaled images. Hard pixel edges, or over-feathered edges.  Over-use of effects. Outdated or inappropriate fonts. These all add up to an amateur-looking design, which conveys to the reader that the writing is likely also amateur.

Just like investing in a quality suit for an interview, investing in a quality cover design can only bring good results. It is the only thing standing between a reader and your words. You know your story is good, now you need to show them.

___

Deanna Dionne is an award-winning graphic artist whose work regularly appears in national magazines. She understands the writing world, having worked as an administrative assistant at the Backspace Writers Conference for five years. You can find her designs at www.customindiecovers.com

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