Make Sure Your Cover Sells Your Book!By Cathi Stevenson Few book genres offer the versatility in cover design options that a romance novel does. The problem is though, that sometimes having an attractive cover is not enough, you need to make sure your book's cover stands out in the crowd. If your main marketplace is online the job is even more difficult because you have to make sure your cover survives being reduced to thumbnail size. 1. Color. Use bright, contrasting colors. The deeper the better. Rich purples, reds and blues are always a good choice. Avoid a white background because if the web site your cover is displayed on has a white background, as many do, your book cover will be "floating", or worse, there'll be an unattractive border around it. 2. Text. Make sure it's as large and distinguishable at thumbnail size as possible. If your book is an eBook you have a lot of creative leeway in this area. Metallic 3D text with graphic enhancements can really bring an otherwise not-so-sparkling title right up to the reader's eye. The disadvantage of using graphically enhanced text is that it does not often reproduce well, or look professional on a printed book. If you visit a bookstore you'll notice very few books have anything done to the text, instead the designers rely on the layout to catch the reader's eye. The only real exceptions to this rule are romance and sci-fi novels, but when such enhancements are used, the text is usually raised and metallic ink employed. 3. Graphic position. If you have graphics on your cover that are clearly facing left or right, make sure the book cover is placed on the web site so that it faces YOUR text and not another author's book, an ad, or the scroll bar. Readers will follow the direction the cover is "looking ". I based my entire free eBooklet "How To Sell Your Competitor's Book Online" on this common error. The same goes for 3D covers. If you are using a 3D graphic with the book's spine, then the book will always have to be on the left hand side of the page, since that is the way the cover is "pointing". If you put it on the right, you're pointing your cover to the scroll bar and the reader will probably scroll down before glancing over to your book's description. 4. Web site position. Remember people read and write from left to right, but that's not actually how the brain works. Most people are right dominant and will look at the upper right hand corner of a page FIRST. This is the reason the small thumbnail on the upper right hand corner of the right hand page in a newspaper is the most expensive advertising block. Even if someone is flipping through pages, they'll notice what's in the upper right hand corner of each page. With this in mind, choose what you place in the upper right hand corner of your web site with great care, and make sure it leads the reader into the page, and not the scroll bar. It's a good place for your cover, if the graphic position will allow you to place it there. Don't have anything suitable?? Create a stylized arrow. Don't laugh, it works. Viewers will follow that arrow directly to your page content. Make it discreet. Add some flowers ... be creative. 5. Spend time on the important stuff. I am always amazed at authors who spend time and money on small details, like a particular sword that just has to have a curved emerald handle, and then miss the important stuff. Trust me, unless that graphic element is the absolute focus of the cover, small details don't really matter because they're too small to see. I'm not saying to forgo accuracy, but if it's not essential, don't sweat it. It is not going to lose you any book sales and it's probably not worth the cost and aggravation in the long run. Instead focus on color, text and position. If you use proper layout techniques and a little psychology your cover will do its job. *********************** Cathi Stevenson is a journalist who has sold more than 2000 of her articles to newspapers and magazines world wide. She now operates a book cover design company called Book Cover Express, online at http://www.bookcoverexpress.com She has just released her second eBook called "How to Publish & Market Your eBook For Just $5". Sign up for the Author's Cafe Newsletter at: http://www.authorscafe.com and receive "How To Sell Your Competitor's Book Online" FREE, as well as FREE eBook cover templates.
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