Judging a Book By It’s Cover

When I was a child and needed to get a shot, my mother used to say the same thing I am going to tell you now, “This will only hurt for a moment, but it’s going to make you better”. So here goes, your book cover sucks. Wait, don’t get mad and start defending yourself. Just hear me out. Yes, there are a few of you out there who this does not apply to, but for 90% of you it’s true. Believe me, I know I have had some of the worst in history. I know exactly what happens. You have slaved away at your manuscript for the last two years, working it out line by line on the weekends, after the kids go to bed and sometimes at work while you should have been doing something else. You finally finish it. Your baby is perfect. Your friends and family have been waiting for so long to see it completed and you just can’t wait to get it up online. You are not a graphic designer so you do the best you can. You find a free picture or take one yourself. Throw your name and title on it and put it up online. Then you refresh the screen about three thousand times and wonder why you haven’t sold one yet.

The problem is not your writing. This is the best piece of literature that has ever been written, Shakespeare has nothing on you. Unfortunately, no one knows that because your cover sucks. As we all know and don’t like to admit, people still judge a book by its cover. Raise your hand if you have ever bought a book just because you loved the cover. Be honest, my hand is raised. Now raise your hand if you have picked up a book and read the back because you liked the cover so much. Yep, that’s everyone. I hate to say this but your cover is actually more important than what you write inside, when it comes to sales. Hey, stop throwing things at me! Remember what I told you at the beginning.

There are two major problems you have when it comes to a cover. One is, you’re not a book designer or a graphic artist. You’re a writer for crying out loud, isn’t that enough? No, unfortunately now-a-days it’s not. A painter doesn’t paint his own painting, make his paint and pull his own canvas all by himself. He also isn’t the one who sits in a store and sells all his own paintings. He just paints. He buys what he needs and hires someone to do everything else. And you should too. Let me spell it out for you, you need to hire a cover artist or graphic designer. Let experts do what they do while you concentrate on writing the best book ever. The bottom line is that readers generally don’t give self-published authors a chance. They see our crudely put together cover and they avoid it, even though the best book ever written is inside. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just reality. I can’t tell you how many times someone I know has bought a self-published book and loved it without ever knowing it was a self-published book. Why? Because the cover looked like any other cover from one of the big 6. That’s what your goal is and it takes a professional to get you there.

Fine, you say you want to do your own cover because you can’t afford a graphic designer or because you want the pride of doing it yourself and having it turn out just the way you want it. No problem, but that brings me to your second problem. Your friends and family lie to you. They do it because they love you and don’t want to hurt you. Yes, they lie even when you tell them to be honest about your book cover. You need their honest opinions. So, show them 3 or 4 book covers by different authors and slip yours in there as well. Ask them to tell you what they like and don’t like about each cover and ask which ones they would buy and why. You will get a much more honest answer. Then, go look at books that grab your attention and decide why you were drawn to them. Also try looking at covers of really successful books and figure out what makes them so good. This is even more important than the ones you like. Your not selling your books to yourself, your selling it to the masses. So, you need your book cover to appeal to them more than yourself. Lastly, buy a book or go on YouTube and watch some videos on graphic design. If your going to do it yourself then be the best at it you can be.

So don’t get down on yourself about your book cover, just change it and make it better. Remember that your cover needs to be one image that grabs the reader and says, “Spend your hard earned money and buy me, then spend your few precious hours of free in your busy life and read me”. If your cover doesn’t say that, don’t fret. Just follow these tips and try again.