What Should Be On A Book Cover?

Your book cover is critical to the success of your sales, because despite what that old saying tells us, people absolutely judge a book by its cover. You’re probably wondering, how can I know what makes a book cover good? It seems subjective, like judging any other art form. And it is. But market research and trends can still tell us what ways readers’ opinions tend to lean. 

Below are some book cover design tips to help your novel get more views.

Know What’s Typical For Your Genre

Each genre has distinct front cover characteristics. To avoid causing confusion about what’s inside your book, it’s important to know what readers of your genre expect to see on the outside. For example, if your book is a literary fiction novel, you don’t want to use design elements that are associated with horror. Otherwise, people looking for literary works may skip right over your book, and intrigued horror fans will be disappointed once they turn over to the back cover copy and realize the story isn’t what they expected.  

Of course, many books cross over between genres. If this is the case for your book, you can either go with the usual imagery for the genre you think is most prominent in your story or choose the genre with higher readership overall. 

It’s easy to figure out what type of design is typical for your genre. All you have to do is browse current releases in that department or take a look at your comp titles’ covers.  

Give Hints About Your Book’s Details 

Incorporating an image or two that represents an important aspect of your story—whether it’s a characteristic of the protagonist, a hint about the plot, or some symbolic object—can help grab readers’ attention. Maybe you wrote a mystery that kicks off with the discovery of a shocking letter. Then you might want to show an elegant, haunting image of a letter or an inkwell and pen on the cover. Just make sure to avoid causing clutter with too many images. Think clean, simple, and focused.  

Nail The Back Cover Copy

“Short and sweet is best, like in ad writing, because that is what you’re doing here. You’re creating an ad to sell your book. ”

In the ad agency world, we say that design grabs the attention but copy closes the deal. The copy on your back cover is ultimately what makes or breaks it in terms of a sale. 

I’ve seen a lot of authors place a summary on the back cover, and often one that’s much too long. Not a good idea. You want to give a little info about the main character or characters and the premise for context, but not too much. Then, you need a hook. The hook can simply be introducing the conflict and then ending with a cliffhanger about how or whether the conflict is resolved. Or you could come up with some other type of teaser.

Bottom line, the back cover copy should make someone want to know what happens so they’ll buy the book. If you give the entire plot away with a long-winded summary, you won’t accomplish that. And likewise, if it takes too long to get to your hook, well … the reader probably won’t. Short and sweet is best, like in ad writing, because that is what you’re doing here. You’re creating an ad to sell your book.

If it feels difficult to write the back cover copy for your own book, you’re not alone. It’s normal to have a hard time coming up with a pitch for something you’re so close to. If that’s how you feel, consider hiring a professional to write your back cover copy for you.  

Make Sure The Spine Stands Out

If your book is sitting on a shelf, you’ll want the spine to be eye-catching too. It’s good to keep the spine design simplistic. You can’t go wrong with a big, bold, easy-to-read title.

MJ Biggs is the author of the novel A Wonderful Place To Die.