Judging books by the cover

You’ve heard the statement, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Well, maybe we shouldn’t, but the reality is we do! All the time!

Because of my work with writers, I see a lot of covers. And I have to say that while some of them are good, far too many of them are not. In fact, one of the two biggest problems I see with self-published books is that they look self-published. By that, I mean that if you put a self-published book on a shelf beside a book published by a large royalty-paying publisher, chances are very high that the self-published book will look duller, less interesting, less exciting, and well, less professional.

Very simply, some of the common problems with covers.

• Not having a professional graphic artist design it
• Not paying for the top quality, full-colour, glossy printing
  
• Not paying someone to write top-notch cover copy
• Not studying the genre you are publishing in well enough to know how to make the book look as though it fits.
• Cutting corners so the costs aren’t too high

How can you get around these problems?

• Spend a day in a bookstore or get catalogues from publishers and study the latest books - especially those in the genre you’re writing in - romance books look a lot different from mysteries; memoirs look very different from self-help books.
• Don’t get a friend to design the artwork unless that friend is a professional who does this all the time (even someone who does graphics but not books will likely not have the expertise you need).
• Hire someone who understands marketing and promotion to help with the words that go on the cover (especially the back cover). Titles need a blog of their own!
  
• If you insist on going to a vanity publisher (place you pay to publish your book) take control of every aspect and bring in your own design, etc. if you need to. One vanity publisher I know has only done a few covers I consider excellent, and in every case the author brought in their own cover design.

Without an attractive cover that fits in with the other covers on the shelves, no store except maybe the one in your home town will want to carry your book. Why should they? They know their customers are going to judge the book by the cover.