Want to understand book cover design? Or learn how to refine your current book covers? Or maybe as an author you want to understand what your graphic designer is doing? I’ll be going through the changes I made to my latest series and covering why those changes were made.
Some basic book cover design rules to know
A book cover, more then your text that describes your book, will be the first thing readers will notice. Here are some basic guidelines to follow:
Your book cover should fit the genre. If it’s Cozy Mystery, your cover should look like it belongs on the same shelf. The same with Epic Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Regency Romance etc. That is why it is very important to know who your comp authors/books would be. A comp is simply an author or a book that would be comparable to your book’s plot themes.
Understand that book cover design changes constantly. To stay up on what is new, simply go to Amazon and search for your genre. It will show you what titles are selling in the top 100 of that genre.
Here’s a snapshot of book covers in todays 100 best sellers on Amazon in the Mystery category. Do you notice anything? Book covers are all FONT BASED with little art, and colors are very bright. When the author is well-known their name is often bigger than the book title.
Here’s a snapshot of book covers in the Romance / Historical Romance / Regency genre. Notice all feature a female in period dress on the cover. Sometimes with a partner. There is often a historical home in the background (think English mansion house), or a historic-like interior.
The closer you dive into YOUR genre, the more specific the cover design will become. This is why I didn’t show fantasy book covers. That is too broad a genre. Dig deeper and find the niche genre that matches your books the best.
This is an example of book covers under Gaslamp fantasy – the genre for the Madame Chalamet Ghost Mysteries. It’s a mixed bag because some authors are lumping their books into this category and they don’t belong. If you find this is the case for your genre, especially if it is a niche, be sure to have comps of similar books so you can go look at individual covers.
Because more books are being sold online, book covers are becoming simpler with more contrast between title/author and the background. I noticed that silhouettes on book covers are becoming super popular right now. Especially in contemporary romance.
Why are you seeing these simpler book covers?
- The color contrast can be higher and the appearance is less busy. This makes it easier to catch the interest of online book shoppers, even when the cover is shrunk to a thumbnail. Book covers are almost becoming graphic posters.
- By not featuring a person on the cover, the series doesn’t need to worry about having enough model poses. If you are planning a series of 6-8-10 books and suddenly you’ve gone through what is offered for your model’s face, it can be a hassle.
- You also don’t need to fret that your book cover model will suddenly appear on other books (not written by you), making your ‘brand’ slip away. I’ve experienced this with the covers of the Fae College series and it is why I’m re-designing them and going with illustrations. Book cover designers are all using the same online resources (Shutterstock, istockphotos, etc…) While the body and hair color can be changed with Photoshop, a face is a face.
- Thumbnail visibility. The more details you pack into your cover, the worse it will look when made into a thumbnail, which is how most online books appear to readers shopping.
Using comps to design your book cover
There were some key things I needed to convey about my book cover for the Madame Chalamet series.
- That the book was about a woman.
- The book would be a historical mystery set in an alternate fantasy world.
- That plots would be about ghosts and have a supernatural element.
Things I did not want to promote:
- Imply the book series is horror, suspense, or scary (it is none of these).
- I chose not to put a male AND female on the cover. While there was a romance, it was slow burn.
Next, I needed to research comps – those books that would be considered in my niche genre. They needed a supernatural element and be in the fantasy genre while retaining a historical flavor of the 1890s-1910s.
Examining comps for my fantasy Gaslamp-Ghost-Mystery series that was in an alternative world similar to 1910 France, I noticed many had silhouettes with no face, or with back to the viewer, along with a city background and spooky lighting, such as these:
Elements of a book cover design
Title of the book. By using the title of Ghost Talker for the first book I immediately let the reader know this series was about the supernatural. The second book had death in the title. The other books are more puns on the supernatural and are not as clear.
Series name for the books. Amazon is cracking down on authors who put silly subtitles on their book (“the best 2023 romance book” for example) to game their search algorithm so please don’t do that. I used mine to explain what the series was about that wouldn’t be clear perhaps from the title. Madame Chalamet (it’s a series about a woman), Ghost (supernatural element) Mysteries (it’s a mystery).
Series graphic: I opted for a skull (death, supernatural) and a neon bar of light (Gaslamp changing to electric, technology). Books also had the sequence number on them. Remember, if planning a series your readers need to know upfront where book is in the sequence (this is a huge pet peeve of mine!).
Font: I picked a font that was easy to read but had some flourishes. I could have gone more vintage, but playing with that idea, it seemed it was harder to read the title when the book was a thumbnail. Look to your comps for fonts that others are using which could work for your book.
Primary graphic: While I did use a variety of women models and Victorian silhouettes, I made them all black with no recognizable face. I also moved different heads to other bodies. While working with clipart was great, remember it will be used by other authors. I tried to change my figures a little bit and added a satchel for Elinor to carry on most of the covers.
Backgrounds: I tried to find eastern European cityscapes to play with but choices were few. I opted to obscure them with fog, haze, and other Photoshop brush effects. Whenever I could, I tried to find some city lamp posts to include as these are elements found on gaslamp books for obvious reasons.
Colors: Color plays a huge part in helping your reader recognize your genre. The gaslamp genre has a lot of black, yellows, greens, and blues.
Before and after book cover designs
I couldn’t afford a designer so I needed to keep it simple to what I could do with Photoshop. While I am always learning new things with Photoshop, I’m not on the level of book cover designers (who well deserve their fees).
The sharp-eyed reader will notice some changes to the book covers for the Madame Chalamet Ghost Mysteries series. To enhance the book covers, I did some tweaks on the colors, figure, and backgrounds which are now all uploaded to my online book sellers.
Now that I’ve shown you what goes into designing a book cover, let me show the changes I made to the series.
Ghost Talker ebook cover design
When I did the first cover for Ghost Talker, I tried to enhance the lamp glow and to blur the background. There was a good blue-green cast. What resulted was okay but it never really pleased me.
The changes I opted to do are subtle but I think make a huge difference in styling the series and my intentions for it as an author. Small changes but I think it makes her appear she’s walking through a back alley filled with fog.
For the updated Ghost Talker, the lamps have more glow, and the green fog is more intense and mysterious. The arch has faded to the background which makes the larger title appear better when the book cover is reduced in size.
Most fantasy book covers have a photo realistic background (dystopian city, urban skyline, forest, etc…) which is usually obscured by making it darker through dramatic lighting. Why? You need the title and author’s name to pop and this blurs the reality of where the photo was taken.
Spirit Guide iebook cover design
I was never happy with the light on this Spirit Guide cover. It was very frustrating as I had an image in my mind that I wanted that I didn’t know how to achieve. After buying some new Adobe Photoshop brushes I finally got that radiating light through the window that I wanted.
If you are struggling with your cover, and use Photoshop, check out YouTube. I’ve found a lot of tutorials there. There are also a lot of tools you can buy and these Joel Grimes brushes really helped get the look I wanted on these cover revisions.
Gray Lady ebook cover design
The silhouette figure on Gray Lady got a makeover. She’s a piece of clipart so I’m sure she’ll appear on someone else’s book some time in the future. I removed some of the hair and slimmed the throat, did a little work on the hand (seen on the left), and re-shaped the back of the dress and the sleeves.
The top part got darkened to help the book title pop out more. The bottom part got a new fog effect to make it look more mysterious (it looks so cool!). The light behind the figure was also re-worked and now there is a radiating start burst behind her head giving her a halo effect.
Haunted Grave ebook cover design
Probably the biggest change was to Haunted Grave. With my new Joel Grimes brushes I re-worked all the light effects making the overall feel more fantasy. This is a well-known bridge and I wanted to obscure the photo so when it is used by others (as I know it will) it won’t be as obvious a landmark.
I also liked moving the statue figure so it looms over Elinor; and the changes to the paving shadows.
Designing book covers for a series
When designing a book cover for a series, I think it’s best to get all of them designed at the same time even though you may not be publishing the other books until later. This insures a consistent look across all the book editions.
Your book series should have titles that have the same “feel,” use the same font for the title and the author name, have a series number somewhere making it easy for the reader to know where that edition fits, and have an artwork style that is consistent across all the books.
Essentially a reader should be able to look at your author page and know immediately what books go where.
You can see that on my Goodreads page that it is easy to identify the series just from book covers alone.
This is all part of my author branding and it is important component of designing book covers that work with what readers expect and what you are offering.
Another example is the recently redesigned covers to the Sweet Fairytale series that features a manor house surrounded by flowers and stars. If I ever want to write more books in this series it will be easy to come up with a cover.
Like the Regency covers shown above in the genre examples these have a manor house which indicate a historical or English country tale; like the new wave of romance covers they are in bright covers with simple images; and the horse and carriage state very simply it is a fairytale of manners.
What NOT to do with your book cover design
Due to copyright reasons doing any of the following could get you in big (and expensive trouble):
- Using an image you found on the internet without purchasing the rights;
- Using AI to make it, or buy an AI made cover from an ‘artist.’ Why? Because art is being scraped from the internet by AI which then reuses it without compensation. This is resulting in a LOT of lawsuits. Do you want to be in a lawsuit? I didn’t think so.
Why is the design of your book cover so important?
When I still worked at newspapers, we all knew it would be the photograph on the front page that would catch the interest first, the title second. This is also true with your books so choose and design wisely!
Book covers are very important because they are generally the first element that sells your book to a reader. With online shopping there could be a second for a reader to make a decision to stop and read more. If your book isn’t selling, really take a hard look at the cover first.
If design isn’t your forte, there are many talent artists out there to choose from at all price points – but PLEASE do NOT use AI! Pay back into the creative community by using real artists.
Things to check for with our book cover:
1.) What do the top 100 books in your genre look like?
2.) On those book covers what do they share? Look especially at colors, fonts, and art.
3.) What do you want your book cover to immediately tell the reader about your story?
4.) That you (or your graphic designer) use artwork and fonts you legally have the right to use for commercial purposes.
I hope these tips help you out on designing your next killer book cover design!
