Sunday’s Topic comes from Writer’s Digest 10 Tips for Effective Book Covers
Remember back in the days of Dogpile and Netscape? Back when we used WordPerfect and FrontPage? The era when we thought Frames were cutting edge and having a web page open and automatically blare music at our visitors?
I admit I was guilty of some of it. Frames, were just too complicated so I avoided them, but others did not.
Looking into what to use or what to avoid with Book Covers keeps taking me back to the 90s and early 00s era of the World Wide Web.
[sp_wpcarousel id=”2108″]
–From the article for Sunday’s Chat
As more authors opt for independent publishing routes, I’m getting more questions about secrets to good book design, production, and layout.
Most people in book publishing believe that a cover is a book’s No. 1 marketing tool.
- The title should be big and easy to read.
- Don’t forget to review a thumbnail image of the cover.
- Do not use any of the following fonts (anywhere!): Comic Sans or Papyrus.
- No font explosions! (And avoid special styling.)
- Do not use your own artwork, or your children’s artwork, on the cover.
- Do not use cheap clip art on your cover.
- Do not stick an image inside a box on the cover.
- Avoid gradients.
- Avoid garish color combinations.
- Finally: Don’t design your own cover.
Bonus tip: No sunrise photos, no sunset photos, no ocean photos, no fluffy clouds.