What role does the author play in designing the cover of a book?

A beautiful cover is essential for convincing customers to purchase a book, but it can be so much more than a marketing gimmick. A gorgeous cover is the perfect expression of what’s inside a book, and it can give the author the ultimate satisfaction and pride to see his or her vision completely realized.

To get a truly successful cover, there are some practical considerations and necessary elements to keep in mind.

Publishing Formats

In my guide to self-publishing, Who Knows 9?, I emphasized that an author should first develop an overall publishing plan before seriously embarking on creating a book. This is important because all of the individual parts of the publishing process are interconnected, and that’s especially true for designing a great book cover.

Before the cover-design process even begins, the first thing an author needs to decide on is the format of his published title. It’s common to publish in one (or more) of the following formats:

  1. Hard cover book with a dust cover (a.k.a. jacket)
  2. Hard cover book without a dust cover
  3. Perfect bound (a.k.a. soft cover) book
  4. Ebook

Why is this choice so important? Simply because each of these formats varies in the amount of physical space that can be filled with the different pieces of information that go on a book cover. A dust cover has the maximum amount of real estate and is divided into four parts (besides the spine): a front cover, a back cover, and two inside flaps. A hard cover or perfect bound book just has a front and back cover. And an ebook only has a front cover.

Once the author has decided on the format for his book, he knows how much space he has to use.

Front Cover

What goes on the front cover? The most important things are obvious: the author needs to supply a title, a subtitle, and the author’s name.

But there are a few more pieces of information whose inclusion can bolster a book’s sales appeal.

  • Foreword author’s name – If the title is nonfiction, the author might have gotten a well-known expert in the field to write a foreword to enhance the work. If that’s the case, the front cover should proudly display that this famous expert has graced this title with a foreword. Adding a well-known name to a book’s cover can lend it instant credibility.
  • “From the author of . . .” – It’s a good idea to make it as easy as possible for fans of an author or series to find more work that they’re eager to read. And some readers might be hesitant to purchase a book by an unknown author, so it can only help to tout the fact that an author has written other works that were enthusiastically received.
  • Bestseller – If the book was previously published and sold many copies, then by all means that fact should be publicized in the new print run. Place the word “BESTSELLER” at the top of the front cover and add “SOLD 100,000 copies!” or “100,000 copies in print!”
  • Second edition – If this is a new edition containing, for example, some new chapters, then let people know that by telling them so on the front cover. This can help new readers know which edition of the book to choose, and it might even entice readers of previous editions to pick up a newly updated book.

Back Cover

The most important item to display on a cover, besides the title and author’s name, is the blurb, which is the description of the book used to hook readers into buying it. If there is no dust cover, the blurb should be prominently displayed on the back cover. If there is a dust cover, it can go on the front inner flap. (I discourage writing a long blurb that continues onto the back inner flap.)
There are two other items that sometimes get placed on the back cover – the author bio (About the Author) and reviews.

If there is a dust cover, I would recommend placing the author bio on the back inner flap. If there is no dust cover, then it can go on the last right-hand page of the book. If it’s important to promote the author (apart from the book), then by all means place the author bio on the back cover (with a picture).

As far as reviews, in the Jewish publishing world, these are usually placed on the back cover. However, in the secular world, they can appear on the front cover, at the beginning of the book, or on the back cover.

Timeline

Now that I’ve explained what goes where, it’s clear that the author has some homework to do before designing a cover. A blurb needs to be written (I can take care of this task for the author). An author bio should be written for nonfiction works; it is optional for fictional titles. (If the author supplies the details, I can have help polish this to make it sound impressive.) A photo of the author adds a nice touch, so consider hiring a professional photographer to take a really good headshot (alternatively, I can help by photoshopping a good picture taken with a regular digital camera to look better). And if the author seeks a foreword from an expert in the field, then this will have to be arranged after the manuscript has been edited. Hopefully it won’t delay the title’s release.

As we have seen, an author must plan a cover well before going to print. And a lot of the details for the cover require some extra writing, either by the author (the author bio and blurb) or by experts (foreword, reviews). All of this takes time, so I highly recommend planning early so that you can realize your dream as quickly as possible.