6 Compelling 2018 Book Cover Design Trends
If you’re an author publishing your next book or an aspiring author writing your first book, here are six compelling book cover design trends you’ll see in your local bookstore and online.
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Projects run for 7 days, but you can shorten them to as little as 1 day if you're in a hurry. Many cover designs come in the last few days of a project, and we encourage you to wait until the project ends before picking your favorite (tell us if you want to close the project early). You can extend your project for free, up to 7 more days if you need more time.
Book cover design packages start at $299, while projects with a single designer (1-to-1 projects) start at $200. All packages include the award to the designer and crowdspring's fee, a custom legal contract giving you full rights to the work you're buying, free focus groups, our award-winning customer support, tools and platform. You can select packages and features based on what you need and your budget. You will always know up front exactly what you'll pay, with no hidden costs and no surprises.
Absolutely! Every project on crowdspring is protected by a custom legal contract giving you full rights to the work you're buying. If you have multiple awards, you'll have separate contracts for each. Once the contract is signed and the creative is paid after you approve the final deliverables in your project, you can use the design (or name) any way you like. You can change it or alter it in any way – it's yours.
The non-winning work remains the property of the person who created that work. This means you may not use those other entries (or any portions of them) in any way. But we give you an easy way to add awards and make offers in your projects when you find more than one design (or name) you love.
You'll see dozens of designs from multiple designers. The more active you are in the project, the more designs you will get. We'll let you know every time a new design or comment comes in and invite you to give feedback. The more feedback you provide, the more designs you'll receive. Years of experience show us that projects with active clients will receive more than double the designs compared to projects with low client participation.
Absolutely! In fact, this is a key factor for success. Once the designs start rolling in, let the designers know what you think about their designs. You can score and give individual feedback. You can also update your brief if you want to address all participants in your project. They are happy to make changes and iterate on their designs.
When you score each entry (1 to 5 stars), your score and comments are private. Only you and the individual designer will see the star rating and comments on their design. Updates to your brief are public for all participants in the project.
Like more than one book cover design? It happens all the time. You can start your project with multiple awards or add awards at any time during your project. You can also make offers on additional designs after your project has been awarded.
You have seven days to select your favorite after the project closes. Sometimes, you might need an extra few days. Just let us know when that happens.
Before making the final decision, you may want to run a free focus group. All silver packages in design projects include one free focus group ($29 upgrade to unlimited). All other design packages include unlimited focus groups.
A focus group (also called a "poll") allows you to invite friends, customers, colleagues and anyone else to vote and comment on their favorite designs (you can assign weighted votes or let each vote count equally). Anyone is eligible to vote as long as they have the special voting URL we'll provide to you (they will not need to register an account). Your focus group can be public or private - you choose! You fully control whom you invite to each focus group and what designs are included in each focus group.
In design projects, you'll have a private area to complete the project with the designer you chose. If you have more than one award, you'll have a separate wrap-up with each designer. Each of you will sign the legal contract for the project (giving you full rights once the designer is paid).
You can continue to iterate and request changes in wrap-up to make sure the design is just right. Once you approve the proof files, the designer will create and send final files for your approval. Once you approve the final files, we pay the designer and you own full rights to the work.
For each project category, we'll recommend required file types and will ask the winning designer to provide you with appropriate final files. You can always request specific formats you or your printer require.
I publish books through Amazon's CreateSpace. I used crowdspring to get a book cover designed by a great artist. I love the service and am very happy with the result.
Your book is about something, and the book cover design should reinforce that theme. Pick an element that takes control and reflects that theme. Avoid including too many elements in your cover.
Think of your book cover design like a billboard that you see on the highway. If the billboard has too many elements, you'll never be able to figure out what's being marketed. Billboards usually have a few words and are intended to quickly communicate to people driving 60 miles per hour. Make sure your cover does the same thing. What is the genre of your book? Can you feel the tone of the book through the cover?
Traditionally, when books were purchased at retail, a striking book cover was necessary to get the reader’s attention when placed on a shelf next to hundreds of other books. But because most retail stores displayed just the book’s spine, it was impossible for authors to differentiate unless the prospective reader picked up their book or the book was displayed in a more appealing manner. Great book cover design has always been necessary to get the attention of retail merchandising managers if you wanted your book featured – and that remains true today.
Today, however, particularly for indies, the vast majority of sales occur online. This has allowed indies to compete against traditional publishers but has also made it clear that to get the readers’ attention, a great story must be matched by a great ebook cover design.
A typical reader will do a search on Amazon and will look at a handful of books. Sure, content and reviews are important, but the ebook cover is the first thing a potential reader sees and the cover can either make or break that initial impression. This is not surprising. Great images create an emotional reaction in people. Because images are processed by our brains 60,000 faster than words, a great cover is critical to make an amazing first impression. A poorly designed cover not only fails to create the emotional reaction you want to create in your readers, but also implies that the contents of the book are also sub-par.
Covers can lead to more (or fewer) sales, can allow you to price your book higher (but underscoring the message of quality), and can lend you credibility as an indie author.
Don’t just take our word for it. Smashwords founder Mark Coker tells a story in his ebook, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success about R.L. Mathewson, a romance writer, who went from selling five or six copies a day of her romance novel, to selling over 1,000 simply by updating her book cover image.
Yes! Every photo, image and word you include in the cover should reinforce the message you're trying to communicate to the reader.
But keep a few things in mind. For example, the author’s name doesn’t have to be in huge letters on the front cover. This is very common with self-published works, but far less common with works published by traditional publishers. There’s a reason for this – people will remember your name based on your written work, not because you put your name in big, bold letters on the cover. If you’re James Patterson or Dan Brown, your name in big letters can help sell new books. But for most indies, the title and imagery are far more important.
Especially today, when books are sold mostly online, you should avoid white backgrounds. White backgrounds disappear on a page, especially when shown as a small thumbnail. Use a color, a texture, or a background illustration instead.
Colors are important because colors create emotional reactions. The colors you pick should be connected to the story and mood. For example, a book best suited for the beach should consider incorporating cool blues and jade greens to give a tranquil feeling. Dramatic books should consider using black, bold red, and similarly dramatic colors to underscore the mood of the story.
The book cover image will be reproduced on large monitors and mobile devices. In fact, when you’re searching for books on amazon, you see just a small thumbnail of the image. That makes it especially critical that the design is simple. Simple designs are more memorable and less confusing, especially when viewed on a smaller screen. Take the iPhone, for example (or any comparably sized phone), a typical book jacket will be about 1/2 inch wide by 3/4 inches tall. That’s not a lot of space.
Yes, and in fact, this is very common. You might need more help with graphics and illustrations or the layout of your book. You can easily start a private 1-to-1 project with your favorite designer.
We know that authors have different budgets and we want to be sure that everyone gets a phenomenal book cover design. You'll get a great design regardless of pricing package. Having said that, higher awards to tend to attract more experienced designers and so you'll have more high-quality designs from which to choose your favorite. And, of course, if you need some privacy in your projects, our higher priced packages offer private galleries, non-disclosure agreements, and more.
When you reduce the cover to a small thumbnail, can you read the title? Avoid using script fonts - those can be very difficult to read, especially when someone is seeing a thumbnail of your cover design.
Colors and a great image are critical to effective book cover design, but you also need text and an effective font that matches the cover and the story. For example, if your audience is mostly women, you might prefer fonts that have more feminine flairs, such as scripted fonts. But don’t go overboard – some fonts are easier to read than others. There are thousands of fonts and not all of them are clean and readable on a small screen. Use a simple typeface and be sure you’re not using many typefaces on the cover. It’s OK to use two fonts on a cover, but more than two fonts will make the cover look busy and less readable.
Look for imagery that expresses the mood or overall tone of the book. You want to provide a context, not a literal image.
And remember to focus on one main image. It’s tempting for some authors to get carried away by trying to represent all the symbolism in their story. But when it comes to book covers, less is definitely more. Remember that the cover will be typically seen as a small thumbnail and you want your reader to understand what they’re seeing. You don’t want to confuse or overwhelm the reader with conflicting or busy imagery.
While you may have three story lines, five characters, twenty scenes and several plot twists, pick one strong theme for the cover. Is there one constant to your story? One lesson? One value? One message?
Good design is about balance. Pick one constant and tell it visually through the cover design.
You should know the dimensions for the cover, any printing requirements, and what information will need to go on the front and back covers. The front cover typically includes the author's name, title, subtitle, images and sometimes a quote. The back cover may need an ISBN number, biography, and a quote. Every cover is different so think about what you'll want to have on yours.
Yes. If you have specific images in mind, please include them when you post your project. You can also ask designers to use stock images (which you may need to purchase directly from a third party when you select the winnng design). Designers will let you know whether you will need to do this, and the price, when they submit each design.
Crowdspring guarantees your satisfaction in ebook cover design projects. There's NO fine-print. We are not happy until you are. Authors are so thrilled with the designs they receive on crowdspring that we are proud to stand behind the work and make you an unconditional promise.
If you’re an author publishing your next book or an aspiring author writing your first book, here are six compelling book cover design trends you’ll see in your local bookstore and online.
Here are 10 smart tips to help authors create an amazing book cover design.
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