Epic Advice and Encouragement (EAE)

Advice 3 ☼ Cover Design Tips

Hi, guys, it's salonikavale here, and I have a slightly different viewpoint to what Star put forth in the last chapter. As she said, you can't please everyone, so the most important thing is to make sure that your cover a) best represents your story's content and b) satisfies YOU as the author.

Still, the motto "Don't judge a book by its cover" is prevalent for a reason - because people do judge a book by its cover. I wish I had a statistic to offer you, like "9 times out 10 people won't read books with crappy covers", but I don't.

However, it's common sense to assume that people like aesthetically pleasing images and will be more drawn to a cover they find visually attractive over one that they don't.

Wattpad has millions of stories and only a small fraction of readers will ever see yours. Even so, you're not guaranteed that they'll click your link and start reading. An attractive cover increases the likelihood that someone will check out your work. If you're concerned about increasing your readership, be aware that the cover of your book is the first thing that most readers will see.

And they're going to see it thumbnail-sized. Basically, it's going to be small. No matter what size you edit the book cover to be, Wattpad will automatically resize it to fit their predetermined image sizes for the desktop and mobile screen. In this case, a simple cover will be more effective than one that is cluttered with text and images.

I create my covers in Photoshop CC; however, my graphic design tips will apply for any cover, irrespective of genre and software used to create it.

1. Use high-quality images.

I cannot stress this enough. Use images with high resolution. This means your images should be crisp and sharp. Have you ever noticed that when you use a small picture and then try to resize it to a larger size, you lose quality? Your end result looks blurry, out of focus, and, quite frankly, unprofessional.

2. Don't clutter.

When you have a lot of ideas for your cover, it's easy to go overboard and use a bunch of different images. However, I would advise you to refrain from doing this. You want to convey ONE idea to your reader. This idea should immediately convey to the reader what kind of book they're picking up. This could include identifying the genre; for example, a paranormal or supernatural book may use a creepy-looking house, swirling mist, thick fog, blood-spatters, etc. to convey the genre. 

You may have several amazing images, but the reader isn't going to notice how awesome each picture is - they're just going to look at how cluttered it looks on your cover! Pick ONE picture and make it the focus of your cover. You want the reader to be able to focus on that one amazing picture. Otherwise, it gets lost and the reader doesn't know where to look first. 

Of course, if you're using a software app that lets you take multiple pictures and blend them together seamlessly to make one graphic, that's a different story.

3. Typography is your friend.

I love fonts. Like, I really, really love them. To a border-line creepy extent. Okay, not really. But what I'm saying here is that the font of your book is what you'll use for the title, so it's very, very important to pick a good font.

I've noticed a lot of book covers on here use plain fonts like Arial or Times New Roman. If that's all you have available to you, that's fine. But if you have the software and ability to download novelty fonts (aka the fonts that didn't come with your computer), then I highly advise taking advantage of it!

Just don't go crazy and use several different kinds of font, okay? That also makes your cover look cluttered. 

I usually use only two fonts for my novel - one for my author name and one for the title. I like using a bold, fun font for the title because it's the best for catching the eye of the reader and a simple font for my author name. Make sure that whatever font you choose, it's easily legible. There are some fonts that look like a cursive chicken scratch - so beware!

This is an introductory overview to cover design. I'm by no means an expert, but I hope my advice has been useful to you. If you'd like to show me any of your designs, pm me at salonikavale or drop a message on my board :)