6 Qualities to Look for in a High-Quality Premade Book Cover

Studies have proven that we do judge books by their covers, and as self-published authors, we must take this seriously. If you have a poorly designed book cover, whether you design it yourself, have it custom-made, or select a premade book cover, it has to be great. Because a book cover that is anything less than great will hurt your book sales.

1 – High Quality Cover Art

The art for your cover should be a dynamic image that properly represents the genre and story you are telling. It shouldn’t look like a stock photo taken from a free photo website, nor should it look like clip art pulled from your word processing application. Spend some time looking at different book covers for best-selling titles in your genre. What types of images do they use? What information do they include on the cover? What color schemes are they using? Use the answers to these questions to help you figure out what type of cover would be ideal for your book.

Graphic artist creating a premade book cover design

2 – Proper Cover Title Font Selections

Font choices on book covers seem like a trivial thing, but they often set the tone for the book. As a self-publishing professional, you need to educate yourself about fonts and how they work both on book covers and the interior layout. Joel Friedlander has a good article on the Top 10 Fonts for Book Covers and Interior Design and another good post from Cover Design Studio about different typefaces and fonts are a good place to start.

3 – Good Cover Text Placement

Even if you select the perfect font for your book cover, there are many other mistakes you can make with placing the text on your cover. Here are a few of them:

  • Text too close to the edges of the cover
  • Title text is too small and hard to read
  • Too much text on the cover – Too much text makes the cover look too busy or even cluttered, especially if you have some nice visual elements on the cover
  • Using more than 3 fonts on the cover – Two contrasting fonts work best. Never use more than 3 different fonts on the book cover.

4 – Making the Author’s Name too Large on the Book Cover

There is a myth out there that self-published authors should make their name on the cover very large in order to convince the book buyer that you are a popular, best-selling writer. This is true if you happen to be Stephen King, Suzanne Collins, or John Grisham, but if you are reading this article, you should not try to fool potential readers by blowing up the size of your name to misrepresent how big of a selling point your name is. The reader will see right through it.

5 – Has a Professional Look and Feel

There are millions of book covers out there, and many successful ones use dramatically different design elements, colors, and styles. Spend some time looking at book covers at a book store or library. Which ones do you like? What draws you to them? Book publishers spend a lot of time and effort designing the perfect book cover for every book they print, so steal their cover design ideas.

6 – Designed by Someone Who Designs Book Covers

If you do not have graphic design experience, it is very hard to learn the skills necessary to design a good-looking book cover. Even with some of the fantastic DIY book cover design tools available, the tools cannot be a substitute for skill and experience. And even if you are a graphic design professional, book cover design uses different stylistic choices that only someone familiar with the publishing industry might understand. If you hire a graphic designer, make sure they have experience designing book covers and that they have some example book covers in their portfolio. There are many high-quality book cover design professionals out there who sell designs at a reasonable price.

InstantPublisher Provides Premade Book Covers and Custom Book Covers

InstantPublisher is your full-service self-publishing book printer that provides a large selection of premade book covers and custom book cover designs. Get more information about these services by calling 1-800-259-2592, filling out our online contact form, or sending an email to questions@instantpublisher.com.

What is a Vanity Publisher?

Vanity publishers–AKA vanity presses, vanity book printing, or subsidy publishers–are companies that offer commercial book printing services for authors who pay them to publish their books. This is very different than the “traditional” model of book publishing where the publishing company pays you for the right to print, distribute, and sell your books.

Vanity Book Printing’s Bad Reputation

Vanity book printing and self-publishing book printing are terms used interchangeably to represent any author who takes control of the publishing process to produce his/her own books.

Books printing at a vanity publisher

Vanity book printing has a negative connotation because it suggests that an author who uses such a service is vain and that if the author did not pay the book printing company it would never be accepted for publication or sold successfully by a traditional publisher. Vanity book printing also got a bad reputation because of a few unethical book printers who would overcharge the author for printing the book, take over the publishing rights to the work, and provide nothing in return. No editing services. No book cover design assistance. No marketing support. If the author wanted any of these services, he/she had to pay a premium for them on top of the book printing fees. All the author got in return was pallets of overpriced books sitting in the unfortunate author’s garage.

In a traditional book publishing arrangement, the publishing house takes on all of the risks—and thus the expense—of printing the book, and this makes it in their best interest to see that the author succeeds. As a result, these publishing houses provide editorial services, professional book cover designs, illustrators, book manuscript layout, distribution, and many other services in exchange for a large portion of the book’s earnings.

Vanity Book Printing vs. Self-Publishing Book Printing

Vanity book printing operates under a different business model than a self-publishing book printer. Where a vanity press earns most of its income by charging the author a mandatory premium for extra services such as editing, book cover design, and much more by overcharging the hopeful author who dreams of seeing his or her book on the NYT Best Seller list. A self-publishing book printer makes money primarily by printing a large number of copies of the author’s book. They provide these services at reasonable, competitive rates, and may offer additional services such as editing and book cover design as options if they are interested in using them. The focus on the self-publishing book printing model is empowering the author to make all of the decisions to make his/her book exactly as envisioned. From the book manuscript layout to the color of the lettering on the book cover, are all determined by the author with the self-publishing book printer as a partner in the process.

Self-Publishing Means You Assume All of the Risk

Even if you work with a reputable self-publishing book printer, it is important for you to understand that in this publishing approach you assume all of the risks. You are the one responsible for everything. You write the book, design the book cover (or hire someone to design it for you), you write the back-cover copy for the book, get the book reviewed by reputable book reviewers, distribute the book to sellers, handle all of the accounting for the book sales, etc.

If the thought of this level of control over the publication of your book excites you, then maybe self-publishing is right for you. If the thought of doing all of these things overwhelms or terrifies you, then maybe you should consider a traditional publishing contract.

InstantPublisher is Your Premier Self-Publishing Book Printing Services Provider

Whether you call us a vanity publisher or a self-publishing book printer, you get high-quality book printing at an affordable cost. We provide additional publishing services such as custom book cover design, typesetting, and book layout services at reasonable rates if you want them, or just do it yourself. If you have any questions feel free to give us a call at 1-800-259-2592, fill out our online contact form, or send an email to questions@instantpublisher.com.