The most important step in publishing a book, whether self-publishing or through a publisher, is the design of an attractive book cover. An attractive cover will attract your eye and say what your book is about, attract the targeted audience, and sometimes increase sales.
However, most authors make common mistakes during the design stage, which hinder their success. This post explores common mistakes when designing book covers and how to avoid them so you can create a professional cover that draws attention and impresses your readers.
Overcrowding the Design
Often, people overload the book cover by using too many elements; after all, it’s inviting to add a lot of different graphics, symbols, and text. A cluttered book cover design will overwhelm possible readers. The book cover has to say something simple about your story in a fashion that’s both clear at first glance and visually stunning.
Avoid making this mistake: Putting too much information or images on the cover.
How to Avoid It: The key elements that best represent the theme of your book will speak for themselves. A bold, legible title, the author’s name, and a striking single image or design element will capture the mood and genre of the book. In this case, simplicity often says it all.
Using Hard-to-Read Fonts
The wrong font choice may make the text on your book cover unreadable. In other words, if readers cannot read your title due to its ornate design or insufficient contrast with the background, they might ignore your book altogether.
Mistake to Avoid: Use heavy fonts that are difficult to read, decorative, or unsuitable for your book.
How to Avoid It: Choose a clear, clean font for your book’s genre. The title must be readable in multiple sizes since your cover will appear as a small thumbnail on many online platforms. You can avoid fancy fonts unless they complement the tone of your book, and make sure that the text has enough contrast with the background.
Ignoring Genre Expectations
Every book genre has a unique visual language, and failing to live up to these expectations can leave readers with a disconnect between your cover and your target readers. Darker, moodier colors, for example, will resonate with mystery novel readers, while a drama novel might feature softer colors and more elegant design elements.
Avoidable Mistake: Design a cover not aligned with the book’s genre.
How to Avoid It: Research book covers in your genre to understand the typical design style. You don’t want to copy others, but you want to understand the visual cues readers seek. Fantasy covers often feature magical or ethereal images, whereas thriller covers are dark and suspenseful.
Choosing Low-Quality Images
Using low-resolution or blurry images is the fastest way to make an otherwise nice book cover design appear as if it was made without an ounce of professionalism. At least on the Internet, one expects to see sharp covers. Grainy images and poor visual choices can often present your book as not worth looking into.
Mistake to Avoid: Low-resolution or pixelated images.
How to Avoid: Ensure the images you are adding are high resolution, at least 300 dpi dots per inch. Download those free royalty-free resources through Unsplash Shutterstock and others, or ask to obtain the print-ready file at or above the professional standard if you hire a designer for this task.
Neglecting the Back Cover and Spine
While the front cover does attract most of the attention, it is not a stand-alone element. The back cover is exposed when books are kept on shelves, and the spine carries crucial information, including book descriptions, author bios, and, in some cases, testimonials. If not focused on, these parts of your book would appear incomplete or not well put together.
Mistake to Avoid: Failure to consider the back cover and spine.
How to Avoid That: Pay attention to every part of the book cover design. Make sure that the back cover features a great description of the book, your author bio, blurbs, or reviews. In the spine, make sure the title and author’s name are clear and visible, where readers will see them when their books are shelved there.
Using Inconsistent Branding
For authors writing multiple books or a series, inconsistent design can confuse the reader if it is not applied consistently across their covers. In a way, finding or distinguishing your book from others with different visual identities on covers may be difficult.
Mistake to Avoid: Inconsistent design elements across a series or multiple books.
To Avoid It: Provide a constant visual theme to the book series or brand. This might mean utilizing consistent fonts, colors, or imagery throughout your book’s covers. This makes it easy for the reader to remember your book and to solidify a more potent author identity.
Forgetting About Thumbnail Size
With digital displays so widespread, a reader will probably see only a small thumbnail of your book cover on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Audible, or Goodreads. In such cases, complicated design elements and very small text make it impossible for interested readers to identify important information from the thumbnail.
Mistake to Avoid: Do not consider how your cover will look in thumbnail size.
To Avoid It: Test your design at smaller sizes to ensure it is still legible and effective. The title needs to be readable, and the key image needs to have an impact even when viewed as a tiny image. Small-scale visibility requires simplicity and boldness.
Ignoring the Importance of Color
Colors play a significant part in book cover designs because, with them, certain emotional triggers can have an immense effect on the book’s whole vibe. A color combination that does not match up with the tone of a book or simply clashes with it can easily turn the reader off.
Mistake to Avoid: Having an unbalanced and improper color scheme.
How to Avoid It: Choose the right colors to match your mood book. For instance, darker shades of blue and black suit thrillers and mystery books, while soft pinks and pastels work better for romance novels. Look up the emotional impact that these colors have to ensure they match the theme of your book.
Using Generic or Overused Designs
Some book cover designs have become so repetitive that they are no longer distinctive. These include stock photos or generic design templates that most authors or designers may depend on, which makes the cover look unoriginal.
Common Mistake to Avoid: Using overly used images or design templates.
To Avoid It: Create a unique, customized design based on the individuality of your book. Even stock images can be freshened up if enough originality is given by working with a designer to have an entirely custom vision come true.
Not Seeking Feedback Before Finalizing
Sometimes, an author is too close to his work; he will be blind to the flaws associated with his book cover design. Getting input from those who read other material can offer insight you have been missing.
Mistake to Avoid: Skipping the feedback process before finalizing the design.
How to Avoid It: Before finalizing a design, get some opinions from beta readers, friends, or fellow authors. Then, you will be able to see whether the cover appeals to your target audience and whether the elements should be changed.
Forgetting About Print and Digital Versions
Your book cover might look great on your computer screen, but think about how it will look in print and digital format. A good digital design will probably not be good for print, particularly when considering colors, margins, and resolution.
Avoid the mistake of not considering: how your cover looks in both print and digital format.
How to Avoid It: Ensure the final design is optimized for print and digital versions. For self-publishing, the resolution needs to be at least 300 dpi for print purposes, and the cover size should match the dimensions for eBook and paperback.
Conclusion
A book cover design is an artistic task that requires much care and knowledge of what is doing well in the market. All these mistakes avoided ensure that a professional-looking cover will be created that attracts the right reader.
A book cover is much more than a design. It’s a marketing tool. Take your time and do it right, and your cover will sell your book before the reader turns the first page. For professional help, check out book cover design services. Their professional design team can help you create a standout cover that aligns with your vision and genre, making sure that your book makes an impression.
