Covers, Covers, Covers

How important is the cover of your book you ask? Well, in a word it is ENORMOUS to the success of your book. Think about it ... if you are well known author with hundreds of thousands of readers around the world ... who cares what your cover looks like, but if you are starting out and even a self publisher the cover of your book is paramount in your success.

If you cover says “pick me up and look at me” ... you have a winner, if your book cover doesn't convey that message you need to re-design it so that it does. It's that simple.

If you don't believe me, go to the nearest magazine rack and look at the covers ... what attracts you? ... why does it attract you? .... what colors does it have? .... what about the magazines that don't attract you what features are different about them?

These are all the questions you need to explore when deciding on a cover for your book. The cover needs to match the content of your book, but it needs to do so in a way that makes a potential reader want to pick it up and want to purchase your book. If you are not targeting your covers to match your audience you are missing a large part of a potentially huge market.

 Imagine walking into a book store with your book ... you walk over to the store owner, introduce yourself and offer them a copy of your book that you have in their hand. How that store owner reacts to taking that book from you is similar to how their customers are going to react ... and they know that. If the store owner is anxious to have a look at your book, you ... have ... a ... winner!

 Many authors don't worry too much about what their cover looks like because they are relying on the content of the book to do the sales for them. The only problem with this methodology is that unless they are already well know, their books will not get picked up and looked at and purchased unless they are a “compelling purchase” in the first place. If you are placing your books on Amazon it is even more important because now potential buyers are looking at pages and pages of book covers and the books that will get purchased are the ones with covers that say ... “buy me” ... it's that simple. So take the time and make your covers successful, it the first step in making your books successful.

copyright - Colin Knecht
bookmarkselfpublishing.com

Share this post