Book Covers - Choosing the right image

They say, “Don't judge a book by its cover,” so a cover doesn't really matter

Forget the "don't judge a book by its cover" nonsense!

Do you know how to recognise a good cover?

• Color effect on emotions.
• Rule of thirds.
• Golden ratio.
• Typography.
• How long should a title be?
• Is it worthwhile using a subtitle?
• Is your image appropriate?
• Are you allowed to use that image?

Appropriate Images?

Few books are successful without some sort of cover image. A good cover image should give the reader an idea of the book content. Look at the image used ignoring any title or author text. Does it give you an idea of what to expect? Take a look at the five covers shown below.

Do any of them match this book description?

Is there any sort of formula for judging a cover image? I would suggest looking at it without the text. Does the image give any idea of the book content? I'm judging them on Amazon's thumbnail size - what a reader will see first.

• Silent as the grave - A large, old house, possibly an institution of some kind? Certainly NOT a castle as the book description indicates - Expectation: Ghost? Horror?
• Fresh doubt - Looks like a derelict factory. No clues here other than a man is standing in it - Expectation: Business venture?
• In between - A young girl, obviously not well off. She's going somewhere - Expectation: New situation for a teenage girl.
• To kill for - This image is too dark to make out at this scale. If you examine the book preview you can make out the object in it is a blood splattered tyre ('tire' for US readers) wrench. It can't be made out clearly at the thumbnail size though. Pretty useless as an image. It's the author name and title text which will sell here - Expectation: Something 'dark'
• Where there's smoke - Someone with a lamp overlooking a desert or sea; it could be either at this scale. The clothing doesn't look western style - Expectation: Story about Africa or Asia

Author Name

Of all the text on a book cover, the most important bit is not the book title but the author name! Take a look at the top five free e-books at Amazon UK (4:00pm Saturday 30th August 2014)

Notice how clear the author’s name is in each case? Many new authors make the mistake of selling a book title when they should be selling their brand. Once you’ve bought and read a particular title you wouldn’t buy it again but you might search for other books by that author. An author’s name is their brand. Make the author name clearly visible even at Amazon's smallest thumbnail size of 58 x 87 pixels. Here's an example at that size:

The Title (and sub-title)

Together, your title and subtitle must be 200 characters or less.

A good title is one which will catch interest without a cover image helping it. Consider these titles:

• Silent as the Grave (Many murders, many centuries, one unspeakable evil)
• Fresh Doubt (Ingrid Skyberg FBI Thrillers - Book 1)
• In Between (A Katie Parker Production)
• To Kill For (Families are murder ...do you trust yours?)
• Where There's Smoke

Do any of them grab your attention? My analysis is as follows - I'll explain EMV in a moment.

• 'Silent as the grave' suggests to me a paranormal death experience - EMV without the subtitle 0% but with it 41.67%
• 'Fresh Doubt' suggests something to do with a criminal conviction - EMV score with or without subtitle 0%
• 'In Between' suggests a change of lifestyle and the use of 'production' in the subtitle possibly indicates a theatre or film. - EMV score without subtitle 0%, with 50%
• 'To Kill For' suggests a murder. The use of 'family' and 'trust' makes it much more interesting - EMV score with subtitle 60%
• 'Where There's Smoke' suggests the reader add 'there's fire' at the end and implies one event suggests another - EMV score 0% even if you include the 'there's fire'

Two things you need to know -

Titles

According to Mark Coker of Smashwords, fiction books with shorter titles tend to do better. The top 100 best selling books at Smashwords average 4-5 words. This isn't true for non-fiction, where longer titles tend to do better.

Subtitles

Although a subtitle isn't essential, books with subtitles tend to do better. Subtitles are usually not readable in the thumbnail images used by retailers such as Amazon but if the thumbnail draws attention and is clicked the subtitle starts to take effect and gives the reader an idea of what to expect. Subtitles are an excellent place to include keywords, this will make your book more discoverable.

EMV - Emotional Marketing Value

EMV stands for Emotional Marketing Value. Words in various languages have been analyzed for their emotional impact. Normal English has about 20% words which carry emotional marketing value. A really good title would have 40%. 60% is excellent

Of course you'll want to know how to measure the EMV of your title. It's easy to do on-line at https://www.aminstitute.com/headline/ Enter your headline in the box and select 'Media & Communications' as the category. Your title must be at least four words (and less than 20). If your title is shorter than that, add some neutral words such as 'as', 'the', 'and' or 'if' until you have four words. Remember - as the 'Fresh Doubt' and 'Where there's smoke' books show, it's possible to have a successful book with a low EMV score but you'll need an exceptional cover image or a recognised author name for that.

Don't just use EMV for book titles and subtitles. Try running the sentences of your book description through the check. Consider using it to check the opening paragraphs of your book. Slightly rephrasing these can have a dramatic effect on performance.

Getting a cover made

Not everyone can make a good book cover. It's a skill many don't feel comfortable with so this may be a task you may want someone else to do. Before you take this step, make sure you've read these cover pages so that you can recognise a good cover when you see one.

You have a number of options:

Using canva Canva is a website offering free and paid plans. Unfortunately' to make full use of their thousands of book templates you'll need a paid plan and that's £99.99 per year or £12.99 per month. Fortunately you get a 30 day free trial. It is possible to produce some covers free though. Here's one I made in minutes.

Using Fiverr If you’re really stuck for cash and you can’t produce your own cover then consider getting a cover from https://fiverr.com. This site will put you in touch with a number of people who will produce a cover for just $5.00. Use caution here though – make sure any images they use are not copyright. Here's a cover produced at Fiverr which I then modified a little to keep it more in line with the story. When the short story became part of a series it was modified again.

Using a professional cover designer Expect to pay £300+ for a really good book cover. A professional designer should have a good grasp of the effect of colour, rule of thirds and golden ratio. When choosing a designer ask to see samples of their work. Then go look up those samples at Amazon and check their sales rank. If the cover is effective, expect a rank of less than a million.

Is your image copyright free?

Any image you use must be one you've created yourself or 'copyright free' or one you have a license to use. If someone else is making the cover you would be wise to check that a copyright image has not been used. I suggest searching Google is a good place to start. If the image is on a website and you use Chrome browser you can right click the image and select 'Search image with Google'. You'll get a list of sites using the image and normally the biggest or oldest of these is likely to be the original. If you are not using Chrome browser you can save the image on your computer. Then go to google.com and select the 'Search by image' icon and upload it and click 'Search'.

If you have an image editing program you can load the image then select image information and examine the image meta data for the source. I use PaintShopPro as an image editor

Check all the tabs for clues of the original image. In my case I found the image came from a site offering public domain screen backgrounds.