Your fellow humans do judge people, places and things based on first impressions.
It’s a fact. So,
Anyone who is, or has contemplated, writing a book need to keep a few important rules in mind when designing their book cover. And, the reason has everything to do with successfully getting your written work into the hands of many readers as is possible. That business belongs to the field of marketing and is vitally important… otherwise your long hours of writing, and the printer’s efforts to print out multiple copies for you will end up being wasted if the books end up sitting in a basement, garage or warehouse.
Here are the most important ingredients in order of significance:
- The Title
- The Sub-Title
- Benefit Bullet Points
- Testimonials
- Graphic Design
- Name Capture Device
Before I go into detail, explaining the importance of each of the above points, I need to side track for a moment and introduce “t-i-f”.
Some people call it a “swipe file”, others call it “research material” and I call it “the idea file” or “t-i-f”. No matter the name, it’s a collection of related things that you can revisit, study, dissect and use for inspiration.
I have swipe files (t-i-fs) of
- “junk mail”
- direct response ads
- classified ads
- yellow page ads
- headlines
- mail order catalogs
- megalogs and
- book jackets
I’ve collected examples of each and this has driven my wife and relatives absolutely crazy.
They can’t figure out why anyone would want to save junk mail, or tear out and save magazine or newspaper ads. But their discomfort with my collections will not distract me from my mission of explaining to you what I’ve extracted from these resources.
Over the years I’ve collected hundreds of book covers (jackets) and moments before writing this message I sifted through the pile and came up with an outstanding specimen that contains all of the successful elements that made the book, from which it was gotten, a runaway best-seller.
The book focusses on personal development and human achievement. It’s a “How to” book. And, it has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in both hard cover and paperback versions.
The book was published in 1991 and has the international standard book number (ISBN) of 0-671-72734-6. The author: Anthony Robbins.
The cover is divided into 5 panels:
- Spine
- Front Cover
- Back Cover
- Inside front cover Flap and
- Inside back cover Flap
The Title serves as the book’s headline. It grabs the reader’s attention with a command: “Awaken The Giant Within”. The words are bold and each letter has a dark shadow giving the appearance that the words float above the paper.
The title need not be a command. It could be a promise or a statement of a fact or a question. But it needs to attract and keep the attention of readers and induce them to want more.
The “more” is provided by the sub-title. In my example it’s: “How to take immediate control of your mental, emotional, physical and financial destiny!”
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The bullet points should describe 8 or 9 of the most powerful benefits present in the book and the benefits should start off with the most powerful one followed by the second most powerful and third and so on. This will have the effect of capturing and holding the reader’s attention.
A good place for testimonial or endorsements (from famous personalities and/or celebrities) is the back cover. These testimonials should consist of the most powerful and complimentary phrases given to the author from his admirers. Don’t do any rewriting or misrepresent the authors’ words but you can edit out verbose sections or non-concise parts using “…” between useful statements.
The overall impression that is created by the book cover lies in the cover’s overall design and eye-appeal. It should look and feel like it was professionally done and not come across as shoddy workmanship.
This can be done using the services of professional jacket designers or graphic designers. Tony Robbins used the services of Robert Mott & Associates, of San Diego, California.
He also hired a professional photographer to generate a high resolution, and complimentary, photograph of the author.
I remember seeing the book jacket the first time. I was browsing the shelves of a book store and saw the book’s spine (gold foil with photograph of author in a boxed area at the top of the spine including author’s name and title). It looked good… so much so that I pulled the book off the self… thumbed through it and bought it.
Finally, and this is an area that isn’t used by many authors, is the “name capturing” device.
On the bottom of the back cover’s inside spine is a coupon offering free information about the author’s businesses and other products along with an offer for a free copy of his newsletter.
Interested people are given the choice of calling a toll free number or sending in a completed coupon to an address that is printed directly under the offer.
The value of this coupon is immense.
It allows the author to get the names and addresses and phone numbers of readers. These names then go into a database of people who have proven themselves (by buying the book) to be interested in the subject areas of the book.
These lists can then be sold to businesses offering similar products or services. This process of list generation, maintenance and renting becomes more valuable the larger the list grows.
The list of customer names can also be used by the author to send marketing materials announcing other related products available from the author. Very powerful…
So, if you haven’t do so already, start creating t-i-fs (swipe files) and you too will be able to come up with book covers that pull their own weight in selling the books that you write.
About the Author: Gerard LeBlond is the author of The Hip-Pocket Guide To Basic Drum Beats and other titles. He lives in central New York State and is responsible for the following websites: www.webdesign1s2c.com and www.gerard-leblond.com.