Ideas for Book Covers

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Covers are a recurring topic for indie authors.

Perhaps the most important means of stopping a reader browsing on Amazon and persuading them to look more closely at a book is the cover.

PG has noted that in some genres, many of the covers look the same.

There can be a perfectly good reason for this. Nothing says Zombie! like a decaying hand.


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or someone enjoying a light snack.
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However, it can be easy to get into a visual rut.

In PG’s experience, many people don’t know that Adobe has a website to help people who use its software show their accomplishments to the world.

PG searched Bēhance for book covers and discovered far more original cover designs than he ever sees on Amazon.

Following is a small sample. Click on the image for a larger version.

You can all of the images are subject to the artist’s copyright.

PG has inserted a link to the artist’s page on Bēhance above each image.

Artist

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 Artist

Artist

Artist

Artist

Artist

 

Link to the rest at Bēhance

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7 thoughts on “Ideas for Book Covers”

  1. Since on Amazon you have only a thumbnail to get the reader to ‘look’ harder, simple and bold to stand out and not be a bit of mush – but not so much that you stab them in the eyes with it (hard to read with stabbed eyes …)

    • She also mentions what I was going to comment on:

      look at what’s selling right now, and model your book’s packaging so that it will look like it fits in alongside your competition.

      The cover is not where you need to worry about being different or original. Again, you don’t want to dilute the message of your cover. Stand out by having an absolutely fantastic cover and blurb, not by contravening the vital cues that will best communicate to your audience that they need this book in their lives.

      Covers are the same as popular fiction; readers want “the same, but different.”

      So while your artistic examples might be striking and beautiful, PG, I’m not sure they’d sell the books.

  3. Covers have several jobs.

    The first, and most important, is to signal genre (in the target country — conventions vary by country).

    After that, quality, design, and originality count.

    Then there’s the question of legibility of title/author at thumbnail size, and adequate brightness at thumbnail size.

    When you look at a bestsellers page for any genre, it’s always startling how many covers are illegible or pedestrian.

    • Good points, Karen.

      I also think designing covers for Amazon is not the same as designing covers for Barnes & Noble.

    • So true, Karen. A lot of folks new to self publishing don’t have any idea about covers. They either do a bad one their self, or hire someone to do a bad one for them. Part of learning this giant of a business is learning about covers, what the market expects, what catches the eye, in a good way.

      I struggle with it myself, but I hope I’m achieving the spirit of the rule while giving something a bit different. It’s been a years-long process, both in the design and software learning curve areas.

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