From Dean Wesley Smith:
Readers buy book by not only what their front brain thinks of the sales copy and the cover, but more than that, readers (all of us) buy books because of subconscious clues.
Clues like:
—Cover art not professional
— Cover art not to genre or book title impossible to read
— Book sales copy dull and passive and gives too much plot away.
— Book interior so poorly formatted as to be impossible to read.
There are others, but one major clue that helps readers trust that the book is done by a professional and it will be entertaining is the size of the author name on the cover.
Yes, size does matter.
Traditional publishing ground one simple concept into readers minds for 50 years.
The bigger the author name on the cover, the better the book will be.
That is where the term “big name author” came from.
A beginning writer with a first book would always have a small name on the book. Roberts, Cussler, Koontz names fill the top third of the book cover.
So suddenly here comes indie publishing and authors, full of fear, put their name down on the bottom of their books in small print. And then wonder why they get no sales.
Duh…
Your author name should fill from side to side over the top third of every book you write. You should be shouting that you are a big name author to your readers. (There are a few genre common things that tell readers of that genre you are a big name, but mostly it is size.)
So if you want more sales, believe your books are worth reading, then start acting like it and put your name on the top of your books in large form.
Link to the rest at Dean Wesley Smith
Good to know – wonder if it works for non-genre fiction, but that should be easy to check, from comparing traditional with self-published books covers – thanks, Dean.