Are you a sucker for packaging? I know I am. Bright colors, a pretty picture, a great design is enough to turn my head and make me pick something up off the shelf.

How about when it comes to books? Are you drawn into taking a chance on a new author from the cover alone? How about a bad cover on a favorite author’s book?

During my time in Chicago with Wendi, we spent an entire half day in a local bookstore. We weren’t there to buy anything; we were on a mission. With our novel in the editing/proofing stage it was time to consider a cover. For four or five hours we prowled the aisles soaking up our impressions of various paranormal romance, fantasy and fiction covers.

The romance section, as you might imagine, was full of plenty of bare torsos and seductive couples. Nearly all the paranormal (werewolves, vampires, etc.) had plenty of pretty men with intensely brooding stares. The fantasy novels all had gorgeous illustrative artwork and the fiction covers varied widely from abstract backgrounds to photographic compositions.

But how do you make your cover stand out from all the others?

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words (190,454 to be exact)

Your primary consideration when designing a book cover for any genre is what image, or set of images is going to represent what the book is about.

One way to decide this is to do a little brainstorming. Start with a list of words. Don’t think about them, just write them down as they come to mind. Maybe there’s a particular item that has significance to your main character, maybe it’s an image that keeps reoccurring throughout the story. Physical items are easiest to visualize; a rose, fire, rain, a broken cup or a pocket watch given to the character by a friend or family member. The abstracts like love, loyalty, or honor are more difficult, but write those abstracts down too.

When you’ve gotten this list together it’s time to go window shopping. What I like to do is take a little trip over to iStock* and just plug in those keywords to get ideas. Sometimes you get lucky and find a single image that has everything you want. Other times, you have to look at individual images and break them down into pieces you can use.

Even when you do find a single perfect image, it’s still a good idea to consider how you can embellish it a touch more.

If you’re an illustrator, or know one, you may decide to go the route of original artwork. My favorite cover illustrators growing up were The Brothers Hildebrant (The Sword of Shanara pictured at right), who did the poster for the original Star Wars movie, and Michael Whelan, who illustrated the Dragon Prince series by Melanie Rawn.

Both of these artists do what I consider “classic cover art”. Each of the covers painted by hand using traditional fine arts methods. These were the covers that lead me down my own path of illustration and many times I liked the covers more than I liked the stories.

Other books have a more contemporary look, like the whimsical illustrations on Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series (better known as the HBO adaptation True Blood).

There are two versions of some of the covers. One for the television tie-in of the Dead Club, with photos of the cast in a dark, moody setting and a version done in the original style you see at the left.

When you self publish, every decision about the cover belongs to you. If you’re going through a publishing house, as an author you may not have much say in who does your cover. Many times a publishing house has a stable of artists and they will match up an artist with a writer. The same applies to artists applying for work as a cover artist to a publisher.

If you are self publishing and looking for a designer to do your cover, shop around. Find one who fits both the book’s and your personality.

Font Considerations

Images are important, but so is the text you put on top of it. The wrong font will kill you. When you add your title you should treat the fonts with as much consideration as you do the main image. Primarily, the fonts you choose have to be legible. In fact, they have to be above and beyond legible.

Why? Consider this: You’ve got less than three seconds for someone to look at your book on the shelf. In that time they need to be able to read your title clearly. Both image and words have to work fast to make that first impression and speak to a future fan.

If they can’t read what your cover says they’ll do one of two things; take a closer look to see what the hell it says, or pass on by. Most of the time it’s the latter – no one wants reading a title to be work.

Clarity also applies to how those words look on top of the image. You could have a simple font like Times Roman, but if you have a busy background going on, that will obscure the title as much as an overly fancy font would.

Drumroll Please…

Now the moment our fans have been waiting for. What did we decide for the Bonds of Blood & Spirit: Loyalties cover? After way too much consideration and a “Stop being a perfectionist and give me twenty crappy covers!” from Wendi – which is a topic for another time – I nailed our look on the first shot. We like it alot, and we hope you do too.

If you think the cover’s hot, just wait until you read what’s inside. But you’re going to have to wait a few more months for that.

And here’s another special announcement: This Wednesday we will have a very special guest interview with Christine Feehan; author of over forty books in the paranormal genre, including Burning Wild and Wild Fire. Be sure to stop by, you don’t want to miss it.

*Note: you can use iStock images without an extended license for a book cover. There is a limit on how many copies you can reproduce for sale (499,999). Once you get above that an extended license is required.

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