{"id":583,"date":"2015-04-06T08:43:52","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T12:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/?p=583"},"modified":"2015-04-06T08:43:52","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T12:43:52","slug":"april-6-keep-your-book-covers-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/2015\/04\/06\/april-6-keep-your-book-covers-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"April 6, Keep your book covers simple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Help! My cover is awful<\/h2>\n

I usually discuss professional publishing on this blog, but I’m also interested in book publishing (self-publishing), so from time to time I’ll talk about that side of the publishing world. <\/p>\n

I’ve published lots of books. You can see them on my Amazon page.<\/a> Most of my books get pretty good reviews, but my sales are not doing very well. I have to assume that people like my writing, but I’m clearly doing something wrong on the promotional side of things. <\/p>\n

There are lots of ways a self-published author can fail, but one of the biggest challenges is the cover.<\/p>\n

I can write, but I’m simply not an artist. I can’t draw for beans, and I’d rather have somebody else pick my clothes for me. Don’t worry, I don’t wear the striped tie with the plaid shirt, but … I simply don’t have an artist’s eye. <\/p>\n

And that’s only part of the challenge. It’s one thing to have a nice-looking cover, but people absolutely do judge books by their genre expectations. The cover has to fit what they think they’re getting in the story. E.g., a sword and sorcery book has to have a different cover than a political thriller. <\/p>\n

I have a decent sense for such things (at least I think I do) but some people have an absolute knack for that kind of stuff. <\/p>\n

Here’s a person who does. Lessons from a great book jacket designer.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Genius comes in all forms, and Peter Mendelsund is supposed to be a book cover genius. <\/p>\n

I may have done myself wrong by putting art on my covers. Here’s what Mendelsund says. <\/p>\n

If in doubt, stick with typography. Make sure the typography is legible. Use your handwriting if your handwriting is decent. If not, use a font. Any tried-and-true standard face will do (Bodini, Baskerville, Garamond, Helvetica, Trade Gothic). Pick a pretty color for your background. Voila.<\/p>\n

When you start to incorporate illustrations, photographs, etc. the amateurishness of the work begins to show. But there\u2019s no need for any of that stuff. Many of the best book covers are simple as could be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or, in short, keep it simple. <\/p>\n

How could I have missed such an obvious thing! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Help! My cover is awful I usually discuss professional publishing on this blog, but I’m also interested in book publishing (self-publishing), so from time to time I’ll talk about that side of the publishing world. I’ve published lots of books. You can see them on my Amazon page. Most of my books get pretty good …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘April 6, Keep your book covers simple’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregkrehbiel.com\/marketing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}