When buying a book, you may
be influenced by its amazing reviews, its subject or what an A- list celebrity
is tweeting about it. But if you ignore all the above, you will be influenced
by its book cover.
Bookshelves often contain
loads of new authors that you can choose from every week if not every day.
Books do get judged by its cover and if you are a new, young author, your first
book cover can make or break you.
This week, Kia and her
publishing team went through the tedious, yet very worthwhile task of finalising
book cover. Whilst there is a lot of free software that can create a book cover
for you, it is always worth investing a little money in your book cover.
Kia’s book cover came about
as a result of pre-arranged relationships with agents, publishers and
illustrators. But even if you are a self- published author, don’t think that
your story is going to sell purely because of its pages. Spend some money and
time on your cover.
This is not only a
representation of your book subject but is also a reflection of your
imagination and creativity.
When looking back at the
process, Kia says: “Apart from the editing of the book, this cover has occupied
most of the team’s time for the last few months and I think it is right that it
did.”
“At the end of this, what
are you most proud of?” I ask.
“My one fear was giving too
much away on the cover itself,” she says. “The final cover displays the most
important theme of the book without giving too much about the characters and
storylines.”
“Teenagers will still have
to buy the book to get to know me and this story and I know that the book cover
should encourage them to want to uncover more.”
A great book cover can
induce curiosity in every reader and if it is an e-book, it can get more clicks
and views which could lead to more purchases. The synopsis is important but
many simply glance over it when buying books.
A title can grab me while a
pretty or unique book cover can either make me want to buy the book or move on
to the next interesting book cover on the shelf.
Amazingly, after all these
years, any individual is very much influenced by appearances and pretty does
sell. It is the same principle as dating really. When you first fancy a person,
you love the way they look and then after you get to know them, you love them
for their personality.
Many books are bought
because of their cover and then after we read them, we recommend them to other
because of their messages or storylines.
“One problem that we did
face when creating the book cover was the amount of detail to put on the front,”
Kia says.
“This does not have much to
do with giving many storylines away as it have to do with my story itself. The
world I have created is very detailed and it was important not to crowd the
front of the book. Simplicity with a range of bright colours was key.”
Of course, Kia will be
revealing her book cover in time. It’s still a few months to go and she’s very
big on tantalizing her readers with little snippets of her success. Stay tune
for this and more on Kia’s journey....
