The Importance of a Good Book Cover

Regardless of the content of your book, a thoughtful, beautifully crafted cover will play an integral role in the success of your book. Many a self-published author (and many traditionally published authors as well!) lament that, while they poured their soul into every precious word, they didn’t give enough attention to the package. Well, looks matter.

Not convinced? Think about how you make buying decisions in your local supermarket. Perhaps you’re trying a new soup or selecting wine to go with dinner. How did you choose? Odds are it was an eye-catching label that drove you to pick up certain brands. Maybe you read a couple product descriptions, and then you placed the prettiest among them in your cart.

Readers choose books in much the same way. While they usually do read book summaries to help them make a decision, how do they decide which summaries to read in the first place? You got it – the cover! Professional book cover art creates a number of advantages for your book in a crowded buying environment over plain looking covers:

  • Information. Custom cover art conveys important, specific clues to the reader about the content of your book. Clues imparted by color, theme, fonts and more, all tailored to your book, will instantly help buyers determine what your book is about and if it’s a good fit for their reading habits and preferences.
  • Credibility. Professional cover art immediately cues the reader – whether they’re aware of it or not – that the same care that was put into beautiful cover art was also taken in the writing of the book. It sends an instant message about quality – and you’ll want readers to perceive high quality right up front!
  • Visibility. Of course, you know your book is high quality, but if no one notices it, all that pithy content won’t matter. A custom crafted cover gets a potential book buyer to slow down for a second or two, which greatly increases the odds they’ll investigate further. It’s the first and most important step to securing a sale.
  • Targeting. An important function of your book cover is not just to appeal to any reader, but to appeal to the specific type of reader your content is intended to entertain or inform. For example, when creating a custom cover for a romance novel intended for young adults, a professional cover artist will take a vastly different approach than he would when creating a cover for a romance geared toward middle-age readers.
  • Marketability. A book and its cover add up to more than sum of their parts. Compelling content – packaged with an appropriate, targeted and smartly tailored book cover – makes for a marketable book that stands far better odds of selling than a strong book with a weak cover.

A professional custom book cover creates an attractive self-publishing package that readers will want to put in their shopping cart. While there’s never a guarantee that your stunning new artwork will immediately lead to an explosion in book sales a poorly designed cover is all but guaranteed to get passed by time and time again. And, the best part about compelling book cover art is that you don’t need an entire team of marketing gurus to get noticed. One knowledgeable and skilled cover artist can make a huge difference in online traffic to your book – and that makes a huge difference in sales.

START PUBLISHING AND GET A FREE CUSTOM COVER!

Every author wants to make the best first impression with his or her cover when it hits the shelf or is posted on the web, and an exclusive custom cover, designed specifically for that book, is probably the single most important element in making that striking first impression.

If your book doesn’t stand out, it may never be picked up!

A Custom Cover Design not only gives authors a far greater chance for an immediately favorable response to their books, it also helps convey a sense of the style, tone and content inside, and that too has an immediate effect on potential buyers.

This option is normally $499 but if you start today it’s FREE! Just enter the promotion code COVERAPR15 when checking out of your shopping cart while purchasing the popular Diamond package or the full color Pearl publishing package by April 30, 2015.

In addition to receiving a FREE Custom Cover for your book, you’ll also receive the following with your Diamond package:

  • Standard Press Release. $99 value included free when you order your Diamond publishing service today.
  • Audio Excerpt. $99 value included free with your Diamond order today and a great way to share your voice with your readers, literally!
  • E-Book Edition (pdf). $99 value included free with your Diamond publishing service.
  • Cover Image. $99 value included free and a great way to enhance your cover.
  • Spring Arbor additional distribution. $99 value to complement the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram availability already included with your Diamond publishing service.

All in all, you’re looking at almost $1,000 of free stuff in April!

Click to order the Diamond Package
Click to order the Pearl Package
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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT & SUCCESS STORY

“The publishing process was a positive experience because the Outskirts team truly cares about the authors they represent. They have done everything possible in an accurate, timely manner. A special thanks to the entire team.”

During her 27 years of teaching, Carol Leslie Bradley enjoyed encouraging her students to develop their creative abilities through writing. She mentors new teachers, and enjoys helping them with organizational strategies, and acquiring and maintaining classroom management skills. Carol and her husband Ron have four adult children and nine grandchildren. She loves reading, writing, and spending time with her grandchildren.

The Andersen family is looking forward to a cozy, loving Christmas together at their clan ranch in Colorado-all the traditions are in place, and everyone is gathered for a loving celebration. Little do they know that tragedy is about to strike. Ryan and Susan Andersen, flying in on a private plane, are about to meet their fate in an unexpected way. As the family tries to cope with their shock, old flames will reignite, and old rivalries will resurface. At the heart of the family story is lovely Sarah Andersen, who unexpectedly went to college out of state, breaking the heart of her high school love when she married another man. But he has never stopped loving her-and he is called on to help her family, now that he is Sheriff Rayburn. Sarah and her family find out that during the twists and turns of the unexpected road called life, it’s important to have people by your side who can be trusted to help navigate…and that a family inheritance can be counted best in love, not in money. This family saga of deception, redemption, and romance is sure to keep you intrigued.

– Carol Leslie Bradley, author of The Inheritance

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