How to Nail Your Book Cover Design — with Marketing in Mind

It may seem unfair to judge a book by its cover, but the unfortunate truth is that most potential readers will do just that. Many an author’s fortunes have hinged on whether their book cover managed to convince the right readers to take a chance on it. In this post, we’ll walk you through the essential elements of an effective cover design to help you create a cover that will have your book flying off of store shelves — and so that you can spend less time on marketing.

Why your book cover matters

Cast your mind back to the last time you visited a library or a bookstore, and consider how many books you browsed. In just a few minutes, you may have skimmed the spines and covers of  dozens, if not hundreds, of books. In such a competitive market, you need to do everything you can as an author to make your book stand out from the crowd — and that begins with the cover design. 

Thinking about the books you picked up, what about the cover drew you to them? Whether it was intriguing imagery, bold typography, evocative color scheme, or even the title of the book, something about the design was striking enough to compel you to reach out. That’s the kind of reaction you’re aiming to evoke with your own cover.

An effective cover design has to capture the attention of any would-be readers. However, a five-star cover isn’t just visually appealing — it should also clearly signal your book's genre and tone to your target audience, with nods to key motifs where possible. If your book’s big selling point is that it’s a light-hearted mystery set on a tropical island, then your cover should communicate this instantly. You only get one chance at a first impression, so do everything you can to make it count.

Instead of a tropical island, let’s take a trip to a high-end restaurant for some good old-fashioned mystery-solving. The deep red palette, stylized champagne glass silhouette, and playful typography of the revamped Sparkling Cyanide cover create an air of glamorous intrigue to clearly indicate its genre. This new cover will look right at home in a modern bookstore, drawing new generations of readers toward one of Agatha Christie’s classic whodunits. 

If your visual design skills aren’t quite up to scratch, consider working with a professional cover designer. A beautiful book doesn’t come for free, but bringing an industry expert aboard for the process will give your story the gorgeous look it deserves — and the subsequent boost in marketability will make it a worthy investment in the long term.

Understanding your target audience and genre expectations

In an ideal world your book would appeal to every reader, but in reality, that is very impractical indeed. Instead, you’ll be better off focusing on readers who are already looking for books just like yours. Readers are conditioned to have certain expectations for the cover designs of their favorite genres. A well-designed cover will lean into these assumptions while offering its own unique spin to set itself apart from its contemporaries.

Take a novel like Ali Hazelwood’s smash-hit, The Love Hypothesis. Between the playful pink typography and the bold illustration of two characters sharing a kiss, it’s easy to infer at a glance that this is a quirky romance novel set in the enticing environs of a science lab. But the cover also cleverly integrates some less conventional design elements to help it stand out. The hand drawn, cursive style of “the Love” portion in the title contrasts nicely with the more uniform look of “Hypothesis”. The rigid linework of the lab equipment in the background drives home this love-science dichotomy even further — not to mention the surprised look on the male character’s face, inferring a relationship dynamic that isn’t your usual ‘love at first sight’ fare, begging the question: “Will chemistry arise?”

Key design elements

When it comes to designing a book cover, there are a few essential visual elements that work to draw readers in. We already touched on imagery and typography, but color choice also plays an important role — each one works together to convey your book's genre and tone to potential readers. Let’s take a deeper dive into each of these components, and analyse a few well-known examples that demonstrate how they contribute to an effective book marketing strategy.

Imagery

Ask a reader to talk about a book’s cover and they’ll likely start with the central image. As the eye-catching focal point of your cover, your choice for this image should communicate your book’s tone and pique the reader’s curiosity. So dive into your book and try to isolate any particular image that pops out. 

Most renditions of George Orwell’s 1984 feature a single, watchful eye as the focal image. The design pictured here is rendered in unsettling scan lines, reminiscent of a Cold War surveillance camera and propaganda posters, to evoke the novel’s theme of totalitarian control. The eye doesn't gaze directly at the viewer; instead, it looks past them with a disturbingly omniscient stare, suggesting that everyone is under constant surveillance.

Remember, this is not a movie poster. Many first-time authors are caught out trying to represent too much on their cover, packing it with too many characters and locations, but your potential reader will only look at it for a fraction of a second, so don’t expect them to process more than one central image.

Typography

Imagery may be the first thing readers notice about a book cover, but the title is what people will remember (ideally). That's why choosing the right typefaces is such a delicate balance: your chosen font should be evocative, but legible. Both the book’s title and author name should be clearly visible at a glance, so avoid any overly decorative fonts — you want your text to be readable regardless of size or format. 

Effective typography will help capture the mood, tone, and genre of your book. The cover of Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon is a great example of this in action. The large, rounded letters make it easy to read regardless of distance or size, and the bright pale yellow color of the text is reminiscent of how the moon and stars are typically stylized in children’s media which, combined with the background imagery, evokes a warm and comfortable feeling — perfect for cozy bedtime reading.

Color scheme

Color is another integral part of your book’s identity; if someone glances at your book from afar, its color scheme will be the clearest visual indicator of genre and tone. Returning to our previous example, the contrasting primary colors decorating the cover of Goodnight Moon immediately signal that it’s a children’s book, while the soft, nighttime blues peeking through the window blend pleasantly with the moonlight-yellow typography to create that oh-so relaxing bedtime atmosphere.

In contrast, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus makes use of a restrained color palette to evoke the story’s mysterious and theatrical tone. The sophisticated black and white background signal its status as a dark fantasy novel, which contrasts nicely with the deep red accents to  create an alluring, burlesque atmosphere of danger, passion, and glamor, which communicates to viewers that this isn’t a whimsical fairy tale, but a complex, adult story of romance and intrigue.

Testing and refining your book cover

When it comes to finalizing your book cover, two heads are better than one! Gather feedback from as many people as possible. So long as they’re familiar with your genre, beta readers, editors, and fellow authors can all provide valuable insight that will help you gauge how effectively your cover communicates your book’s appeal to your intended audience. 

Consider how your cover looks across different sizes, formats, and platforms. A maximalist cover might look great in all its full-size glory, but it may be a little crowded and hard to discern when it’s scaled down for a digital thumbnail. To avoid any potential formatting-related headaches, keep checking how your cover looks at different sizes throughout the design process.

If you find yourself caught between two different designs, try A/B testing your cover on platforms like Amazon or Goodreads. Show each one to a small group of users, and evaluate which one generates more clicks to get some solid metrics that you can use to inform your final decision.

A memorable book cover is more than just a pretty face. Hours of thought go into every detail to ensure a book captures its intended target audience, from the imagery and the typography to the color palette. While a cover’s marketing potential is an essential consideration, it isn’t the be-all and end-all. Your book cover represents your story, after all — don’t sacrifice your artistic vision for the sake of commercial appeal. Instead, allow these principles to underpin each other and guide your design process to create an eye-catching cover that will fly off any store shelf, digital or physical. 

Nick Bailey writes about anything and everything in the realm of writing and self-publishing for Reedsy, a publishing platform that connects authors with editors, designers, and marketers to help them publish a book. Aside from reading, Nick enjoys hiking, electronic music, and filling up his personal cookbook with new recipes.