One of the reasons to print your books with us at Acutrack is that we give you a range of options for the cover stock – but first, let’s talk about creating a cover design that will sell books. Your book’s cover makes a significant impact regardless of whether people buy in stores or online. The colors and design need to give a quick impression about the book’s content – for example, books about money often have green on the cover. If you decide to work on it yourself, begin by researching and reviewing covers of other successful books in your genre. You want to be unique but understandable.
Along with editing, book printing, order fulfillment, and much more, self-published authors take responsibility for their covers. The main elements to consider are the typography you select for the title (and subtitle if your book is non-fiction) and the cover art. The typeface needs to be exciting and easy to read, and the art needs to make a visual statement. More needs to be said about the impact of color. In the world of book covers, red signals danger, purple hints at the mystical, yellow means caution, green conjures images of money, and so forth. Even if you love the color for your own reasons, use it on your book cover only when it makes sense for your topic.
Unfortunately, readers will judge a book by its cover. So, you have to think like your target readers:
Even if you have very little design background, there are online design tools that are easy to learn or even have book cover templates.
Canva: Canva lets you set your own book cover dimensions and even has templates where you just type your title and upload an image. Some templates are free, and some are available for just a few dollars.
Shutterstock: Shutterstock has a built-in editor, hundreds of templates, millions of images and textured backgrounds, too.
Adobe InDesign: For laying out the pages of the book itself, the most popular application is Adobe InDesign. It can handle both print and ebook formats, and gives you the most control over the way your pages will look: size, fonts and font size, spacing, margins. However, it will take a while to learn the features.
Blurb BookWright: This is a simple and free book layout software. You can edit the templates, but you won’t get as much flexibility as the other design tools. However, Blurb BookWright also gives a free unique ISBN number—definitely a plus for self-published authors!
Make sure you get licensed images, or you can be sued for copyright infringement. Many free images are meant for non-commercial use. If you’re planning to sell your book or using the images to market it, then it’s safer to go to a professional image bank.
Shutterstock and Getty images are the two biggest platforms and are used by even global magazines, websites, and brands. Some online design tools like Canva also have their own library of photos that you can purchase.
One of the biggest mistakes that people make is using the wrong image formats, and that can mess up how the colors look when they’re finally printed. Colors on your computer will look different when it’s actually printed. That’s because of how colors are mixed during printing or publishing. Its best to avoid neon colors.
The pages of your book have been laid out, and your cover design is complete too—you’re so close to achieving your dream of publishing your book! But wait, there are some details that you need to flesh out first.
Now the only thing you need to do is to produce your book! Acutrack can help you print and ship your books, and integrate it on your website or e-commerce store too. We are one of the few companies that offer both book fulfillment and book printing services, allowing our customers to seamlessly integrate all of their logistical needs with just one partner. Visit www.acutrack.com for more information, and check out our blog for other tips!
To learn more about how Acutrack can help you achieve your goals, talk to one of our experts.
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