Book Cover Design: The Expectations of Readers and How You Are Perceived

We have all heard the idiom: don't judge a book by its cover.  

Well, most of us have. Some authors and editors take this idiom to mean that their poor cover design won't be held against them by readers. 

WRONG. 

I could use other people's design mistakes to make my point, but that would be unfair. Instead, I will give a lesson with only my own designs as examples. 

So independent authors, here is your design workshop. 

If you have refrained from becoming astute in the ways of publication design and insist on creating your own book covers, yeah, I can spot them. Actually, readers in general can spot bad designs. When that happens, your book undersells, if the publication sells at all. 

Readers will not purchase covers that look and feel unprofessional. So, as the idiom goes: it does not apply to you. People do judge books by their covers.

Independent authors often use or pay for what someone else has created, as long as the background illustration is free or cheap. Some even try to create their own designs, but end up with a less than stellar dismount. What does a poor indie do?

If you are going the route of doing your own book cover designs, then avail yourself to a course in design theory. I had the opportunity to take courses and other avenues of study from creative industry experts when I went to community college. I was lucky. I learned from the best. 

When I first began doing my own designs, I remember how awful they were. My brain does not function well under constant inflammation, and I have to compensate for that ongoing disability. With time, however, I was able to recover my knowledge of publication design. If you have noticed, my book covers and website images look more professional by the year.  

I also have the advantage of being an award-winning digital artist. I understand composition, color, and creativity. Most people are not like me, some of them need a little help. I have offered to assist. Sometimes it works out great, and sometimes it is a disaster. 

I have placed an example of poor cover design above in Flying High. What draws you to the cover? What repels you? Would you read this book? 

This illustration of poor design fundamentals is why most independent or self-published authors under perform in their market. A bad cover means you are handing over your book sales to someone else. Your competition either has a publishing house creating their designs, or the authors have spent $250+ per cover.

What is the solution? Spend money you don't have? Or, learn good cover design?

First, compare and contrast. Go online to any retailer who sells books and look at professional book covers. What do you see that is on all of those covers? How would you modify those designs to make your own style but still be attractive to readers? 

I find that many independent authors just slap a design together without putting much thought in using their covers as a net positive marketing tool. Covers take time. The right design takes time. 

Here are a few cover designs I created: 

Now take notes on what you like and dislike about these designs. What attracts you? What repels you? In comparison with bad design elements in the Flying High example, what are good design elements that you can pick out from these three covers?

This article is your first step in creating a good book cover.

Use it wisely. 

Have a great and wonderful day.

_____

UPDATE: Book Cover Design will be offered via our Premium Content coming in 2023 as a part of Undawnted's Design Elements and Digital Artistry courses. 

Learn. Grow. Master... with Undawnted.

The Entertainment Industry's Late Night Shows are Ignorant Dribble

This Variety article highlights the reasons I do not watch late night talk shows anymore. Americans who are educated in their history and politics understand how wrong, disrespectful, and ignorant sounding these hosts, comedians, and entertainers are. Isn't it time for the positive America to make a comeback?

Instead of working for a negative political agenda called Globalism where everyone gets smashed down by elitists' boots under a communistic/socialistic burden, perhaps we can return to the American founding documents and save the ideals that make America different from every other nation in the world. The media, including the entertainment industry, rather play the victim when in fact the media is victimizing an entire way of life.

Is freedom so wrong? People flock to the United States to flee communism, socialism, and tyranny. Yet the media promotes American values like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as ugly shades of gray. A place where only white male privilege creates inspiration, creativity, and motility. 

I hate to break another myth to you, dear Entertainment Industry, but not all of us doers are from that privileged class. For one thing, I am disabled by illness. I did not go to an Ivy League University. My parents did not give me a cushy job or a trust fund. My parents were the working class poor, but I worked three and more jobs to go to community college and worked full time at that college to finish my state university education. I have worked as a babysitter, au pair, custodian, secretary, assistant, and manager to go through six years of higher education debt free. How many people can say that? 

I guess my blue-eyes and dark blonde hair denote my "privilege." What a crock. My genetics come from Iranian tribes who first developed the blonde and red hair as well as green and blue eyed mutations. My grandmother was an immigrant who fled the Bolshevik Revolution in Belarus. So my heritage is a combination of Muslim, Christian, and Jew. Who would of thunk it?

The media is so enamored with itself yet it will NOT discuss what makes an American, an American. Most Americans are not from a true white stock. Americans have married and intermarried with every nation, religion, and creed. It is the media that is so focused on illegal aliens instead of celebrating what immigration has meant to this country. The media only focuses on the negative to further its own selfish agenda when being an American means having a varied genetic profile. 

In the past, the United States has restricted access to this land for a variety of reasons including country of origin, health, and ability. These restrictions happened to protect the culture and economy. Today, illegal immigration not only places our citizens, culture, and economy in harms way, but also creates a black market of flesh, drugs, and sex. Black market humans have a significant dark effect on the surrounding environment. This negativity grows until the impact can no longer be denied, and America has come to this juncture. 

The media is still in denial because the agenda is to move away from American ideals and values. This point can be seen by how Americans are treated by the media. Instead of baffling Americans with distraction after distraction, the media could educate but the media is too fixated on training Americans. Training someone to become reactionary is emotional and mental abuse. Educating someone to find wisdom is an act of freewill. The Entertainment Industry is using its power to influence in order to control and dominant like any abuser would to a would-be victim, in this case, the American public.

What prompted this abusive behavior in media? Look no further than the failed theory called: Globalism. 

Globalist control of America is a real problem. A tyrannical force seeks to subdue the American spirit. The media is Globalism's favorite pimp trying to train us to turn tricks.

Globalism seeks to centralize power by social, political, and monetary means. Globalism has turned America into an unlawful and illegal surveillance state and is against American values like the 4th and 5th Amendments, Globalists push illegal immigration to conquer native people's for social and political control of regions. Low wage workers with little to no education are a corporation's dream and an American's nightmare. Monetary control is the pentacle of this abuse in the form of the Federal Reserve, which is a corrupt institution that puppeteers American politicians, interest rates, and bubbles, busts, and booms.

Americans as well as the Entertainment Industry need to return to their roots to combat this communistic and socialist agenda of Globalism: 

The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution
The Bill of Rights

There is so much wrong in the world and the media facilitates this bias. Guilty before proven innocent is one. American media and entertainers slander and accuse people of wrongdoing yet provide no discernible proof and make no formal legal charges. These tantrums ruin careers and lives.

That is why the United States is a Republic and not a Democracy. America is not ruled by immaturity but by individual rights over mob rule. Accusations, slander, and other tenets of the Globalist dystopia are using mob rule to manipulate the American people away from their rights. Mob rule has given the history books: the Witch Trials, and the socialist riots in American streets a few years ago. 

Again, that is why America is a Republic, not a democracy. Americans have rights. Americans don’t have privileges.

Tell that to the fake and dysfunctional media, including the Entertainment Industry. 

I hope more people turn off the sloppy slop and poor excuses for entertainment until American values are returned to late night viewing.

 -~o0o~---oOo---~o0o~-

Original Content, Articles, and Reviews related to this topic:

• The Entertainment Industry is So Woke that They've Become a Broke Joke
• An Authentic Reality Deserves an Authentic Writer

As seen unedited on Variety.com in the comments section.
2/8/18