Do you know the first thing that attracts readers to your books?
Your book cover is the first element of your book to catch a reader’s attention!
Unlike traditional (bricks and mortar) bookshops, that allow readers to touch and feel the book, you only have a small window of opportunity, to engage your kindle reader visually.
Your Book Cover is a Key Element, in the Sales Funnel of Your Kindle Book. Click To Tweet1. Check Out Your Competitor’s Book Covers
We all like to think that our work is unique but whether you are writing in the “Science Fiction, Fantasy” genre or the “Personal finance” Niche, there will be some common elements in those book covers.
By matching your book cover to your genre, it helps readers know (at a glance) that your book corresponds to the type of book that they are looking for.
Look at the top selling books in your genre. Typing in a search term such as “top 100 Science Fiction books” will help you to identify those books.
If you’re unsure what kind of common elements you find in genres, here are a few examples:
- Romance books tend to have at least one image of a male torso on the cover and in lots of cases an image of a male and a female in a passionate embrace.
- Western books tend to have images of cowboys and horses on the front cover.
- Finance Books tend to have images of currencies, charts or numbers on the cover.
2. Enhance The Colours and Contrast of Your Cover
If you have a book about a Red Dragon, you want the image of the dragon on your book cover to be red. If your book is about a yellow car, you want the image of the car to be yellow. Those statements may seem obvious but the colour of your book cover is not just about matching the book’s subject.
It is widely accepted that there are psychological effects and emotions that different colours solicit.
Rather than disappear down the rabbit hole of the emotional effects of colours, we are going to focus on the basic contrast of colours in their black and white format.
As a high percentage of Kindle readers are now purchasing books on their Kindles. Book searches on a kindle mean that your book cover is being viewed as a small black and white thumbnail image.
Most photo or image viewing software gives you the option of viewing your image in greyscale so use that simple option and then minimize the image of your book cover to around one to two inches.
Determine how easy it is to determine what your book is about in this grey scale format?
3. Develop Detailed Briefing Notes for Designers
Unless you are using a traditional publishing company, the ultimate design of your book cover will be determined by you.
Lots of design work is now done by online Virtual Assistants (V.A.s)
Whether you choose to contract one of the many book cover designers on a site like Fiverr or you pay a premium fee for a designer, you are the one making the final decision.
To ensure that your book cover meets your needs you need to be specific in your brief to designers:
- Designers must ensure that any images that they use are royalty free.
- If you want a specific Font let them know (there can also be a royalty licensing issue here).
- If you are going to use colours as part of your brand (as Robert Kiyosaki did with his Black & Purple for Rich Dad / Poor Dad), ensure that you tell them exactly what colours you want (specific colours have a specific colour code).
Book Cover Wrap Up
The first three steps in your book Sales Funnel are engaging potential readers with:
- Your Book Cover.
- Your Book Title.
- Your Book Description.
Your book cover is a key element of your book’s sales funnel!
With more and more Kindle readers buying their books on their devices, you need to ensure that your book cover is engaging even in a black and white thumbnail image.
When you task someone to design your book cover, you must ensure that you provide detailed instructions.
If you can maintain a reader’s engagement, there is more chance that they will purchase your book.