Why You Need A Book Cover Design Brief

If you are publishing a book - whether it is is an ebook, paperback or hard cover - and you are serious about seeing it in print and making money from it, then the cover will be a key component of its success. Think about the novel cover that caught your eye when you last went into a bookstore, or even looked at some online. Generally ebook covers are flat images (which online stores might use), together with an alternative 'curved cover' for a sales website display. These can be easily designed using freely available software and some effort.

Cover Technicality

However, if you want to see your work on bookstands and you are thinking about using a POD (print on demand) company, then you will need an outstanding cover that sells first to the bookstore and also to manage the design process yourself. There are many elements that need to be sourced, such as a barcode and ISBN. There are strict technical quality standards to be met if your work is to get through the POD publishing process without re-work expenditure. If you want a really outstanding book cover, then unless you are a graphic artist with the requisite technical skills, get it done by a professional. Once you have located a professional, then you should provide a specification.

To minimise misunderstandings, write a Book Cover Design Brief. You can refine it with your designer, but at least you will both be working with the same cover requirement.

Your Basic Ideas

The cover artist will need a seed, so a book outline or synopsis will need to be provided, and you may have your own ideas on an overall colour theme and maybe some images that you definitely want included. Be flexible though - the designer is the expert and don't constrain his or her artistic scope too much. The genre should fall out from the synopsis, but do be clear. Without knowing the book, what genre does 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' suggest to you? You should take this into account when you select your designer, as some specialise in particular genres.

If relevant, it can be helpful to the designer to include brief descriptions of the principal character(s). Will this be one of a series?

Key Ingredients of a Cover Design Brief

You should specify the 'trim size' of the book - its final format - as this will specify the amount of space the artist has for layout. If you require a hardback cover, then you will probably need a dust jacket design and the particular thickness of hardcover will be important.

The final version of the brief will need to be specific about the exact pagecount, ISBN, cover price unless stickering, binding format and a host of other items, but the artist can prepare some rough layouts whilst you are pulling together the final items.

Will your covers include Reviews - maybe newspaper, other authors (usually, though not always, on the rear cover)? These can weigh heavily in a buyer's eyes and you will need to tell the designer about this, so that the provision for some reviews can be included in the overall design (though the specific detail of the reviews may not be available at the time you formally engage the designer).

The brief must specify which POD company you intend to use. Each company has its own technical requirements that a final cover design must adhere to (by satisfying a 'pre-flight' test which software such as Adobe Professional offers). Re-work can be very expensive if you miss a print deadline say for the summer holiday read sales peak.

You may specify images for marketing, for email campaigns, and for book catalogues. And finally, will you be producing a Kindle ebook? If so you will need a cover image, and you may even choose to add a rear cover image.

These are just a few of the items that your Cover Design Brief must include. There are many more, but once you have the first template brief, then you can improve and re-use it in the future with the obvious amendments.


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Click and see a cover design brief which we put together for one of our new authors, James Marinero at ==> New-Publications If you are a new author looking for a micro-publisher or maybe marketing support, then may we help? Contact us at www.ezeebooks.co.uk