Remember that old saying — “You can't judge a book by its cover”? Well, it's just not true. You can judge a book by its cover, and you should.
To get to the heart of why design plays such a big role in an author's success, I invited the Chief Marketing Officer of 99designs, Pamela Webber, to join us.
99designs is an online community of hundreds of thousands of graphic designers who help small business owners and entrepreneurs get their design needs met for everything from logos to book covers to packaging.
It works through a contest model. To start, you submit a creative brief explaining what you envision for your project. Designers who want to participate then read your brief and create something for you. Next you select which design you like best and agree to work with that designer exclusively as you finalize your project.
Today on this episode of The Portfolio Life, we focus primarily on the design of books, interior and exterior. Pamela joins us to explain why book covers matter, including the statistical data to support this. She walks us through each of the steps necessary to get our cover designed as a first-time author and also shares what is included in the interior of your book and why each piece is important.
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Show highlights
In this episode, Pamela reveals:
- What does it really cost to get a book professionally designed?
- In the overall strategy of selling your book, how important is the design?
- When should you think about the marketing of your book?
- Real-life data on the impact book covers can make on sales.
- Why does she believe the contest model on 99designs is fair?
[share-quote author=”Pamela Webber” via=”JeffGoins”]Start thinking more like a business owner, and less like an author.
On the interior design of your book:
- What are the two main parts of a book’s interior design?
- How does the interior differ among genres?
- How can font and spacing impact the sales of your book?
- Why does book cover design depend so heavily on genre and audience?
[share-quote author=”Pamela Webber” via=”JeffGoins”]You need every piece of your marketing strategy to be working as hard as possible for you.
The basics of book design:
- Design for your audience – not for yourself.
- Create your book's design with reader engagement in mind.
- Design for sales rather than aesthetics and perfection more than sales.
- Your book interior matters but also varies by genre and readership.
Resources:
- 99designs web site
- 99designs blog article on book covers and genres
- Calculate the cost of self-publishing a book
- 99designs on Twitter
- Real Artists Don’t Starve
- Subscribe, rate and review on iTunes
What will you do differently with your next book’s design after hearing from Pamela? Share in the comments!