Book Covers: Why They Matter and How to Get Them Right

Why do book covers matter?

Readers judge books by their covers, and authors who resent them for it are kidding themselves.

Scanning dozens of titles on Amazon or walking past bookstore shelves, people decide in less than two seconds whether a book fits their genre, what its tone is and whether it looks professionally produced. A cover that signals “professional” gets clicks and pickups. A cover that signals “amateur” gets scrolled past, and the author usually blames the market.

After publishing 113+ books, I’ve seen covers make the difference between a book that sells and a book that sits. The writing inside matters enormously, but nobody reads the writing if the cover doesn’t get them to open the book first. If a book isn’t selling, the cover is the first thing I’d check. When you self-publish you can fix it any time, because swapping a cover or correcting spelling and grammar errors is just a revision.

What Makes a Book Cover Work?

Genre signals. Readers have expectations based on genre. Thrillers use dark color palettes and bold sans-serif fonts. Romance uses warm colors and script typefaces. Business books use clean layouts with strong typography. Literary fiction uses more artistic, ambiguous imagery. Your cover needs to look like it belongs on the shelf next to successful books in your genre. Research the top sellers in your category and study what their covers have in common.

Thumbnail readability. Most readers first encounter your cover as a tiny thumbnail on a screen. If your title isn’t legible at thumbnail size, you’ve lost those readers before they knew the book existed. Font size, contrast, and simplicity count more than elaborate design details that disappear at small sizes. I’d put this test ahead of everything else here: look at your cover on a phone at arm’s length before you finalize it. My own rule of thumb is to keep the title short and large, no more than about 32 characters, and to make the colors pop. If the cover sucks, the book won’t sell.

Typography. The right font does more work than most authors realize. It communicates genre, tone, and professionalism before the reader processes the title itself. Avoid decorative fonts that sacrifice readability. Ensure the title is the dominant element and the author name is clearly visible without competing with the title. Of course I recommend an artist and a designer, because they’re two different jobs. The artist does the artwork, and the designer handles the fonts and where they sit. Romance covers typically use curvy, script-style fonts and military covers use square, blocky ones, and a good designer knows those genre conventions far better than I do.

Imagery. The image or graphic should convey the book’s tone and theme without cluttering the design. One strong image or concept works better than multiple competing elements, and it should invite the reader into the book’s world. A thriller might use a single ominous figure or location. A business book might use a clean icon or abstract graphic. I resent covers that try to show every plot point at once, because they read as clutter at any size.

Color palette. Colors evoke emotions and signal genre. Dark blues and blacks suggest thriller or mystery. Warm reds and golds suggest romance or literary fiction. Clean whites and blues suggest business or self-help. Choose a palette that fits your genre’s conventions and provides strong contrast for readability.

What are the most common book cover mistakes?

Heard elsewhere

No marketing plan and a cover that fails at thumbnail size account for roughly ninety percent of books that don’t sell, by Richard’s reckoning on Unlocking the Secrets of Ghostwriting.

Fonts too small or decorative to read at thumbnail size.

Too many elements competing for attention. Colors that clash or don’t match the genre. Text overcrowding the cover (title, subtitle, tagline, blurb, author name, series name all fighting for space). Using stock photos that appear on dozens of other book covers. Designing for how the cover looks on your computer screen instead of how it looks as a 1-inch thumbnail on a phone. (See also proving you licensed every image on your cover)

Any of these mistakes can doom a well-written book to poor sales. Readers make snap judgments, and a cover that looks amateurish tells them the content probably is too. (See also my review of Blink) That’s the unfair part, and it’s hardest on the author who spent two years on the manuscript and one afternoon on the cover. A good cover takes a lot more than an afternoon. One of my clients’ covers went through something like twelve revisions.

What Book Cover Formats Do You Need?

If you publish across multiple formats (and you should), each format requires a different cover version. I order all four from my cover designer at the same time so the design stays consistent and I only go through the process once. The print covers can’t be finished until the page count is final, because the spine width depends on it. KDP’s and IngramSpark’s cover template generators build the PDF from the trim size, the paper type and the page count, and these days I print through IngramSpark. Back in 2024 I figured a competitive cover would run $200 to $800.

1. Ebook (Kindle): Front cover only. Dimensions vary by platform but Amazon recommends 2,560 x 1,600 pixels, with a minimum of 500 pixels on the longest side. This is the version that needs to work at thumbnail size above all else.
2. Paperback: Front cover, spine, and back cover as a single wraparound file. Spine width depends on page count and paper type. Amazon KDP and IngramSpark both provide templates. The back cover typically includes a description, author bio, barcode, and ISBN.
3. Hardcover: Same elements as paperback (front, spine, back) but formatted differently due to the case wrap or dust jacket. Templates differ from paperback templates. If using a dust jacket, you also have interior flaps for additional copy.
4. Audiobook: Square front cover graphic (at least 2,400 x 2,400 pixels for ACX). No spine, no back cover. The design needs to work at small sizes in audiobook apps.

Publishing in multiple formats increases your revenue because all formats appear on the same Amazon book page. Readers choose their preferred format: some want Kindle, others want paperback, others want audio. Give them the choice.

Should You DIY Your Book Cover or Hire a Designer?

Tools like Canva, BookBrush, and Amazon’s Cover Creator make it possible to design your own cover. For authors on a tight budget, DIY can produce acceptable results if you study genre conventions, use high-quality images, and keep the design simple.

My own method in 2024 was Fiverr. Most artists there offered three tiers, and the cheapest, about $5 or $10, was a rough demo of how they work. If it came out crappy, I went to the next artist. I’d go through five or six and blow about a hundred bucks before I found a good one. It works well for fiction and is kind of yucky for nonfiction. Once you have a presentable cover, pay a professional artist more to finish it.

But “acceptable” is a low bar for the single most important marketing asset your book has.

A professional cover designer brings expertise in typography, color theory, layout, and market trends. They know what works in your genre because they’ve designed dozens of covers in it. Professional covers typically cost $300 to $1,500 depending on the designer’s experience and the complexity of the design. Ask how much nonfiction they’ve done versus fiction, and ask to see a few samples. You’ll probably pay half in advance, and they won’t give that back. When I first self-published, I went with someone who did mostly fiction. The covers came out horrible, and I was down 1,500 bucks.

Hire a cover artist and hand them a spec. I’d put all the parameters into ChatGPT first and ask what kind of cover would work, then send the artist that spec. Otherwise they’ll come up with some stupid stuff, because they don’t understand your business. A good cover artist lets you do many revisions. You’ll look at a draft and say, oh, that’s awful. That’s fine. It’s part of the process.

If your budget allows, hire a professional. If it doesn’t, study successful covers in your genre before designing your own, and either way get feedback from readers in your target audience before you finalize anything. It kills me to see a book that deserved readers wearing a cover built for the author’s taste instead of the reader’s, because that mistake is completely avoidable. Give the artist a couple of rounds, because covers usually go back and forth three to five times. My own rule is blunt. If an artist can’t give me three or four options on the first pass, I go with a different cover artist. The same goes for logos. A logo designer once wanted to send me ten versions, and I asked for three, because they knew what they were doing. They got it right about on the first try. I went with a local designer, because I like spending locally, and I got to sit across the table from them.

The AI-Enhanced Book Promotion Handbook covers cover design as part of the complete book launch and promotion strategy.

From the author

Publish Your Book
Readers who want the steps around the cover can turn to Publish Your Book. My self-publishing guide walks a manuscript out the door and compares five platforms for it.

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