Your Book Cover Copy

We’ve talked before on the blog about the importance of your book cover, because the truth is, we DO judge a book by its cover. In addition to compelling images/graphics paired well with fonts and colors, is the cover text.

In addition to compelling images/graphics paired well with fonts and colors, is the cover text. - @jodibrandon

Front Cover

No matter what format you’re publishing (ebook, paperback, audio, hardcover), you need a cover for marketing purposes. Here are the essential and standard text cover elements:

Cover design by Jessica Freeman of Jess Creatives.

Other optional front cover text elements include a starburst in one of the corners announcing, say, a foreword or something like “Revised and Updated.”  

Does Size Matter?

Notice that the size of the book title versus the size of the subtitle versus the size of the tagline. You can easily identify the hierarchy here, and it’s clear what the title of the book is. Also notice the size of the title versus the size of the author. This is Jessica’s first book. Take a look at a book cover by someone who’s written multiple books sometime. You’ll see, more often than not, the name getting larger while the title gets smaller. (Don’t believe me? Check out both Daring Greatly and Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown. Or both Crush It and Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. This is even more true with fiction books than non-fiction, where readers sometimes have absolute blind loyalty and will buy anything an author publishes, so the name is highlighted in lieu of the title.)

Spine and Back Cover

If you’re publishing a paperback or hardcover edition of your book, you’ll also need text for the spine and back cover. If you’re self-publishing, you won’t have a publisher symbol for the spine. Also if you’re self-publishing, you have the option of changing the price, so you might not want to include your price on the back cover. (Bar codes come with or without the price embedded.)

Spine

• Title

• Author

• Publisher/imprint symbol

Back cover

• ISBN/bar code

• Author photo

• Author bio

• Book description

• Testimonial(s)

• Book category (optional)

• Price (optional)

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Whereas the cover art is most likely to grab your attention first, it’s the cover text that will convince you to buy a book. - @jodibrandon

Have you found this to be the case?