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The first piece of customer-facing marketing your reader will see is your book cover. They’re a quick way of telling the reader that they’ll enjoy this book, that it’s in their favorite genre, and that the author is someone they can trust with their valuable (and often limited) reading time. That’s a lot of information to fit into one image and keep it effective. So, what is the psychology of choosing nice and beautiful book cover designs?
For Fiction:Readers want a taste of the action they're about to witness. They want to be told a tale before they even open the cover.
NOTE: This does not imply that your cover must be an exact replica of a scene from the book. The image you use on a cover should be able to stand on its own, presenting the would-be reader with something exciting that piques their interest and makes them want to learn more. If it helps, think of the book’s cover as a “prequel” to the story, and the book itself as a “sequel.”
For Non-Fiction: you want to connect to your will-be reader on both an emotional and intellectual level. This is one of the few times when it’s appropriate to build visual puns and metaphors into your covers. An image related to your topic is the way to go, but there’s nothing that says you can’t push the symbolism a little.
For Fiction:Readers want a taste of the action they're about to witness. They want to be told a tale before they even open the cover.
NOTE: This does not imply that your cover must be an exact replica of a scene from the book. The image you use on a cover should be able to stand on its own, presenting the would-be reader with something exciting that piques their interest and makes them want to learn more. If it helps, think of the book’s cover as a “prequel” to the story, and the book itself as a “sequel.”
For Non-Fiction: you want to connect to your will-be reader on both an emotional and intellectual level. This is one of the few times when it’s appropriate to build visual puns and metaphors into your covers. An image related to your topic is the way to go, but there’s nothing that says you can’t push the symbolism a little.
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