FOR AUTHORS
What Should Authors Post on Social Media Between Releases?
What should authors post between releases? A balanced mix of story, process and reader posts, series reminders, countdowns and a weekly plan.
What makes a good book cover for UK indie authors: genre signals, thumbnail tests, KDP ebook and paperback specs, series design and how to brief a designer.
What makes a good book cover? It tells the right reader, in about a second at thumbnail size, “this is your kind of book”. It signals the genre and keeps the title readable on a phone. It looks at home beside its genre’s bestsellers and works for ebook and paperback as well as ads. Design for your reader, not yourself.
Readers claim they don’t judge a book by its cover. Then they scroll past a hundred covers in a minute and stop on the three that look like the books they already love. On Amazon.co.uk, like every online bookshop, your cover is often the only thing a browser sees before they decide whether to click. That means it does more of your marketing than almost anything else you spend money on, and it’s why the question of what makes a good book cover deserves proper thought.
It’s also where a lot of self-published authors lose readers without noticing. The writing can be superb. But if the cover says “cosy mystery” and the book is a dark thriller, the right readers never click, while the wrong ones buy it and leave disappointed reviews. Here’s how to get the cover right, and what to expect from a professional cover designer.
A cover makes a promise about what reading the book will feel like. Before anyone reads a word of it, the cover has to answer three questions.
What kind of book is this? Genre comes first. Romance, epic fantasy, domestic thriller and literary fiction each have a visual language readers spot instantly.
What will it feel like? Tone counts as much as genre. Is it warm or tense, light or dark, playful or serious?
Is it professional? A cover that looks home-made suggests the inside might be home-made too. One that looks as if it belongs on a bestseller table gets the benefit of the doubt.
Look at what’s missing from those questions. Nobody needs your favourite scene illustrated, or every character squeezed in. Covers sell a feeling. Leave the plot to the blurb.
Most readers first meet your book as a tiny image in search results, a carousel or an ad. Before you approve any design, look at it at postage-stamp size.
Yes, and more closely than most authors expect. Search your main category and study the current top sellers. Note what they share: colour, image style, typefaces, where the title sits. Readers rely on those signals to find what they want. So aim to look as if you belong on that page, then add one distinctive touch that makes yours the cover they remember.
Going completely against the grain can feel brave. Too often, though, it says “not for me” to the exact readers you’re trying to reach. Fit the genre first and find your own twist second. Getting that balance right is most of what makes a good book cover.
Amazon KDP has one set of rules for ebook covers and another for print, and mistakes can hold up publication.
KDP recommends ebook covers of 2,560 pixels high by 1,600 pixels wide, at 300 DPI, saved as a JPEG in RGB colour. The file must be at least 500 pixels on its longest side, and no more than 10,000 pixels on either side.
For a paperback you need a single PDF that wraps the back cover, spine and front cover into one image. It needs 3.2 mm (0.125 in) of bleed on the outside edges, with images at 300 DPI or more. Spine width depends on page count and paper type, so you can’t finalise the full cover until the interior is done. KDP’s cover calculator produces a template for your exact trim size and page count. You can’t put text on the spine until the book reaches 79 pages.
A designer who works with KDP all the time will deal with all of this. If yours never mentions bleed or spine width or the template, ask them about it.
Yes, without question. When a series has a look people recognise, readers can see at a glance that book three goes with books one and two, and that makes read-through much easier. Settle the system before the first cover is designed. Decide on the type style and where your name and the series name sit. Decide how colour shifts from one book to the next, and what the images will look like. After that, each new release looks like part of the same body of work, which is one of the simplest ways to build an author brand readers remember.
In many more places than the book page. The same artwork ends up in search results and ads. It goes on your website and in social posts, and at the top of newsletters. For many UK authors it also appears on banners and printed stock at signings and book fairs or festivals. So ask for every file you’ll need at the start. That means the ebook cover and the print wrap, a square version, a 3D or mock-up image for ads, and a text-free version of the artwork for backgrounds. Planning all this up front costs much less than going back for each file later.
With a clear brief you get a better cover sooner, with fewer rounds of changes. Put these in it:
If you want to sell, usually yes. Everything you do to market a book (ads, social posts, newsletter swaps) sends readers to the cover first. A cover that converts makes each of those efforts cheaper. A weak one drags every one of them down.
The price depends on several things. Does the design use stock imagery, custom photography or illustration? How many formats do you need? Is a series system part of the job? Whatever you spend, look through a designer’s portfolio for covers in your genre. Lots of attractive covers in other genres tell you much less.
If two or more of those ring true, a redesign is often one of the fastest ways to lift sales of a book you’ve already written. The cover is only one piece, mind. Our guide to marketing for authors covers the rest.
We started as the in-house team for our co-founder, USA Today bestselling author Jack Cartwright. We handled his book covers. We also ran his social media and videos, as well as his ads and website. Our book cover design for self-published authors is built to KDP’s specifications for every format you need. We can also create a series look that carries through future releases, so your covers look like they come from the same author as your website and ads. We agree a clear brief, scope and fee with you before any creative work begins. For the full picture, see our marketing services for self-published authors.
Yes. KDP even has a Cover Creator tool for simple designs. The danger is that a home-made cover reads as “amateur” to people browsing your genre, and that pulls down click-through on everything else you do. If you plan to spend on ads or a launch, the cover is usually where the money should go first.
Give it a few weeks to get from concepts through revisions to final files, and longer for custom illustration or photography. Get the ebook cover started early, because you’ll want it for pre-orders and launch posts. The paperback wrap gets finalised once you know the interior page count.
On a debut, the title usually comes first. Once readers start buying you by name, your name can get bigger. Conventions vary, so check what established authors in your genre do.
Yes, in the sense that audiobooks use a square cover, so the design has to be adapted and can’t just be cropped. Order the square version along with everything else, so the artwork is planned with it in mind from the start.
Redesign when you see the warning signs above, when the look of your genre has moved on, or when you’re relaunching a series. Pair a refreshed cover with a short promotion and an older book can get a second life.
What should authors post between releases? A balanced mix of story, process and reader posts, series reminders, countdowns and a weekly plan.
Learn how to give every book in a series a consistent look, with colour per book, clear numbering, box set covers and refreshes that help read-through.
Why indie authors sell ebooks, paperbacks and audiobooks from their own site, how delivery works, and what to check on VAT and KDP Select first.
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A closer look at the work behind each part of your plan.
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