5 Things You Need for a Great Book Cover (And 5 Things You Don't)

with guest Rogenna Brewer.


In 2013 I dusted off my interior design diploma to venture into the art of book cover design…

My budget going into self-publishing from traditional publishing was a big fat zero. But I’m a DIY kind of gal and learned cover design and formatting and then bartered for editing. I enjoyed making covers so much that stock sites soon became my #1 form of writing procrastination.

Once I discovered there was a market for premade book covers I put ten up for sale. Within a week I’d sold two and doubled my investment. Within a month I had my first custom client. Four years later custom cover work keeps me very busy. 

Thank you, Seekers, for inviting me to share some of the things I’ve learned along the way. But before I get into that checklist of 5 THINGS YOU NEED FOR A GREAT BOOK COVER (AND 5 THINGS YOU DON’T), let’s start with a visual of my very first book cover, it’s evolution and where it went wrong…

[Please forgive the pixelation in the first two images, as I no longer have the originals.]

In One Night in Reno, a single mom on the run is stranded in Reno when a Navy SEAL comes to her rescue. It’s a sweet short story with a marriage of convenience and no sex. If I were writing and publishing it today I’d rethink that title. And maybe I’ll do that in the future or change the story in some other way, but for now, it is what it is…

My vision for the cover was a stranded heroine by the side of the road (and if I could work in the kid and the puppy, even better).  But I couldn’t find a stock image to match my vision and I wasn’t able to manipulate images at the time. So I settled for the hitchhiker that became the first cover. 

The clunky border and my amateur attempt weren't even the worst of it. This cover actually sold well, but to readers looking for something a lot sexier. I didn’t take too many hits in the reviews, but one gentleman did call me out on the cover…

Cover #1 failed because the image and title didn’t fit the targeted genre. 

Back to the drawing board…

This time I included the couple, the kid, the pup and the city of Reno. The gentleman who called me out even changed his review to credit this new cover as a better representation of the story. But sales came to a screeching halt. Aside from the awkward title and mash-up of images, something else was lacking.

Cover #2 failed because a romance cover, no matter the subgenre, needs…well, a romantic image. 

That’s not to say headless couples won’t work, they absolutely do with the right body language.  So do those with heads and kids and puppies and landscapes and objects. But the image or combination of images has to evoke some sort of emotion that connects with the reader.

And for readers of military subgenres, the hero is that all-important emotional connection. Once again my cover stood out as different and not in a good way.  

By the time I got around to cover #3 I was working in Photoshop and had learned a thing or two about making book covers. But I still didn’t know enough and was trying too hard to make the text stand out in thumbnail.

Cover #3 (along with advertising) got sales moving again. It hit my target audience of military romance readers. But it didn’t quite fit my story and my personal fail here was the typography.

I was still trying to figure out my brand when I came up with the cover that’s been on One Night in Reno since 2014. In looking at it now I’d tweak a couple things, but I have no plans to change it anytime soon. The beach background might seem at odds with the title, but it works for the story. 

Cover #4 is the right romantic image because it gives clues to the story. This cover lets the reader know that it’s a romance, probably a sweet romance and a serious one at that.  

[Okay, I couldn’t resist making those needed tweaks. Here’s the before and after.]

Whether you make your own covers or hire a cover designer, there are 5 things you need to keep in mind so that you don’t have to go through the trial and error of getting it right…

Your cover has one job and that is to sell your book. In order to do that job, it needs to make an emotional impact in the blink of an eye.  

#1 – You need a great Image(s): 

You need to start with an image that reflects your story. But you don’t need that image (or images) to be a catch-all for the characters and setting or an exact scene from your book. 

There are limitations to using stock images, so unless you can afford a cover shoot you may have to settle for something slightly different that what you imagined. Trust your designer and keep an open mind when searching for images yourself. There are plenty of professional photographers contributing to stock sites where you can find affordable royalty free images that will be good enough for a great cover. Rely on your designer and photo manipulation to makeover an image so that it’s uniquely yours.

Tip: When using people on your cover look for characters that are engaged in their surroundings or looking at each other and not directly into the camera. 

#2 – You need to know your Genre: 

You need to know your genre conventions and stick to them. Except when you don’t. 

Your cover needs to let readers know where it belongs and what it’s about. Don’t worry that it looks like other books in your genre. It’s better to fit in than to stand out. You’d know the difference between a science fiction cover and a romance cover, right? Well, within those two genres there are multiple subgenres and reader expectations. 

Study the covers within your genre. Check out the subcategory bestseller lists on Amazon and notice the similarities between covers within a category. You want to copy that look. But take note of the ones that stand out. It’s usually an exceptional cover or an exceptional story.

Know when to stand out. 

Right now on amazon’s military bestseller list, for example, 14 of the Top 20 covers are bare-chested men. The rest are sexy couples and one bare-chested hero with a baby. The hero / baby cover gets kudos for being “the same, but different.” But they all still follow the norm set by reader expectations. 

If you want your books to sell it’s risky to go against what the reader wants, but there are times when you might want to do just that. I deliberately went against convention in branding my SEAL It With A Kiss trilogy in order to target a more general contemporary bestseller audience. 

#3 – You need a great Title:

You need a great title or you don’t.  

A great title is all you need to sell a plain book cover. The problem is most of us will never come up with a title that exceptional. So we need a great cover to tell the story that the title doesn’t. The typography needs to work with the image, not against it. A kaleidoscope of colors and tricks and crazy fonts won’t make a title more readable. Subtle spacing and shading is all that’s needed to do that job. Look at the books on your shelf and on the more traditional bestseller lists. 

Keeping typography simple is key. 


It’s great when a title is readable in thumbnail, but it doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be at the expense of the cover image. There are clickable text links that are readable with the thumbnail. It’s better to have a cover that attracts the eye and gets enlarged with a click than one that’s overwhelmed by text. 

Tip: Use keywords to create your title, subtitle, series title and taglines.

I used to hate it when my publisher would ditch my clever, well thought out titles to use a generic version of…

The SEAL’s [fill in the blank]

Until I realized their keyword loaded titling approach was kind of perfect. It tells the reader exactly what the book is about…a Navy SEAL, and what military genre reader doesn’t love a good Navy SEAL story. 

So figure out the keywords for your subcategory and don’t be afraid to use them in the title and repeat them in the subtitle/series title and tagline.

When are looking for a specific type of book or an author or a title they use the search engine. And when it comes to search engines keywords are king.

#4 – You need your covers to work for your Brand. 

You need your covers to work for you and your brand. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel with every book cover.

You don’t have to be a household name to be a brand. As an author, your books are your product and your name is your brand. You want to keep your brand consistent even if your name isn’t recognizable yet–especially if it’s not recognizable.

Start with a good titling font for your name and use it across your social media headers, your web banner and on your book covers. Some authors even design their own logo or have a logo designed for them.

Branding, on the other hand, takes on the much broader scope of promotion with a distinctive design in mind. For me, with my military background and Navy SEAL heroes, that means nautical and ocean blue themes. 

Take a moment to think about your branding. Are you being consistent? And if you haven’t branded yourself yet, what themes come to mind that will tie it all together?

Your covers should be a recognizable part of your brand. You can do that by having at least one or two consistent design elements, like the font, size and/or placement of your name, carry over through all your covers. Each series can have its own look/feel and still encompass your overall brand. 

Tip: In traditional publishing, if your name appeared above and/or bigger than the title you knew you’d arrived. 

Brand-Name authors don’t need great covers to sell their books. But they deserve great covers and so do the rest of us. 

#5 – You need a great Designer. 

You need a great designer or you don’t, it’s up to you.  Just don’t settle for less than the best cover for your book. 

[Some covers from my portfolio that you might recognize.]

Covers by Rogenna

Thanks again for inviting me. I’ll be here all day to answer any questions you may have about cover design. But let's go back to branding for a moment… 

How are you branding yourself as an author?  

If you're a reader, what's your favorite type of cover?

Leave a comment today for an opportunity to win a $10.00 Amazon gift card so you can buy MORE books. Winner announced in the Seekerville Weekend Edition!

Rogenna Brewer is a Navy Vet who got her start as a romance novelist writing long letters to her deployed husband. She's a bestselling author of contemporary fiction featuring strong military characters and is a member of RWAs prestigious Honor Roll.

The Secret to Writing a Novella

with Guest Rogenna Brewer

 Thank you Seekers for inviting me back. Someone here in Seekerville has asked my secret to writing a novella. The secret, or mine at least, is that neither of the novellas I’ve written started out as novellas. I have a hard time letting go of characters even after their stories have been set aside for whatever reason. 

 These rejected characters take up residence in my head, stewing on the back burner for years, but eventually demand attention. The only way to quiet them is to finish their stories.

I had a full proposal—tag line, pitch, long and short synopsis and the first fifty pages—that I’d sat on for years when I decided to turn One Night in Reno into a novella. Frustrated at having to set aside yet another full-length project in order to meet a contracted deadline for a different book, I decided to dip my toes into the self-publishing pool with something shorter.

A friend suggested serializing the project I’d been working on and putting it out in pieces.  But that didn’t sit well with me. For one thing, I’d paid good money for a cover—one cover.  Then there was the fear that I’d want to change the beginning once I started revising the middle and end.  Or maybe it was simply fear.  

I didn’t want to fail with the project of my heart. 

But her suggestion forced me to look at all the projects I had sitting around.

Oh, boy, did I have a lot of proposals collecting dust. 

It takes me, on average, six months to finish an 85,000 word Superromance. By the time I’m done I have half a dozen new ideas bouncing around and another super contract to complete.  The time between stages of completion and contracts comes in spits and spurts.  And while I write during those down times, I only seem to finish whatever winds up under contract.

One Night in Reno was a soft rejection, meaning it was never rejected it outright.   But after four rewrites of the proposal I was tired of rewriting it. I’d segmented the three-chapter proposal into novella sized chapters, slapped on an ending and put it on my website.  I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my first attempt at an ending. My readers, who’d been asking for Garrett’s story were okay with it, but I could tell they weren’t quite satisfied either.

While going through my projects this was the one that kept jumping out at me. It was already in short chapters and the closest I had to being finished.  It just needed a new ending. So I got out my original synopsis and simply asked myself, how do I get from where I’m at to this original ending in as short of word count as possible. I had 7,000 words written and was shooting for 10,000 at the time. It soon became the never ending, ending.  

But I managed to wrap it up at about 15,000 words.  

Yes, I took time away from my deadline to do this, but from my friend’s suggestion to publication took only five days.  That included reading, revising and writing an additional 7,000 words, as well as having it copy edited and proofed. Thankfully, I had friends working on standby who wanted to help me succeed. 

I’ve managed to get one other novella up in the six months since One Night in Reno first came out (again while I was under deadline) and will be looking at my entire backlog of proposals sooner rather than later.  

There you have my very simple formula for writing a novella.

Don’t write a novella, write a novel—only shorter and tighter.

 
Why turn your rejected and neglected proposals into a novella?  

For anyone who might be apprehensive about self-publishing or short on time consider starting with a novella.  If you’re like me you learn better by doing.  I’m a lot less worried about putting my first full-length indie novel out with a couple of novellas under my belt. 

Novellas are also a good way to introduce readers to a new series or keep their attention between full-length novels, not to mention satisfying Amazon’s algorithms--especially if those novels are spaced more than three months apart.  Anything is better than letting a story with potential sit around collecting dust.  

Turning an old proposal into a novella can also be therapeutic.  Simply completing the story

can give your writing the boost and allow you to move on to other projects.  So why not give it a try?

 
Tips for turning your rejected and neglected proposals into a novella:

What defines a novella?  According to the Merriam-Webster, a novella is a short novel—a story that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.  Unless you’re entering a contest with length requirements between 10,000 – 40,000 words is a good length. 

A good proposal already has the meet (often called a cute meet), rising action and ends on a hook.  Which means you’re halfway to the end already.  

The good news is you won’t have room for a sagging middle or repetition. Keep your time frame and pacing tight and any subplots to a minimum.  To get to the end review your synopsis (if you have one).  Define the story GMC (goal, motivation and conflict) for your hero and heroine.  Don’t take short cuts with characterization, but do limit the number of characters.  Setting is still important, just don’t get carried away with description.  

Tie up any loose threads you introduced at the beginning or eliminate them altogether and concentrate on the climax (sometimes called the black moment) and resolution. The resolution does not have to end with an HEA.  But does have to end with the promise of an HEA if you’re writing romance.

Bio: When an aptitude test labeled her suited for librarian or clergy, Rogenna joined the Navy. Ever the rebel, she landed in the chaplain's office where duties included operating the base library. She's served Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps personnel in such exotic locales as Midway Island and the Pentagon, which she loves to write about.  

She has plenty of proposals waiting to be turned into novellas

 Please visit her website at www.rogennabrewer.com 




Today Seekerville is giving one commenter the opportunity to win One Night in Reno AND One Star-Spangled Night from Rogenna's One Night Novella Series. These are both ebooks for Kindle. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition.

How to Pickup Your Writing Pace Whether You're a Tortoise or a Hare with Guest Rogenna Brewer

 If you’d like a refresher of Aseop’s fable The Tortoise and the Hare you can view it here:

   
 Let’s start with the morale of the story, which is slow and steady wins the race.  What kind of writer are you, a tortoise or a hare?  If you asked me a month ago, I would have said I’m a tortoise.  Five hundred words is a good day.  Often a long day. 

I’m at my computer from sun up until well past sun down. 
      
It’s hard being a slow writer in an indie world where fast writers are on fire.

I can’t begin to tell you how many fast draft courses I’ve taken or 2K to 10K books and blogs I’ve read, trying to become a faster writer.  However, all this self-analysis led me to the conclusion that I’m not a tortoise, but a hare—and a slow cooked hare at that. 

Because I’m easily distracted and work in spits and spurts.

I never would have guessed until I started keeping a log.   

Yup, you got it—consistency, not speed--is my issue.

Once I identified my real problem, I was able to get on track with a few quick fixes.  Like the sprinting turtle in the picture, I’ve come to realize it takes both consistency and speed to get ahead in this business.

Know what kind of race you’re running… 

Whether you work full time or write full time your writing career is a marathon.  One of the most important things you can do for yourself is to protect your writing time.  Whether that’s :30 minutes, :90 minutes, three hours or more, make a daily appointment to write and keep it.  Be consistent and in 21-30 days you will have formed the habit of writing daily. 

Improve your speed with timed sprints like #1K1HR on Twitter and Facebook.

 Better yet, improve your typing skills http://mashable.com/2010/10/07/improve-typing-speed/.  I now start every morning with a typing test.  Sometimes transitioning into writing can be the hardest part.  The typing test is a signal to my brain that it’s time to go to work.  And I’m consistently hitting 60 words a minute when I thought I was a 40 wpm typist.  

When you really want to write, but don’t.  Or you don’t want to write, but need to in order to make word count.  One of the best tricks for overcoming hurdles is to use a kitchen timer.  Use it like superglue to keep your butt in the chair.  Set the timer for any increment and write until the buzzer sounds.  Don’t be surprised to find you want to keep writing. 

What are some of the obstacles that get in the way of your writing?

Make a list unique to your situation and find a way to work around them.

A writer’s brain needs exercise just like any other muscle…

If you’ve picked up some bad habits along the way, start out slow and steady with small, obtainable goals and then work to pick up speed.  You’ll be surprised by what you can accomplish.  

 After you’ve run your leg of the relay, you’ll want to hand your baby off to the right team—whether that’s a traditional publisher or someone you’ve contracted to help you self-publish, educate yourself.  Stay focused and surround yourself with positive people who’ll cheer you on as you cross that finish line.

Rogenna Brewer has one foot in traditional publishing and the other on the indie track.  It’s an uneven race at times, but she’s in this biz for the long haul.  She designs ebook covers, which can be found at http://www.sweettoheat.blogspot.com  

Available now! One Night in Reno 

 


 Today Seekerville is giving away two copies of 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron (Oct 7, 2012)

Winners announced in the Weekend Edition.

 

Rogenna Brewer on Character and Conflict

Character and Conflict: The 5 Stages of Resolution

Saying a story is plot driven is just another way of saying the characters are weak or underdeveloped. All stories are character driven, or should be. Without character there is no plot. Think of plot as the conflict that drives your character’s actions and in doing so the story. Plot exists only to challenge your character. Begin your story at the point of change, briefly demonstrating the status quo before the conflict begins.

I either wrote that paragraph in a stroke of genus sometime over the past decade as a published author or borrowed bits and pieces of it along the way. I've heard it all before...

Begin your story at the point of change. But what does that mean?

Beginnings are relatively easy. It’s why so many stories are started and never finished. But how do you keep the middle from sagging and resolve the ending?

With the 5 Stages of Resolution you don't have to reinvent the process. In fact you'll give your characters instant empathy by using this method. I'm talking about the grieving process as it applies to change.

Change involves loss and letting go. Grief as an emotion is easy to imagine. Someone close to us dies and we grieve the loss. Someone not so close dies--a school shooting, a tsunami--and we still feel a pang. That's empathy.

We all feel it. And you can use it to drive your story. The point is you character should be a different person at the end of the book than he or she was at the beginning. So how do you get there? In her book On Death And Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross defines the 5 stages of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, guilt and acceptance.

DENIAL * ANGER * BARGAINING * GUILT * ACCEPTANCE

By moving the romance (external conflict) through all 5 stages you'll reach a resolution that feels natural, not forced. Adding threads for each character (internal conflict--ie motivation) will give your story that extra depth. I like to start my hero or heroine somewhere in the middle. For example the hero in The Marine's Baby is motivated by guilt and back tracks a bit by striking a bargain with the heroine.

I'd like to open it up to questions now because I'm not talking about cookie cutter stories. This method can be as unique as you are. Skip a step, take two forward and one back. But trust me this works for me and it may just work for you.

Rogenna

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When an aptitude test labeled her suited for librarian or clergy, Rogenna joined the Navy. It was off to bootcamp, followed by her first duty station, NAS Midway Island. She started in the CO's office and gravitated toward the Chaplain's where duties included operating the base library.

Rogenna met and married her sailor while serving her country. "The best part was that brief period of time when I outranked him." After receiving an Honorable Discharge she continued to serve as a Navy Wife and admits to being jealous of her husband's travels. "There's a reason for the slogan; Navy Wife, the toughest job in the Navy. It's like being a single parent--at least part of the time. Jeff's been to seventeen countries and was there for the filming of two major motion pictures aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise CVN65 (TOP GUN and HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER). We have three boys, one for each deployment."

With their Navy days behind them, the family currently resides in Colorado where Rogenna grew up. Before settling in to writing, she was a bookseller and a reviewer for several years. "The one constant has been the need to surround myself with people and books. I always wanted to be a writer/adventurer, but that aptitude test had great insight into my personality. And now I go wherever I want, whenever I want, through my writing."

Guest Blogger, Super Romance Author, Rogenna Brewer

Before the Call-Disable Your Call Blocking!

I will always remember June 1, 1998 as my First Sale. But I didn't get "The Call" in the traditional sense. It all started with an email late on a Friday afternoon.

The Senior Editor for Harlequin Super Romance was trying to get a hold of me, but couldn't get through because of call blocking.

Who knew?

This was in the early day of phone features. The email instructed me to call in on Monday because the Senior Editor was going to be out of town for two weeks. So if I didn't get a hold of her then I wasn't going to get a hold of her for awhile.

It was the longest weekend of my life.

I tried not to get my hopes up. By that point in my career I'd received calls from both an agent and a publisher which amounted to nothing. But it was hard not to hope.

Monday arrived. I called. And got a busy signal--all day long. As the day slipped away I knew I wasn't going to last two weeks. In a last ditch effort I called the editorial assistant who had emailed me. She patched me through to the Senior Editor.

And we were cut off.

I called the assistant again. This time the Senior Editor took the call in the assistant's office and our game of phone tag ended with the sale of my first book SEAL It With A Kiss.

That phone call came 10 months after my first and only contest win. That contest win garnered me an 8 minute appointment with the editor who eventually bought my book--10 years and 5 books later I can hardly believe how much time has passed.

The Marine's Baby is in stores today and in a way it's never gotten any easier than that first missed phone call.

But wishing I knew then what I know now is kind of like wishing for a 20 year old body to go with this 40 year old brain. With experience comes wisdom. And someday I'm going to be wiser. But for now here's my wish list...

...I wish I had focused on my writing goals more, instead of on the broader goal of getting published.

...I wish I had entered more contests and submitted more manuscripts--full manuscripts.

And here's the biggie

... I wish I had made it less about the rules and more about the writing.

Write something today!

Rogenna

Go ahead and Enlist! Vistit Rogenna at http://www.rogennabrewer.com/

Today Rogenna is giving away a copy of The Marine's Baby to one lucky commenter. Please leave a method of contact.

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When an aptitude test labeled her suited for librarian or clergy, Rogenna joined the Navy. It was off to bootcamp, followed by her first duty station, NAS Midway Island. She started in the CO's office and gravitated toward the Chaplain's where duties included operating the base library.

Rogenna met and married her sailor while serving her country. "The best part was that brief period of time when I outranked him." After receiving an Honorable Discharge she continued to serve as a Navy Wife and admits to being jealous of her husband's travels. "There's a reason for the slogan; Navy Wife, the toughest job in the Navy. It's like being a single parent--at least part of the time. Jeff's been to seventeen countries and was there for the filming of two major motion pictures aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise CVN65 (TOP GUN and HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER). We have three boys, one for each deployment."

With their Navy days behind them, the family currently resides in Colorado where Rogenna grew up. Before settling in to writing, she was a bookseller and a reviewer for several years. "The one constant has been the need to surround myself with people and books. I always wanted to be a writer/adventurer, but that aptitude test had great insight into my personality. And now I go wherever I want, whenever I want, through my writing."