Whenever your target audience goes to the bookstore or any online store, the first thing that will grab his/her attention is the cover page of your book.
It’s basic psychology that people go for the things that are pleasing to their eyes. If you have written a mind-blowing book but don’t pay attention to the outer look of your book – the book’s cover – you would have a zero chance of its success.
Book cover design can help you get more attention from your target audience and also make it visible to a bigger audience.
The following tips will help you make your book cover more attractive and attention-grabbing.
Start With Making Your Audience Think About Your Book Title
Instead of giving your book a general title, think about your audience and how they feel about that specific topic. There is a concept named “reverse psychology.” Instead of going for what you want, go for the needs of your target audience, what they want to read.
For example, if your audience is intrigued by the title of the book and it has a provoking effect on them, you just hit the nail right on the head. Make it simple and thought-provoking. A difficult title can confuse your target audience in making a purchase.
Two to three words title would be great depending upon whom you want to approach. A simple linear title or asking a question about any social issue could make a good title. Don’t confuse your audience with difficult vocabulary.
Specify Your Niche For Your Book
Identify your target audience and their demands, needs, and how they view their personality and other people’s point of view in general. Businessmen, lawyers, doctors, engineers, fashion designers, etc all have different traits and different mindsets. A book cannot be for everyone. It must have a target audience.
People with different professional skills have different interests, likes, and dislikes. For example, a business-minded person would like a decent cover page with a highlighting topic while a sci-fiction-loving person would like it to be imaginative and colorful.
Identifying your target audience’s likes and dislikes could be hard sometimes, but the moment you crack the code, it would be a lot easier for you to connect with your audience and communicate their needs and wants through your book.
Use The Same Psychology For Your Book Cover Design
You got the title, you wrote the book, and now use the same target audience psychology trick for the cover design. As your book cover page is a kind of bridge between your book (your thoughts about life or any specific topic) and your target audience.
Whenever designing a cover page, make sure you help your audience to get past that bridge easily. There is a saying “Never judge a book by its cover.” Yes, it is true but human psychology pays more attention to irrational, unique, and controversial thoughts rather than rational ones.
Whenever a person sees a book or anything in the market, he will not check each and everything in it or read the whole book. Study shows that a lot of people normally buy things just because of their outer appearances without doing any deep research.
Look What Is Already In The Market
Observe the market trends and the behaviors of the audience. Try to make your cover page according to the market requirements and which techniques are already prevailing in the market. If you want to go against market trends, then maybe it has some consequences.
Changing human habits is the most difficult thing to do in this world. Depending upon your budget, editor, and publisher, lay out your plan for how to approach the market. If you want to go against the flow of a river, then you should have a strong base to stand on.
No doubt, many people succeed by going in the opposite direction, but you can’t do the same without understanding the needs of your target audience.
Don’t Know How To Connect With Your Target Audience?
There are many ways you can connect with your audience. It is always recommendable to hire an expert who knows your niche and has a specialty in book cover design. This will save you a lot of time and effort to pay more attention to the things you value more.
Make sure the person you are hiring can do this job for you and has the right mindset to make your project a successful one. Try to get to know a person who has a lot of experience in this field, and you also love his/her work.
You can also do it on your own without any help. If you have the time and effort to work on it, doing it yourself would be great because you are the writer of the book, and no one knows your book and your target audience better than yourself.
Experimentation With Different Aspects Is The Key To Success
Branding your book helps to create a book cover that will be eye-catching to your audience. Try different concepts and font sizes. Pay close attention to the graphics and typography of the cover page.
Review different concepts and try to come out with the most different of all. Instead of experimentation, try testing your concepts with real-time readers and try to get their feedback on your book.
Give it a thought about how your cover page will resemble or be different from other books in your niche. This will give you a general view of your product in the market.
Final Thoughts
Getting your book to the market could be more challenging than writing a book. While writing a book, you don’t need anyone’s help to write your thoughts on a piece of paper for you. All you need to do is start thinking about a specific topic and give words to these thoughts.
To publish that same book, you have to see many aspects of your audience’s life, and then communicating with the editors, publisher, and designer could be hard for you. That’s why online publication platforms are so popular nowadays.
It is up to you how you want to design your book cover. But neglecting your audience’s feelings and desires could become a barrier between you and your audience. Make things simple for the audience and they will come back to you.
