Summary: The following mistakes could ruin your book sales. They are easy to avoid, once you know what to look for. Make sure your book cover is not killing your marketing.<br> Reminder from <a href="http://www.novelmarketing.com/106/">the last episode</a>, or if you haven’t caught it yet …<br> <br> Your book cover is the most important element of your book marketing. <br> A bad book cover can ruin all your other marketing efforts. <br> This is not where you want to be on a budget or make mistakes. <br> <br> Mistake #1 Designing It Yourself <br> <br> Design is something people study in college. <br> It is not something you can learn in a weekend or a week<br> Jim’s story of “becoming a graphic designer”<br> The more control you have over the design, the worse the design will likely be. <br> Most of us would not, or should not tell an electrician how to wire our home. Same thing here.<br> <br> Mistake #2 Including the word “by”<br> <br> Not done on book covers. <br> Use typography to designate the author.<br> <br> Mistake #3 Saying both award-winning AND bestselling.<br> <br> Pick one. <br> Bestselling is usually better depending on level of best seller status.<br> If an award is not WIDELY known, it won’t have much impact on the reader<br> Exceptions:<br> <br> Nobel Prize<br> Pulitzer Prize<br> <br> <br> <br> Mistake #4 Forgetting to add shelving instructions above the ISBN bar code. <br> <br> We mentioned this last time, but worth mentioning again …<br> Self Published Author Often Forget this<br> This is the category of your book.<br> <br> Mistake #5 Imagery is too “on the nose” <br> <br> The cover should not tell the story of your book. It should tease it. <br> Hansel and Gretel didn’t leave all the breadcrumbs in a pile, they dolled them out slowly<br> Use the word <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chip_kidd_designing_books_is_no_laughing_matter_ok_it_is">“apple” or show an apple</a>. Don’t do both.<br> <br> <br> Mistake #6 Too many design elements. <br> <br> Too Complex.<br> Marketing 101 says the Indian Mystic Men should lay on one nail.<br> Rule of thumb: The simpler the cover design, the more confident the publisher is about the writing. <br> <br> Mistake #7 Too Clever <br> <br> If I can’t figure your book cover out immediately, you’ve lost my attention. <br> Remember the one-inch rule<br> <br> Mistake #8 Poor typography <br> <br> Script Fonts<br> Poor font choice<br> Too many fonts<br> No visual hierarchy <br> Low contrast<br> Darci last night … she knew immediately …<br> <br> Mistake #9 Overuse of stock photos <br> <br> Traditionally published books are moving away from stock photos. <br> The trend is toward typographical covers, especially innon-fictionn.<br> What happens when all the designers are going to the same stock photo house<br> Do reverse image search on Google to see if your image has been used<br> <br> Mistake #10 Design by Committee. <br> <br> A good cover needs some people to hate it to work.<br> We did an entire episode on this. You can listen to it at <a href="http://www.novelmarketing.com/19/">NovelMarketing.com/19</a><br> One dollar coin- disaster, designed by committee<br> <br> Mistake #11 Using Your Own Artwork<br> <br> You don’t have good perspective on your own art. <br> You are not as good as you think you are. <br> This applies to photos you have taken as well.<br> Weathertop Statues <br> Jim’s story of his photo ending up on the cover of his novel ROOMS<br> <br> Sponsor:<br> <a href="http://www.mybooktable.com">MyBookTable</a><br>
