Join us February 20, 2016, at 2:00 p.m. at the Four Points by Sheraton, 5115 Hopyard Rd., Pleasanton, as Joel Friedlander presents “How to Create Book Covers that Work” as the guest speaker for the California Writers Club Tri-Valley Branch.
Book cover design, at its best, is an amazing commercial art. The best book designers continue to amaze and surprise us with their graphic design prowess. But indie authors, who write and publish their own books, can get started by knowing the worst mistakes to avoid.
Joel will discuss:
- The 5 jobs a book cover must do to succeed
- 4 reasons that book covers fail
- 3 tools to use to evaluate book covers
- And much more.
Here Joel shares his #1 Tip for Do-it-Yourself Book Cover Designers:
Establish a principal focus for the cover—Nothing is more important. Your book is about something, and the cover ought to reflect that one idea clearly. Choose the one element that takes control, that commands the overwhelming majority of attention, of space, of emphasis on the cover. Don’t fall into the trap of loading up your cover with too many elements, 3 or 4 photos, illustrations, maps, “floating” ticket stubs. Think of your book cover like a billboard, trying to catch the attention of browsers as they speed by. Billboards usually have 6 words or less. You have to “get it” at 60 miles per hour, in 3 to 5 seconds. A book cover ought to do the same thing. At a glance, your prospective reader ought to know:
- the genre of your book,
- the general subject matter or focus, and
- some idea of the tone or “ambiance” of the book.
Is it a thriller? A software manual? A memoir of your time in Fiji? Your ideas on reform of the monetary system? Each of these books needs a cover that tells at a glance what the book is about.
Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) is an award-winning book designer, blogger, and writer. He’s been launching the careers of self-publishers since 1994 from his book design and consulting practice at Marin Bookworks in San Rafael, California. Joel is the author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish, and the coauthor of The Self-Publisher’s Ultimate Resource Guide. He is a columnist for Publishers Weekly, and Writer’s Digest has named him as one of the 10 people to follow in book publishing. Joel writes TheBookDesigner, a popular blog on book design, book marketing, and the future of the book. He’s also the founder of The Self-Publishing Roadmap, an online, video-based training course in book publishing. In 2013, with Tracy R. Atkins, Joel launched BookDesignTemplates.com, where he provides pre-designed book templates for Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign and book marketing tools for authors. Joel is a past president of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association.
Follow Joel at www.TheBookDesigner.com