If you are getting your book published by a traditional publisher, you might not have to think too hard about choosing your cover art. Your publisher may have a pre-selected format or may hire an artist to create this for you. If you are designing and printing your book yourself, creating effective cover art for both printed and electronic versions of your book is an important part of the publishing and marketing function.
If you choose to create your own cover art, you'll need to take the following elements into consideration:
1. Color theme
2. Images
3. Font
4. Layout
There are many little known facts about recommended font styles, sizes, colors, and placement. How you present your fonts and text on your cover greatly affects the visibility, legibility, and professionalism of your cover.
Fonts used for print should be of serif-typed, meaning they have the little tails on the letters, such as Times New Roman, Georgia, and Book Antiqua. These are the easiest to read in print because people are so used to seeing them. You can use non-serif fonts, such as Arial, Verdana, and Tahoma, sparingly for key words or phrases.
Words that are typed in all caps should be used sparingly. One of the tools used in reading comprehension is the shape of a word. When you use all caps, you remove the unique shape of a word and reduce the ease in recognizing words.
For example, study the two words below.
Liberty LIIBERTY
The first word has a distinct shape. The outline dips in the middle on top, and bulges only at the end on bottom. The second word creates a solid box around the letters. Using capital letters sparingly will help you achieve your statement without reducing legibility. Words in all caps run together; in fact you may not even have noticed that the all caps word contains two I's.
A general rule is to not use font colors that blend in with your background colors. If your background is light, use a dark font color, and vice versa. Don't make your reader squint or hunt for the letters.
For more information on choosing layouts, read part four of this article, coming soon!
