Helpful Tips - Cover Design
Special attention should be placed on your book cover because a good design will help sell the book.
A great cover has the right mix of well-written copy and eye-catching graphics. Your design should allow for easy reading of the text, while using striking colors and images. Correct spelling and grammar is critical.
Here�s what you may wish to include on your cover:
Front Cover
- Title: crucial in selling your book, the title should be short, catchy and descriptive.
- Subtitle: use this sentence or phrase to summarize the book�s subject and entice a sale.
- Author�s Name
- Photo / drawing / graphic element: use colors and images to enhance the impact of your title and subtitle.
Spine
- Title
- Author�s Name
- Publisher�s Name
- Note: when displayed at the bookstore, the spine is often all you�ll see of your book. So, it should be clean, easy to read and eye-catching.
Back Cover
- Benefits of your book: summarize what the book is about and describe how your book will enrich the reader.
- Endorsements/testimonials: the most effective endorsements are from experts in the book�s field, professional book reviewers, and well-known people.
- Author�s biography: of special relevance are the author�s life experiences, professional background, or educational degrees, which make him/her an expert in the field.
- Author�s Photo: a photo is most useful when the author is famous.
- Barcode and price: Usually found on the bottom right corner.
Lamination
All of our books are laminated with GBC Lay Flat Lamination, which provides a very professional and attractive finish to every book. It adds an edge over other books that are not as well protected.
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Helpful Tips - Cover Layouts I
When you lay out the cover of a book in a desktop application, make sure that the front and back covers, as well as the spine are designed as one contiguous page. An example is shown here.
White Space: This .25-inch white space allows us to place trim, registration and color identification marks, which will be used by our pressmen during printing.
Bleed: Any background color or photograph that extends to the edge of the page after trimming is called a bleed. To ensure ink coverage to the bleed edge, the image or background color must extend .25 inch beyond the trim. This area will be trimmed away after printing. Neither trim nor registration marks should be placed inside the bleed area.
Trim Size: Size of finished book.
Spine Width: To determine the book's spine size, divide the number of pages by the paper's thickness (measured in "pages per inch" or ppi). Our 50# paper is 500 ppi and our 60# paper is 416 ppi. Spine Width Chart
Layout Dimensions: To determine the dimensions of your cover layout page, use the following chart: or CLICK HERE to download
| Width of Cover Layout |
|
|
|
| White space (.25 inch x 2) |
= |
.5 |
inch |
| Bleed (.25 inch x 2) |
= |
.5 |
inch |
| Trim size (width) ( ____ inches x 2) |
= |
____ |
inches |
| Spine width |
= |
____ |
inches |
| Total Width of Cover Layout |
= |
____ |
inches |
| Height of Cover Layout |
|
|
|
| White space (.25 inch x 2) |
= |
.5 |
inch |
| Bleed (.25 inch x 2) |
= |
.5 |
inch |
| Trim size (height) |
= |
____ |
inches |
| Total Height of Cover Layout |
= |
____ |
inches |
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Helpful Tips - Cover Layouts II
We see lots of covers every day. And, we recognize that the goals of a cover designer may sometimes be a little different from the goals and needs of a printer.
The following tips are intended to bring to light some minor adjustments that you can make to the design of your covers, to improve the look of the book once it is printed and bound. These are merely suggestions, from a printer’s point of view, and ultimately you and your designer will decide whether or not to adopt them.
For basic cover layout instructions be sure to read Cover Layouts I.
Color Breaks on the Spine
This tip involves a spine whose color is different from the color used on the front or back cover. We call this a “color break.”
Because the bulking of paper can vary slightly, it is inadvisable to create a color break between the spine and both the front and back covers. It is better to have only one color break, either on the front or the back.
Another solution is to extend the spine color over onto the front and/or back cover by about 1/4 inch.
Spine Type
When placing type on the spine, be sure to leave a little room above and below the lettering so that it does not appear “crowded.”
For a small spine, such as a 64-page book, you will notice that the type has to be very small indeed. You may wish to use all capital letters. This avoids descenders, allowing you to center the words better, and slightly improve the readability.
How Close to the Edge?
Don’t place type and graphics (such as frames, rules and pictures) too close to the edge of the book. A good distance is 1/4 inch or more from the edge. This suggestion, of course, does not apply if you intend for an image to bleed off the edge.
