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Home » Book covers

9 Ways a Crappy Book Cover Can Sabotage a Marketing Campaign

by Joan Stewart on April 12, 2018 22 Comments

Before you try to woo the media with a sizzling pitch, or attract potential readers with compelling free content, you must be ready to dazzle them with an eye-popping cover.

Filed Under: Contributing Writers, Cover Design, Marketing Tagged With: Book covers, book marketing, Joan Stewart

How I Used My Self-Published Book to Teach My Students

by Joel Friedlander on March 20, 2015 2 Comments

How I Used My Self-Published Book to Teach My Students by Brian South details how a high school teacher brought his students on his self-publishing journey with him to create an authentic learning situation, and how the students actually contributed.

Filed Under: Cover Design, Guest Posts, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Book covers, Brian South, cover design, Marketing, self publishing

Book Cover Design and the Problem of Symbolism

by Joel Friedlander on January 17, 2012 56 Comments

Book Cover Design and the Problem of Symbolism advises against putting too many elements on your book cover: keep it simple

Filed Under: Cover Design, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Book covers, book design, cover design, CreateSpace, e-book cover design awards, symbolism

Finding Photographs for a Book or Blog Gets Better

by Joel Friedlander on December 21, 2011 11 Comments

Finding Photographs for a Book or Blog Gets Better compares Fotolia.com and iStockphoto.com and looks at the Flickr utility Compfight.com

Filed Under: Book Design, Interior Design, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Book covers, book design, compfight.com, cover design, Flickr, Fotolia, interior design, iStockphoto, stock photos

5 Great Fonts for Book Covers

by Joel Friedlander on August 30, 2011 169 Comments

5 Great Fonts for Book Covers including ChunkFive, League Gothic, Baskerville, Franchise and Trajan

Filed Under: Book Design, Cover Design, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Baskerville, Book covers, book design, chunkfive, cover design, franchise, league gothic, publishing a book, self publishing, Trajan, typography

Project Focus: Cover Design with Supplied Artwork for The “And” Principle

by Joel Friedlander on December 11, 2009 4 Comments

This is the second article about dealing with a cover design project with artwork supplied by the client. In the first, I looked at the book cover design process for Chris Finlan’s Not A Fire Exit. This time I’m going to look at the designs prepared for Bill Goldberg’s The “And” Principle. Here is the […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Cover Design, Project Focus, Samples, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Bill E. Goldberg, Book covers, Eve Olitsky, The "And" Principle, Yoga Journal

Project Focus: Cover Design With Supplied Artwork for Not A Fire Exit

by Joel Friedlander on November 24, 2009 6 Comments

Over the last few months I’ve designed two book covers that involved artwork supplied by the author. This is a slightly unusual situation and forces you to think in creative ways. If your client hands you a piece of artwork and says, “I love this! I want it on my book cover,” then you had […]

Filed Under: Book Design, Cover Design, Samples, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Book covers, Chris Finlan, Not A Fire Exit, Self-Publishing

Book Covers, Dust Jackets, and Case-Wrap Books

by Joel Friedlander on November 20, 2009 31 Comments

The post continues the Book Construction Blueprint, a series of posts providing reliable guidance to anyone taking on the construction of a book that must conform to generally-accepted practice. We’ve already looked at the parts of a book, book pagination, the copyright page, the use of chapters and subheads, and the elements found on the […]

Filed Under: Book Construction Blueprint, Cover Design Tagged With: Book covers, dust jackets

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"Writers change the world one reader at a time. But you can't change the world with a book that's still on your hard drive or in a box under your bed. This blog exists to help you get that book into people's hands."
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