Choosing Your Book Cover

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Ignore the wedding dress, ignore the actors, ignore the title of the movie…..

What do you feel when you look at this picture?

What type of movie is it?

Assuming you liked the movie genre, would you be attracted by the cover?

Would you spot it amongst all the others and pick it up?

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Well it is the same with book covers.

Just as viewers are atracted to a movie poster or dvd sleeve, a reader will be more attracted to a book cover that matches the genre that appeals to them. Romcom/chickflick films, will be more attracted to the above image.

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Stick a man and a woman, for example (other couples will work too!) on the front cover, back to back and chances are it is a story of 2 people disliking each other who eventually fall in love and live happily ever after.

The same applies to all genres.

It is important to match your book to the reader, and although it doesn't have to identical to others (unlike the movies shown above) , there's generally a style of cover for each genre.

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Horror books, especially gothic horrors, tend to have very dark backgrounds, sometimes with images on the front to entice the reader further. if colour is introduced, it is usually red for blood or, like the above images, orange or green for halloween-style books.

Here we see 3 different types of sci fi books, all involving space travel.

This sci fi book shows exactly what the book is about on its cover. It is dark, epic and depicts lots of space-travelling action.

A comedy version of a sci fi book, the cover clearly shows humour along with planets, stars and space travel.

More stars and space travel here, aimed at young children.

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See how almost all of them have an image in the centre to show who the book is about? But also, see how the overall image starts off darker (not just in colour, also in style) to attract older readers, then get lighter and almost happier (or at least more fun) depending on the target market of the reader.