I can’t count how many times I’ve heard an author say to me lately, “With all that my publisher is making me do to promote my book, I’m not sure why I needed them at all.”

Check out this very revealing and plain-facts Globe and Mail article (with the appropriately defeatist title, “Publish, and Your Book Will Probably Perish”) about the modern world of traditional publishing. Every single complaint in this article has a painfully obvious cure in self-publishing.

Basically, the article describes how when tough times happen, major publishers are no different than any other company. They usually cut back on the last activity they should ever skimp on: sales. The reason for this is simple – any entrepreneur will tell you that sales are usually the most expensive part of any business, whether it be in publicity, customer acquisition, payment for sales services, or more generally, in marketing. Accountants see dollars going out the door, and they look for the biggest column. That’s the one they chop.

One fiction author is anonymously quoted as saying, “[there has been a] …steady erosion of [publishers'] services toward creators. … [They] no longer edit or proofread as they once did, buy advertising, employ a sales force … and tour authors as they once did” – and this at a time when the books they publish have climbed in price to “the edge of affordability for most readers.” Hmm. Sounds like the only difference between a self-publishing author and a traditionally-published author is now the imprint on the title page.

Self-published or not, there is (let’s be frank here) plenty of work to promote a book and get copies sold. I’ve said before that authors often imagine that a traditional publisher will take on a significant portion of the cost involved in the promotion, thereby relieving them of the work. It’s just not true: a major publisher won’t even look at your book unless you can demonstrate that you’re really prepared to do the legwork required to promote it.

A book is a business. Micro or major, it involves about the same amount of work. If you’re going to do most of the work anyway, why not keep most of the profit? In an economic downturn, authors are actually better off to self-publish than any other time, because all authors are finally calling themselves entrepreneurs. As stated by Margaret Atwood, “The term ‘relentless self-promoter’ used to be an insult in publishing circles. Now it will be a necessity.”

The article seems to suggest (to me, at least) that major publishers are now performing services no differently than many of the print houses now marketing themselves as “publishing houses” – they hand over the book and get out. Too bad: if I had Margaret Atwood on my roster, I’d at least be paying for the wine and cheese party.

I’ve personally been involved on the design of about 25 book covers now, both ebook and printed books. Here are my 10 top tips for a great book cover.

The design of your book cover is extremely important, no matter how you plan to distribute it. Marketing rumour (I won’t say research, because I can find no quotable sources on this) tells us that from the moment a person picks up your book, you have about 6 seconds to convince them to buy it. This includes the time they take to look at the back cover and the spine.

You may think that an ebook is somehow less worthy of time taken on a quality cover design, but I strongly disagree: if anything, it is more important that your ebook have a quality cover design, as the ebook market is currently in a growth stage. It’s important to put your ebook into the next category up from some of the (let’s be frank here) garbage that has been distributed this way in the past.

These are in not in order of importance, and perhaps some of these don’t apply to your project.

1. The cover and typesetting should really be done by the same person, at the same time.

This wholistic approach unifies the design and gives it greater impact. A good recent example is the design of Jeri-Lyn McCrea’s Words in Action, which continued the floating words on the cover into the end papers, where the user can write a goal for the year inside the cover. All of this gives your content greater credibility.

2. Keep the design clean.

Avoid a cluttered look, make use of white space, and follow the fashionable rule: two main colours, plus an accent. (Think black skirt, red sweater, and the shoes and the belt should match either the skirt or the sweater – not a third colour.) Don’t give them too much to look at: strip it down to the basics. Too much stuff can threaten, confuse, and frustrate readers. Keep fonts clean and easy to read, and keep text from looking squished together. Use the back to flesh things out if you must, but keep the front of the cover cool and simple.

3. Use a focal point to orient the user.

The idea is to give them something that instantly tells the reader what your book will give them. This focal point must be meaningful to just about anybody, so test it out on a few people before you fly with it. This focal point could be a photo (my favourite) or something else that communicates clearly what your book is about, such as a single word in bold letters, etc. Your book cover is a promise of what’s inside. Grab their attention with a symbol or single word that will focus their attention.

4. Be sure they can read it without glasses.

Even as I typed that, it sounded stupid, but it’s true. Many people need reading glasses, but they don’t wear them while walking around a store or while using a computer. If they can’t read the cover because the print’s too tiny, you’ve lost your opportunity.

5. Use the spine properly.

The trend of creating spiral-bound self-published books makes me shudder. Not only does it look terrible, but you can’t use the spine to attract attention for your book on a shelf. Libraries won’t buy them, either. If you need people to be able to lay the book flat for some reason, there are much better alternatives than something that looks like it was done in your basement. The spine is very valuable real estate, and anything you can do to make the text there really *POP* is great. Keep the content restricted to the title and author’s name, as if you’ve titled your book properly, you can leave the sub-title for display on the front only.

6. Include a photo of the author.

A photo tells the reader who is doing the talking, and establishes instant trust. The photo does not have to be huge, but it should be included. If you are super-shy about having your photo taken, get a nice headshot done by a good photographer, and have it re-touched until you’re happy with it. Dress appropriately to your subject matter, and make it a cropped closeup of your face. (See a future article on what makes a good author headshot.)

7. Leave appropriate space for the technical gunk.

Check out the image here of the back of a book cover I recently designed. This book is rather small, only 4 inches wide x 6 inches high. Even taking that into account, we’ve left the scan codes at full size. This ensures that they will scan appropriately no matter what sort of equipment is being used. The ISBN number is clearly displayed, and one of the author’s websites is visible somewhere. The appropriate category is in the top left corner, which helps bookstores and libraries place the book to best selling advantage. The price is also given in both Canadian and US dollars. The ISBN-13 scan code includes a separate price bar code, and a separate UPC code allows the book to be sold in virtually any retail venue – not just bookstores.

8. Use appropriate information hierarchy.

Again, refering to the photo, pay special attention to the font sizes. The largest font size is used on the information that is most important – the book’s description. The smaller the font gets, the less important the information. Even subtle changes of a point or less can be detected. This leads the reader down a logical path of what order we want them to read in.

9. Make the design match the content.

I don’t understand why we continue to see child-like colourful designs with hand-drawn illustrations for business books. If you wouldn’t attend a business meeting wearing that cover, why should you ask your book to wear it? If the content is business, make the cover business-like. If the content is self-help, make the cover uplifting and beautiful. Good style is good business.

10. Don’t waste real estate.

A book cover is actually 7 locations: the front, the spine, the back, and don’t forget the inside of the front, and the inside of the back, plus the first right-side paper in the front and the last left-side paper in the back, which can be special sheets called endpapers. If you are publishing a hardcover, you can print the endpapers in one solid piece, and if you’ve gone softcover, you can print directly on the inside cover and the first “page” of the content. I’d love to see every author to ever publish put an order form there to order more books off their website. The cost is pennies per book, and the rewards can be great.

Remember: good design is good business.