Judging a book by its cover: Designing Book Blueprint

I have a mixed history with designers.

You see, my significant other is a former graphic designer. Today he’s a training manager at a software company, but tends to take on a lot of design responsibilities on the side of his main role. As a result, any time I’ve wanted to create anything with a visual element (websites, brochures, business cards, etc.), he’s been the first one to raise his hand.

The problem is, I’m a word person, not a visual person. This means I struggle to explain what I want, because I generally don’t know what I want. My direction involves words like light, bright, quirky, clean and polished, rather than descriptions like, ‘I want an A5 portrait brochure with a two-column design where one column is white with dark grey text and the other column uses white icons against a blue or orange background.’

Unfortunately, he’s someone who needs those specific directions, which means any attempts at design collaboration haven’t been very successful. As a result, most of what you see online is a DIY job, while any printed collateral was designed by a lovely designer I found on 99designs who gets my vague directions and turns them into polished, professional brochures that still manage to be bright and quirky.

However, he’s not an experienced book cover designer. So when it came to designing Book Blueprint, I needed to find someone new who would be able to take my vague desires and turn them into a cover that I and my readers would love.

I originally connected with Scarlett Rugers through one of my clients, and she’s been the designer I recommend ever since. Why? She does good work, she has experience working with entrepreneurs rather than just fiction authors, and she makes things simple and straightforward with standard packages. She’s also well priced and was able to work to my tight publishing schedule, which was a plus.

The formalities

We got started by catching up for lunch where we talked about our businesses, my book and my concerns about finding the right cover. After the official bits and pieces were out of the way (payment of the deposit and signing of the Ts&Cs), she had me fill out a very long survey about my book and what I wanted.

Beyond the dimensions of the book and details of the package, some of the questions included:

Who is your target market?
Do you want the book to be legible at the size of a thumbnail?
Do you have a specific idea/design that you’d like to see?
What’s the impression you want to give your audience when they first see the cover of your book?
What don’t you want on the cover?
Which adjectives do you want to describe your cover? (Multiple choice)

The most interesting one, though, was choosing whether I wanted Scarlett to design something that was typical of my genre (business books) or something different and unique.

The designs

Scarlett got to work on June 1^st and had three concepts in my inbox on June 10^th.

When I saw them at thumbnail size, my heart sank. I didn’t like any of them. It was exactly what I’d worried would happen.

I took a deep breath, downloaded the designs and opened them up at their full size so I could give more detailed feedback.

Design 1

While the colours of this were right on brand and I could see she was playing with the blueprint idea, this just didn’t look like a business book to me. The font of the author name and tagline was too informal, and the grid lines made it look more like a text book than a paperback.

In some cases it can be helpful to deviate from the standard designs in your industry. However, when I saw this, my worry wasn’t about whether or not my book would stand out – it was whether or not an entrepreneur would even recognise it was a business book.

Design 2

My first thought was that this one was very … orange. Yes, I know Grammar Factory has an orange logo, but this just felt like too much. It would also clash with pretty much everything in my wardrobe (I like greens, purples and reds), which may seem like a silly concern, but if you’re planning to pose for photos with your book at events, it needs to be considered.

I also wasn’t a fan of the feature font. I understood there needed to be a feature font to help break up the cover, but handwriting fonts always make me think of memoirs. Once again, I was worried that this didn’t look like a business book.

Once I looked more closely, though, I noticed all the little notes around the key features of the cover. There was a testimonial from ‘Reputable person’. There was a note indicating that I was an ‘Experienced and knowledgeable author’. There were even measurements for the cover size! The more I looked, the more I realised that this was quite cool.

Design 3

This design was fine. I didn’t mind it, but I didn’t love it either. It was just a bit ‘meh’ for me, though I would have been willing to take it as a backup if we hadn’t been able to find anything else.

Round 2

I went back to Scarlett with my feedback – I wanted to develop the second concept, but make it blue instead of orange and use a more professional feature font.

She got to work and the next day had sent through some new versions of that cover with different fonts, one of which was this one:

I loved it!

From here I went to my target market for some feedback on the tabs and got to see a rather vigorous debate unfold before my eyes on Facebook. The consensus was that if they were real tabs (i.e. if they marked out different parts of the book) I should go for it, and if they were just on the cover it would be better to go without. Given that real tabs would have drastically increased my printing costs, I went without.

This brings us to the final cover:

Key learnings

So what did I learn?

While it can be helpful for you to know what you want up front, the right designer will be able to take your vague ideas and give you something to work with.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t like your initial designs – they are just a starting point and help your designer figure out how to create something you will
Feedback from the market in the early stages can be helpful, but it’s only really necessary if you have a couple of designs you like and are trying to decide between them. If you have one you like, focus on developing that and then get some feedback once you’re comfortable with it.
There are only two people who need to like your cover – you and your target reader. No one else matters. Therefore, feel free to ignore everyone else’s feedback. No matter how well-meaning, if they aren’t your target market (meaning they wouldn’t buy your book or your other products or services) then their feedback isn’t going to tell you what your target readers want.

Want a look inside the cover?

While cover design is important, it isn’t enough if the content itself is up to scratch.

The problem is that most of the small business owners and entrepreneurs we work with aren’t writers. Although they’re experts in their fields, they’ve never written a book before and struggle with questions like:

How do I organise my mountain of knowledge in a way that will establish my credibility, and turn readers into clients?
Which content will be the most compelling and relevant for my target readers?
Should I even write a book, or would a brochure or online guide be a better choice?
Where do a draw the line between giving everything away for free, and just teasing readers with the potential value they could get if we worked together?

After working with over 100 entrepreneurs, I set out to write a guide that any one of them could use to write an awesome book – whether they were writers or not.

The end result? Book Blueprint!

Book Blueprint is an award-winning book that gives entrepreneurs and small business owners a step-by-step framework to write an awesome book. Just some of the things it covers include:

How to nail a bestselling book idea with three simple tests.
How to organise your mountain of knowledge in a way that’s both logical and persuasive, so your readers don’t just get value, but are more likely to convert into higher-paying clients.
How chapters actually work, including three simple questions that will get all of your content out of your head and into your book.

By the end of the book you will have mapped out a 3,000-5,000 word blueprint, so you won’t need to worry about writer’s block, writing the wrong things or wasted time. All you’ll need to do is fill in the gaps.

Book Blueprint is the key to writing a great nonfiction book, fast.

Pre-order your copy today at grammarfactory.com/bookblueprint