Tips to design the perfect romance book cover every romance author needs to know!
If you’re a romance author, you must know how to design the perfect book cover. Did you know that in 2022 romance and adult books accounted for almost $1.4 billion in sales? Nearly a third of all book sales are romance books. The romance genre continues to be one of the biggest-selling genres in the world. So, you could make a lot of money with a successful romance book.
Regardless of what you would like to think, your cover is one of the best-selling points of your book. Potential readers shop with their eyes. So, it makes sense that a best-selling book will have a cover to match it, and romance books are no different.
If you think you have a best-selling romance book but need help creating a cover, don’t worry! Our professional cover design team is here to help create an amazing romance book cover that sells.
Understanding Your Romance Book Audience
If you understand your audience, you’ll be one step closer to understanding how to design the perfect romance book cover. First, let’s take a look at a breakdown of romance readers according to Words Rated:
- Over 80% of romance readers are women, with men making up 20%, but this number is slowly balancing out.
- Over 45% of romance readers have a college degree level of education or higher.
- The average age of a romance reader is 42.
- Typical romance readers are getting younger! While ten years ago, the average romance reading age group was 35-54, now it’s closer to 18-54.
- 70% of romance readers started reading romance books between 11 and 18.
- 35% of romance readers have enjoyed the romance genre for over 20 years.
- Almost 60% of romance readers are married or living with their partner.
This is a good way to look at your target audience overall. For example, your average romance reader is an educated woman aged 18-54 who has been reading romance books for over 20 years.
Romance Book Cover Tips
The ultimate rule when designing a romance book cover is to remember sincerity. Your cover absolutely must be crystal-clear about the content and genre.
It’s why you will rarely see a romance cover that doesn’t have the following:
- A couple of people touching, hugging, embracing, or touching.
- A particularly pretty/handsome/beautiful individual with a passionate or longing loon on their face.
Your Romance Book Cover Should Build Tension
An effective romance book cover will be more effective and attract more readers if it communicates sexual tension to the readers. Remember, the more tension you build, the better the cover will sell your book.
There’s nothing better to add a little tension to your romance book cover design than a hint of sexuality or eroticism.
Any reader that looks at your book cover should be feeling the electricity or sparks between the main characters on the cover. If you’re trying to be subtle, try not to be overly erotic. Think of it more like a cheeky wink or look. It’s playful but not super revealing about its intentions.
Colour Can Be Used to Evoke Emotions
Without the right choice of colours, it doesn’t matter how well you used tension or how beautiful the people on the cover are.
Commonly cover designers choose tender pastel palettes and radiant warm ones for romance book cover designs. However, the right colours can be used to evoke emotions in readers. Below are some colour examples and what they say to potential readers:
- Pink – Can symbolize romance and love, tenderness, caring, calm, and acceptance.
- Beige and Ivory – Both ivory and beige can be used to symbolize calm, coziness, and also unity.
- Yellow – Can be associated with optimism, joy, and warmth.
- Red – The classic forbidden fruit. Red can be used for passion, fire, danger, and eroticism.
These are just some of the most common colours used on romance covers and by no means a must-use list. Always feel free to experiment with other colour patterns, and don’t be scared to be unconventional.
Background and Storytelling Elements or Details
It’s mostly the people on the front of romance covers that are the focus, with many romance authors choosing to leave the rest of the cover left blank with very few details. However, there are always going to be exceptions to this.
For example, some romance books are set in specific locations, which ties into the storyline or plot, and your cover design could hint at this.
What do you think makes the perfect romance cover, and what do you gravitate towards when buying a romance book? We’d love to know, so comment below!
How to Design the Perfect Romance Book Cover – Conclusion
There you go! Everything you ever wanted to know about how to design the perfect romance book cover for your next romance book. Designing book covers can be a lot harder than it looks, and sometimes you need an outside perspective.
It’s important to remember that romance is a big genre, and it includes a lot of different personal tastes and flavours. There’s a lot of room for movement and innovation if you want to try other techniques. Getting reader feedback using multiple cover designs is a great way to gauge the effectiveness of the cover design.
Your book deserves the best chance of success, and a premium book cover design is an important part of self-publishing. If you would like to learn more about how to get a premium book cover designed for your ebook, paperback, fiction, non-fiction, memoir, biography, or romance book, please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us directly. Our friendly and professional team is standing by to assist you with your book cover inquiries.
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Disclaimer – Romance book covers used in this blog were used for example and education purposes only and weren’t created by Author Services Australia. To purchase any of the books mentioned in the above blog, please visit Amazon or click the image.