Creating the Perfect Book Cover Design Brief

How to create a cover design brief that will help your cover designer create the perfect book cover for your book!

Getting a book cover created for your book, whether fiction or non-fiction, can be a significant investment, and that’s why the perfect book cover design brief is so important. Apart from editing, print and ebook formatting, your cover design is probably one of your highest costs, so it’s not something you should take lightly. After all, your front cover is arguably one of the biggest selling points for your book, so it needs to do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to creating a great first impression.

At Author Services Australia, we offer a full cover design package, and you can learn more about what it includes by checking out the link above to our package.

An important first step in the cover design process is for the author to complete a cover design brief. This is where the author lays out their ideas and inspirations, so getting this first step right is vital. In the following article, we’ll cover everything Australian and New Zealand authors need to know about creating the perfect book cover design brief.

If you have any questions about the self-publishing process, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

At Author Services Australia, we support Australian and New Zealand self-published authors and writers with a full range of affordable self-publishing services, including ghostwriting, copyediting, developmental editing, proofreading, ebook and paperback formatting, book cover design, children’s book illustrations, graphic design services, Amazon KDP Keyword and Category Research, animated book cover reveal videos, beta reading, and social media and marketing.

Creating Mock-Ups of Your Cover Concept

If you enjoy using programs like Canva or Adobe Photoshop and you’ve been working on a cover design concept you love that needs a bit of refining, make sure you include that along with your cover design brief.

If you’re still in the early stages of cover design brainstorming, check out The Complete Guide to Book Cover Design for Authors! We cover everything you need to know about book cover design.

When you have a very firm concept of what you want your book cover design to look like, it’s often hard to accept new ideas or concepts from your cover designer. In cases like this, we’ll most likely recommend using one of your concepts to refine your cover design and the other to develop an alternative idea.

Some Questions You’ll Need to Consider When Completing Your Book Cover Design Brief

1. 1. 1. 1. What are your aims for your book?
        
        How does your book design fit within its genre?
        
        What mood are you trying to invoke from potential readers?
        
        Do you have any specific fonts you want to use?
        
        Do you have a preferred colour palette?
        
        Is this book part of a series, or potentially the first book in a series?

What to Include with Your Design Brief

Your book description, blurb, or synopsis is a must include when you’re submitting your cover design brief. Not only will you need your blurb for the back of the paperback or hardcover, but it also gives your cover designer a quick overall idea of your book.

If you have a specific scene from the book you’d like to incorporate into the cover design, then be sure to include that scene.

Providing character descriptions is important if you plan to feature main characters on your front cover. Remember, unless you’re getting custom characters created, your cover designer is most likely working with stock images, so finding exact matches for distinct characters isn’t always possible.

Technical details are just as important to include with your cover design brief as design elements. Some technical specifications you should include are:

- - - - Your book’s trim size.
        
        Where you plan on self-publishing, and if you plan on getting copies printed through an independent print company.
        
        What formats you’ll need: ebook, audiobook, paperback, or hardcover.

If you’re considering self-publishing on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), check out the Complete Guide to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), where we cover everything you need to know about self-publishing on the world’s biggest book marketplace.