Designing Your Cover

You know that old saying you can't judge a book by its cover! Well, whilst there may be some truth in it, you really must consider the importance of your cover as a marketing tool.

The cover is the first thing a prospective buyer looks at. Usually a quick glance at the front and back covers is what the purchasing decision is made on. Studies show that on average a cover is looked at for 3 to 4 seconds before the consumer moves on, so it really needs to grab attention!

So put some considerable time and thought into your cover. An interesting cover isn't a guarantee of success but it helps attract attention!

The front cover usually contains at least the title and or author and an appropriate illustration or decorative feature.

Unless you have a design background and are confident and competent in cover design it is probably well worth having a graphic designer work with you. This is a decision you will need to make depending upon the market your book is destined for.

The back cover

Although the front cover helps to grab the attention of a prospective buyer, the blurb on the back needs to be succinct yet descriptive enough to appeal to your target readers.

A testimonial or review from a respected critic on your topic can also add to the marketing of your book by adding credibility to your work.

The spine

Most books spend their lives with their spines facing outward, so it is important that the spine carries sufficient information to make it easily identifiable from other titles on the bookshelf. Typically, a spine will have the title, author and publisher's logo.

Images on spines are usually reserved for a book of reasonable thickness, so that the detail can be read.

Text on a spine normally runs from top to bottom.

The spines that work the best use a background colour (or image) to wrap around the entire book, or at least a few millimetres beyond the fold of the spine (or scores).

The calculation of the spine width is based on the thickness of the paper (not the weight) and the number of pages in your book. Even then, a slight allowance must be made for minor variations in the thickness of the stock, regardless of weight and type. Therefore, be aware that a spine with a solid colour or image designed to fit exactly to the spine measurement is more likely to end up with some spine wrap on the front or back cover.

Always check your spine width with your sales executive or customer service representative before submitting final cover files and make sure you are using the final page extent, as any change to the extent could have a flow on effect to the positioning of the spine.

Of course if your book is to be saddle stitched it won't have a spine. Griffin Press do not perfect bind a book with a spine of 4mm or less.

Print options

For low print runs (under 500 copies), your best option is to print using our digital colour press. This is a four-colour process machine and means that in your design you are restricted to using the four process colours - CMYK (Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y), Black (K)) - instead of solid PMS colours. Digital printing does not allow for additional embellishment processes such as foiling and embossing.

If a solid PMS colour or the use of embellishments is an important feature of your book, you will need to have your covers printed offset. Keep in mind that this process will add significantly to the print cost and it will also delay the delivery of your books by a few extra days.

Cover formats

To assist you in setting up your cover we have provided format examples for you to use as a guide (see the Useful Guides & Templates section).

Any images that are important to the design and do not bleed, or are important information (such as a barcode), should be kept 3-5mm from the trim and the fold of the book's spine.

To get an idea of the space you have to work with, you can print the examples to actual size by setting the page scaling to ‘none' and print on A3 landscape, preferably in colour.

Bleeds on the cover

A bleed allows an image (or colour) to run off the cover (or printed page). This is created because the sheet used to print on is bigger than the final trim size of the book.

Using this extra space on covers to bleed your images means that you don't end up with unwanted white edges which may result, given that a small margin of tolerance is needed for the manufacturing process.

You need to make an allowance for this bleed, and if you refer to the templates we've provided, you will see that this bleed allowance is indicated.

Let's assume you have a background colour that you want to bleed off. Make sure you increase the size of that background (or image) by 5mm beyond the trim marks in your cover file (see templates). This way you'll end up with a great looking cover, with no white space (unless of course you want white space), that provides allowance for that little bit of movement through the binding and trimming process.

Do not confuse the bleed of your background colour or image with text or images that are a key requirement to your cover. To ensure any key element does not get trimmed off, we recommend you do not place any text within 5mm of the trim.

Image file sizes

Images should be between 150 to 300 DPI for the best effect.

We're not designers but...

...We have printed a lot of books. Here is a list of things we recommend you consider:

• Don't use dark covers with matt lamination - they show off scuffing and given books are packed in cartons and unpacked then put on shelves etc, it is hard to avoid scuffing.
• Do gloss or matt laminate your cover as it offers some protection for your book.
• Avoid butting your design up to the spine, use a colour or image that wraps around. Designs that butt to the spine often show the small amount of variation that can occur in the paper thickness and movement through the binding process.