We’ve all heard the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but the reality is… everyone does.

The cover is your book’s first impression. Whether someone is browsing in a bookstore or scrolling online, it’s the cover that makes them stop and take a second look.

A cover should reflect the genre and tone of the book.

If you’re publishing a mystery novel, for example, the cover should evoke suspense or intrigue. A romance novel needs something softer or more whimsical, while a non-fiction book might call for a bold, clean look.

A good cover designer will know how to balance artwork with title placement, subtitle fonts, and even colours that attract readers within specific genres. This process can take time, as it’s not just about slapping a title on an image.

The right designer will consider how your book will stand out on the shelves, how it will catch the eye of your target market, and how it will fit alongside traditionally published books.

Designing a cover is incredibly challenging, even for our designer Anna, an award-winning designer with 20 years’ experience.

Sometimes it’s helpful when an author brings ideas to the table, but if their vision is too specific or rigid, it can quickly turn into a nightmare.

Some years ago we were working on a crime fiction cover where the author had just one idea—and wouldn’t consider any alternatives. He envisioned a white 1998 Toyota Hilux, crashed into a palm tree at sunset, with an overweight deceased man in the tray of the ute. As you can imagine, this image simply didn’t exist. Anna tried photoshopping countless images together, but no matter what she did, it just wasn’t working. Thankfully, the author eventually agreed to one of our alternative designs.

Anna has hand-painted covers when we couldn’t find the right image in stock libraries or piece it together digitally, but it’s an incredibly time-consuming process.

Another example is from a few years ago, we were designing a thriller, and the author insisted on using pink and purple as the main colours, along with a photo of the Auckland skyline. We knew it wasn’t going to work, but we gave it a shot. As expected, the result looked more like a romance novel than a thriller.

The cover of a book needs to reflect the content. It gives readers an idea of what the book is about or its genre, and it has to be of a very high standard for it to sit comfortably alongside internationally published books for it to be taken seriously.