Buy Appeal Marketing

November 2009 Issue

Are you writing a book? If you are a consultant, speaker or coach, you may find that publishing a book may boost your credibility, open doors to more opportunities and help you land more gigs or clients. With the Internet at your fingertips and easy access to expert cover designers, editors, illustrators and page layout artists, it is much easier to self-publish a book than it was twenty years ago. You can take the role as general contractor and hire consultants to help assemble all the pieces.

To save money, you may be tempted to do more than just write the manuscript. But I caution you to not venture into areas outside your expertise. One area that should be done with care by an experience designer is your book cover.

Covers that scream “amateur” and have a made-at-home look are difficult to sell. A graphic designer or illustrator has the creativity, skills, software, access to stock photography, and printing knowledge that will make your cover stand out above others in the marketplace.

Shown below are two front cover designs. The first one is from our client, Cecilia Izquierdo, who asked us to use our magic and take her cover illustration to the next level.

The next cover design is the final version delivered by Marty Petersen, a talented illustrator and member of the MacGraphics team. When I first saw Marty’s illustration, it took my breath away. The clouds seemed more “real” to me than real clouds. Does it evoke any strong feelings in you?

Why does Marty’s cover have so much impact? In his own words, here is Marty’s critique on the design elements that make this cover so powerful.

“Designing and illustrating a cover is always an exciting challenge, and I love getting involved with the concept, purpose and psychology of a book’s message. Cecilia came to us with an endearing story and an illustration that provided great starting point, put lacked the punch and sophistication of a professionally designed cover.

I made her composition much more dramatic and evocative with better use of color, depth, balance and dimensional realism.

I created a darker overall illustration to bring the meaningful symbols —the halo, doves, light shafts — to life with dramatic bright tonal contrasts. The original’s softer blue sky and clouds lacked the visual pizzazz that is so important to grab and keep a book buyer’s attention.

The bold and evocative tonal contrasts forcefully direct the viewer’s eye from the light source (halo), down the shafts of light and cloud bank into the lower text, quickly communicating the thrust of the book’s message. The much more realistically rendered doves symbolize the real and spiritual nature of the book. I also used powerful color psychology by playing the colder, darker, less-soothing background tones against the radiant, uplifting tones of the golden illuminated light shafts.

In summary, the tonal contrasts, interplay of hot and cold color hues, and specific placement of dramatic symbolic elements creates much more powerful, communicative and effective cover image.”

— Marty Petersen

Shown below are a couple more covers illustrated by Marty. Here’s a little bit of information on him. He is an established professional commercial illustrator and designer based in the Colorado front range. He’s been in the business for over 26 years, 12 of those being focused in digital media. Marty illustrates science fantasy and children’s books, creates logos, event posters, interface designs, splash screens, static images & layered art for animation, digital photo retouching, technical and medical illustration. A very versatile artist, he can illustrate anything from basic line art to full color highly detailed illustrations in many styles; airbrush, watercolor, pen & ink. All of his creations are completely hand painted, digitally.

The Colony: A Political Tale, was named the First Place Winner in the General Fiction category of the Premier Book Awards. The author, Reggie Rivers received a letter from the Awards Chair who wrote, “The competition was fierce and it was a difficult decision choosing from so many deserving books. However, the judges were unanimous in their selection of The Colony: A Political Tale as a winning novel.”

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What if YOU could know more secrets from an award-winning graphic designer that would help you create amazing marketing materials in a few hours, would you want to know how? Find out now at www.BuyAppealMarketing.com

Karen Saunders is the author of Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools! Hundreds of business owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their products and services! To learn about this indispensable book, click here: www.BuyAppealMarketing.com

P.S. See that envelope icon below this posting? If you click on the envelope you can email this posting to a friend.

April 2009 Issue

A note to my Graphics Image Builder ezine readers: Below my exciting news is some valuable information on how to create dynamic book covers that will attract book buyers.

The MacGraphics Team Produces a Lucky 7 CIPA EVVY Book Awards for Our Clients!

Happy faces from left to right are editor Joyce Miller, editor Melanie Mulhall, author Eric Jensen, myself, graphic designer Kerrie Lian and publisher Mary Anne Harvey.

The MacGraphics book design team produced 7 EVVY awards and one Tech award at the 15th annual Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) EVVY Book Awards Banquet held Saturday March 28th. The star of the night was my good friend and gifted graphic designer Kerrie Lian. She won a 2nd place Tech award for her compelling book cover design for Tears of a Warrior written by my clients Tony and Janet Seahorn. She also designed the interior of the book. Shown below are myself and Kerrie.

Tears of a Warrior also won a 1st place EVVY Award (overall book design, writing, editing and production) in the Non-Fiction/Experiences category. Tony and Janet had a previously scheduled engagement and were not able to attend the event but they were both very honored to receive the award. My friend and colleague, Karen Reddick did a fantastic job editing the book and Mary Walewski is helping the Seahorn’s market their book.

My client Eric Jensen took home two EVVY awards for his book, Forever and a Day. He won 1st place in the History category and 2nd place in Memoirs. Kerrie’s fabulous cover and interior design was very much a part of those wins. Joyce Miller did a great job editing the book.

Shown above are myself, Eric and Kerrie. Shown below is Eric’s book cover.

Kerrie also designed the cover and interior of But I Don’t Want Eldercare! written by Terry Lynch and published by my client The Legal Center. Mary Anne Harvey of The Legal Center graciously accepted two EVVYs for the book: 2nd place in the Diet/Health/Fitness category and 3rd place in the Parenting/Family category.

Shown above are myself, Mary Anne and Kerrie. Shown below is Terry’s cover.

My client Jim Keelan won a 3rd place EVVY for his book, How to Maintain Your Sanity in an Upside-Down World. My good friend and colleague Melanie Mulhall did an excellent job editing his book and accepted the award on behalf of Jim who wasn’t able to attend the banquet. Kerrie Lian had a hand in this book too. She designed the cover using Fred Eyer’s clever and whimsical illustration. Ronnie Moore designed the book interior. Shown below is Jim’s book cover.

My client Dom Testa won his third EVVY. He took home a 1st place in the Juvenile category for Galahad III: The Cassini Code. This is the third book in his Galahad series to win an EVVY. It was a pleasure to design all three of his covers using David Hardy’s fabulous paintings. Dom mentioned that his Galahad series may be optioned for a movie pilot. How very exciting!

I thoroughly enjoyed working with such a talented group of professionals this year, and I’m excited to create much more collaboration in 2009. Way to go team! Congratulations to all of you.

Tips for Designing Award Winning
Book Covers

Keep in mind these elements when designing covers and interiors for your books, big and small.

Front Cover
The front cover presents your book title, subtitle, and your name. Golden opportunities often overlooked are including endorsements and short testimonials from VIPs.

I recommend using bold, contrasting lettering on the front cover. When choosing colors, consider how these colors will look when converted to black and white so your cover will reproduce well in black and white ads, catalogs, and flyers. Also make sure the font you use for the title is legible from a distance and appropriate for the book’s subject.

Covers that scream “amateur” and have a “made-at-home look” make it difficult to sell your book at all. That’s why it is best to seek the services of an experienced book cover designer. A designer has the creativity, skills, software, access to stock photography, and printing knowledge that will make your cover stand out above others in the marketplace.

Spine
Your name, book title, and publishing company logo show up on the spine. Make sure the information on the spine is clean, uncluttered, and legible. I recommend using bold, contrasting lettering on the spine as well.

Back Cover
Place the category name in the upper left-hand corner to help bookstores shelve your book properly. Write a headline that clearly addresses who should buy the book. It should be followed by sales copy explaining what the book is about and bulleted items listing the benefits to readers.

I recommend including no more than three testimonials and endorsements, as well as your bio and photograph. Close to the bottom, put “sales-closer” copy in bold print. Position the price in the lower left corner of the back cover. Also include the 13-digit ISBN number for cataloging and the bar code in the lower right corner (below ISBN number), which stores use for scanning information and price.

Don’t forget to include credits for your book cover’s illustrator, photographer, and/or designer.

Paper Stock for Book Covers
The standard perfect bound book cover (soft cover) is 10 pt C1S (coated one side). Curl-free film laminate that comes in gloss or matte finish will protect the ink on the cover. UV (ultra violet), aqueous, and varnish can also be used to protect the cover but are not as durable as lamination. Dust jackets are usually printed on an 80# or 100# C1S. In a casebound book (hard cover), the boards can be covered with a B grade cloth, leather, or paper and foil stamped. “Litho” (hard cover) books usually have an 80# C1S Litho paper laminated to a .88 pt. board.

Remember, book cover design is a form of packaging—and good packaging attracts buyers to products. That’s why successful organizations spend millions researching and developing the best product packaging possible.

Next month I’ll share my insights on how to design professional book interiors.

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What if YOU could know more secrets from an award-winning graphic designer that would help you create amazing marketing materials in a few hours, would you want to know how? Find out now at www.BuyAppealMarketing.com

Karen Saunders is the author of Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools! Hundreds of business owners have used her simple do-it-yourself design system to create stunning marketing materials that really SELL their products and services! To learn about this indispensable book, click here: www.BuyAppealMarketing.com

P.S. See that envelope icon below this posting? If you click on the envelope you can email this posting to a friend.