{"id":3140,"date":"2016-09-17T14:57:31","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T14:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookcoverexpress.com\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2016-09-17T14:57:31","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T14:57:31","slug":"book-cover-design-tips-formatting-book-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookcoverexpress.com\/2016\/09\/17\/book-cover-design-tips-formatting-book-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"Essential Information for Formatting Your Book Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your book cover is the first thing people see. And few things lose self-publishers more sales than advertising that it’s an amateur project. As the late Dan Poynter used to say, a book cover shouldn’t look like it’s made with “loving hands at home.” Layout, font choice, spacing, and images must be chosen carefully and work well together to entice\u2014 potential fans \u2014 to click.<\/p>\n

The formatted book cover files you supply must be created properly, or you\u2019re going to have issues. Some printers will print whatever you send, and don\u2019t check anything. Others, like Lightning Source<\/a> (LSI) are more particular, and more expensive. But you get what you pay for and I think they\u2019re worth it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no sense creating a cover in Word (it doesn\u2019t work with the right color gamut) or even the beloved GIMP, which is an awesome software, but alas, it also does not work with CMYK files. You\u2019ll have no problem creating an e-book cover with these programs, but print is a bit more technical. If you\u2019re going to be paying money for print proofs, you might as well do it right the first time.<\/p>\n

WARNING: The following contains technical jargon which you should be familiar with (you are the project manager<\/a>), so I\u2019ve provided links that will explain them to you within the text.<\/strong><\/p>\n