Complete Book Cover Design

A complete book cover design has three elements: the front cover, the spine, and the back cover. All three play an equally important role in enticing the reader to choose the book. The complete book cover design should flow together seamlessly with an overall balance in color and design. The cover design should match the theme or genre of the book, and the style should match the author’s style of writing. Intrigue the reader and draw their interest with exciting and creative images in the cover design.

Sample of a well designed complete book cover
Sample of a well designed complete book cover showing the bleed trim and spine folds.

The final print file will combine the front cover, back cover, and spine elements into one file. Each element needs to be in exact measurements to fit around the book properly.

Sample of a Premade Book Cover Design placed in a Lightning Source template.
Sample of a Premade Book Cover Design placed in a Lightning Source template.
IngramSpark-Logo

IngramSpark/Lightning Source provides tools to calculate the spine width and generate templates for their various book types. The template includes the trim size, spine width, bleeds and bar code specific to each book. The final print file is a combination of the cover design and template into a high resolution PDF ready to upload to IngramSpark without errors.

The Front Cover

The front cover of a book should peak the curiosity of the reader. It should tell the readers more than just the title of the book. A book’s front cover design should reach out and grab the reader and make them want to read the book. To do this, the cover should be attractive, well designed, and most of all, give the reader a glimpse of what’s inside.

A few samples of cover designs ready to customize with your title
A few cover samples from our custom designed, ready to customize covers. Click here to view additional samples.

Our cover designs use a variety of images including photography, graphic elements, and custom illustrations, depending on the target audience and subject of the book. We will work with you to achieve a design that will appeal to your target readers and sell your book.

The Back Cover

Back cover of a well designed book cover
Back cover of a well designed book cover

The back cover is the area most readers will turn to find out more about the book. It should include a short synopsis of the story as a way to give the reader a sneak preview inside book. This is also a great place to put reviews or endorsements, and don’t forget your web site address. You will also want to include your bar code.

The Book Spine

Because libraries and retail book stores books display books with only the spine showing makes the spine an important element of a book’s cover design. The spine of the book should contain the book title and the author’s name in a legible font. To assure legible, any background color or image on the spine should be subtle.

Samples of book spines on a shelf
Samples of book spines on a shelf

Cover Design for Books in a Series

Book cover designs for a Series of Travel Guides
Book cover designs for a Series of Travel Guides
Book cover designs for a series of poetry books
Book cover designs for a series of poetry books

Cover2Cover Book Design specializes in designing covers for branding books in a series. Branding is great for books in a series, such as Poetry books, Fantasy novels, Romance novels, Westerns, Educational books, Business books, Software manuals, or Christian Ministry books. Branding, by using similar design elements, complimentary images, and colors that harmonize, gives the series of books a style that readers will recognize and appreciate in a collective work.

Hardcover Book Jacket Design

Sample of a well designed book jacket
Sample of a well designed book jacket

A dust jacket is a loose cover that wraps around a cloth-bound hardcover book. In addition to the front, back and spine, a book jacket has two additional panels that tuck inside the front and back cover. These two panels are the perfect spot to add text, photos, or filler that reflects the story and sends a personal message of welcome to an individual who has picked up and opened the book.

Print files to your printer specifications

We work closely to make sure that the final print files provided will meet IngramSpark specifications. Let us put our expertise to work for you.