"Are you one of those who loves writing fiction book series?
"Do you find great pleasure in writing something that gives readers, a rollercoaster ride of romance, thrill, or suspense and make them desperately wait for the book sequel? If yes, then you should turn your book series into a brand.
As an author, you might have a lifelong dream of becoming a strong thematic writer: a writer who can perfectly write almost everything, can publish his mind-blowing stories, make the audience read it, turning this audience into fans, and last but not the "least" to see your book in the "best sellers of the year." But, you should remember that this is not the end. Many authors skip one of the greatest opportunities; the opportunity to become a brand, which can greatly impact their career.
"Brand?"
"How can an author become a brand?"
"What branding have to do with me?"
"If so, what can I do to become the one?"
Many similar questions like these might be multiplying in your head. In this blog, we'll try to answer all your questions and describe to you the way through which you can build yourself as a brand."
We all know that most readers seek books of their favorite authors. Achieving your audience's trust and awareness is not something that goes without saying; it's one of the most daunting tasks that start with "branding."
Branding is nothing but a promise. An author's brand is the bundle of expectations and perceptions that readers create in their minds over time. It's something that readers expect from their favorite author.
Having a strong author's brand helps readers understand and recognize who you are, what they can expect from you, and where you stand. It differentiates you from other authors out there and depicts how your writing is unique and worthy of their attention. This is something that keeps your work on the top of their mind and takes the numbers from others.
Let's take the example of Twilight Saga's famous writer, "Stephenie Meyer." You know, whenever someone picks up his book, he'll get the best combination of fantasy and romance that will keep the audience hooked to the seat the whole time. He built a strong brand of himself with the fiction lovers who buy his books.
It means that whenever you share your work with the audience, they sketch a mental picture of you and hold some opinion about your work.
IMPORTANCE OF AUTHOR'S BRANDING
As we have found out earlier in this blog, that author's branding tells what you stand for; the series book cover designs also play a vital role in branding. It helps to:
Form the Perception of Series
When designing a series book cover, try to bond all the books with similar ideas. It not only just helps the readers to recognize your book but also helps to build a loop between them.
Express Uniqueness
To differentiate your writing from others, you can come up with different colors, designs, and fonts that can better grab the reader's attention.
Be Visible
Adding distinctive features in your book cover design such as marks, colors or style enables the reader to find you on the bookshelf, and popular marks will become the source of free publicity.
Before starting designing a book cover series, book cover designers must ask!
To make your book cover appealing enough to grab audience attention, the designer must have answers to the following questions
Who is the author, and what's the brand?
The designing process always gets started with the book writer. Determine whether the author is an upcoming or an established writer? Does the author have any previous book that established an expectation of what will come up next? Once the book designer gets the basic knowledge, they would be able to visualize things better.
Does the genre have an established style, or the book cover designer have to create his own?
Commercial fiction, which includes thrill, fantasy, horror, or sci-fi, has a cover design style established several decades ago. The book cover of the commercial novel should reflect the standard-bearers of the specific genre so that readers can identify the genre it belongs to. For example, a couple's picture would send romantic vibes, planets, or space pictures signal a science fiction movie, whereas a desolate landscape depicts exiting fantasy or dystopian.
Where will the books be sold?
Identify where the book will be sold can have an immense impact on its design. With the advent of the internet, the number of e-readers has raised, which provokes many authors to choose eBooks as their only path, giving up to the printed format completely.
For example, Book cover designs will be different if they sell on Amazon or even on the author's website. Text is usually large and more eye-catchy to grab the reader's attention in the long queue of books.
Once the designer has all the knowledge, he's is ready to design a series of book cover distinctively in his way.
WAYS TO DESIGN BOOK COVER SERIES
To publish series, a gist about the novel, numbers of books, and its title is nifty so the designer can tie and relate various designs together. However, each book's concept and the storyline are hard to determine, but having this information will save the designer from many potential issues.
The ways to design book cover series are divided into four parts; imaginary, typography, color variations, and custom illustration. We will thoroughly examine each one to aid your understanding.
Imaginary
There is nothing better than play with the visual elements that are the focal point of the whole series. Such as each cover of the twilight series features "Red Color." It enables the readers to understand that it's a story of both pure love and intense romance, while on the other side, it's the drama of blood and fantasy.
Depicting a "lead" or protagonist on the cover is nothing but a plus point, allowing the audience to get some more information about the character and the stances in which a certain event will occur.
If you want to play with something else than the protagonist and visual elements, you can go with other decorative elements. Ensure that it reflects the novel's tone and mood to give a composed look to the series book design.
Typography
To unveil to your audience that your book is a sequel to the previous one, you can make a difference with different typographic styles. Here are some of the things you can do to series book cover;
One of the biggest branding elements is "author's name." you can change the color, style, or font of the name according to the genre.
You can turn the title of the series book as your identification mark.
Indicate the sequel with words or numbers
Choosing the same typography design.
Repeating the word or phrase in every series title. It can be anything; central thought of movie or "lead" name.
Color Variation
Book designers can mark in designing series covers by artistically using different background colors to connect all sequel books or simply change the typography color without changing the size and style of font to avoid failure in book designing.
Mix and match of different hues can surely add an exceptional touch to the background and add great appeal to your book cover series.
Illustration
Illustrated covers are the best in reflecting an individual approach with a classic touch and make the book look different from others.
How to Find the Right Book Cover Designer?
In the world of self-publishing, book covers play the front line role. Many surveys have indicated that book cover design plays an essential role in a reader's purchasing decision.
Before looking for the right series book cover designers, put yourself in your audience's shoes for some time. You can find your audience preferences through various direct links such as family, friends, colleagues, or indirect links such as social media sites, Amazon, and others.
Once you're done with this, identify the genre of your book and browse through the various designing style of the same genre. Collect your favorite design covers examples, and now it's time to look out for the right book cover designer.
This is one of the easiest parts of the process. There are hundreds of designers available on the internet, having a wide range of experience in book designing. Many marketplace sites are also available that offer you author services solely, with many book cover illustrators and designers to work out their creative artistry.
Last Notes
By transforming your series book cover design to author branding, you will definitely become the bestselling author that you have dreamt of. It's much easier to stand out from other ordinary writers with a perfect series book cover design and have a prosperous future in self-publishing.
Give your career a new start with the author's branding!