A reader scrolling a retail grid gives each thumbnail roughly one second. In that second, the cover has to answer three questions before the title is even read: what genre is this, what mood am I in for, and did anyone competent make it.
Genre first, always
Covers are a signalling system, and the signals are conventional on purpose. Thrillers use tight crops and cold light. Literary fiction uses negative space and restraint. Romance leans on illustration and warmth. Breaking the convention is a choice you can make, but you should make it knowingly, because a reader who can't place your genre in one second usually just keeps scrolling.
Design at 160px wide first, then scale up. If the title is unreadable at thumbnail size, nothing else about the cover matters.
The competence signal
This is the uncomfortable one. Readers can't evaluate your prose from a grid, so they use the cover as a proxy for everything they can't see. Stretched type, a stock photo with a visible watermark, or three typefaces fighting each other all say the same thing: nobody edited this either. It isn't fair, but it is consistent.
Every book buyer, silentlyIf they didn't pay attention here, where else didn't they pay attention?
What to actually check before you approve
- The title is readable at 160px on a phone
- The genre is identifiable with the title covered
- The spine and back cover work as one continuous object
- The cover survives being printed, not just being seen on a screen
- No typeface is doing a job a better typeface could do
Not sure your cover is carrying its weight?
Send it over on a thirty-minute call and we'll tell you plainly.
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