Great Covers Sell Books

Great covers sell books. If you want to sell books, yours had better have one.

In a survey of 616 readers of genre fiction by The Book Smuggler:

• 79% of respondents said, “Yes,” when asked, “Do covers play a decisive role in your decision to purchase a book?”
• When asked, “How large a role do covers play in your decision to purchase a book?
  • 3% said, “A Dominant Role”
  • 48% said, “A Major Role”
  • 41% said, “A Minor Role
• 40% said, “Yes,” when asked, “Can (or has) a cover ever be the SOLE driving factor in your decision to purchase a book?”

 The reason is simple. “Our brains are wired to process images faster than words,” Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords told Terri Guiliano in the Huffington Post  . “When we see an image, it makes us feel something.” A great cover, he says, can “help the reader instantly recognize that this book is for them.”

That recognition is a product of great design. As Chip Kidd, who has designed iconic covers like those of Michael Crichton’s, Jurassic Park, Haruki Murakami’s , IQ84,David Sedaris’, Naked, Dean Koontz’,  Intensity,  and Michael Chabon Pulitzer Prize winning, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay explained in a TED talk, “The book designer’s responsibility is three-fold to the reader, to the publisher, and most of all to the author. I want you to look at the author’s book and say, ‘Wow! I need to read that.’”

Does that kind of design skill pay off? You bet! Forbes.com reported that self-publishing authors  who hired professional to design their covers earned 21% more than the average indie author.