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August 25, 2010

How Do YOU Feel About Book Cover Branding? [Discussion]

In yesterday’s post, we presented twenty book covers with the author’s name removed — were you able to match up covers by the same author using only their branding?

If you didn’t get a chance yesterday, check out the post and take a few minutes to see how many you can guess. No peeking below until you’re finished! The answers were:

  • 1 > 12
  • 2 > 7
  • 3 > 9
  • 4 > 19
  • 5 > 8
  • 6 > 14
  • 10 > 15
  • 11 > 16
  • 13 > 18
  • 17 > 20

Discussion Questions

We’ll discuss what we took from the cover-hunting project tomorrow, but today we want to hear your thoughts about book cover branding. Tell Us:

  • Do you have a favorite period of book cover branding for a particular author? If so, who and why?
  • If you’ve published multiple books, have you tried to keep similar cover branding elements throughout them all? What does your cover branding look like? We’d love to see examples!
  • Do you think similar book cover branding is more important for a series of books than a stand-alone?
  • Does cover branding come into play more for authors who write closely-related books vs those whose published work belongs to a variety of genres?
  • If you played the game yesterday, how did you do? How many of the covers were you able to match up due only to branding? For how many were you aided by knowing of the title/cover?

Please take a few moments to discuss the above with fellow indie authors and readers in the comments. Plus, be sure to come back tomorrow for the details on what we took from our fun branding game, and what it means for you as an indie author!

What do you think?

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  • # Do you have a favorite period of book cover branding for a particular author?
    Any of the Josh / Paul Kirby covers for Discworld. They catch the madness and the magic of the series.

    # If you’ve published multiple books, have you tried to keep similar cover branding elements throughout them all?
    For my Coiree series it is already planned out. Every cover will have the same cup, but different things done to it. Fledgling has the reflected image in the blood. Killer will be covered in ice and frost, for example. The fonts and title and author lines are laid out the same.

    # Do you think similar book cover branding is more important for a series of books than a stand-alone?
    For a series it is really important. That way your readers can spot it right away. Even if the layout isn’t the same, maybe the use of the same illustrator will do.

    # Does cover branding come into play more for authors who write closely-related books vs those whose published work belongs to a variety of genres?
    For me, The Coiree series will look vastly different than the fantasy novel (hoping for a psychedelic look for that one). I want the different genres I work in to look different.
    I could use the same font for all my books, it’s worked for Stephan King.
    But some authors have gone too far in the cover branding. There are some you look at the cover, know who wrote it, but think you have read the book before, because the cover looks too similar to her other 15 books.