E2A 051: Book Cover Design and Why It’s Key to Getting Your Book Read with Julia Kuris 

As often as we say, never judge a book by its cover, it remains true that cover design can make a difference in whether someone picks up one book over another.

In this episode of The Entrepreneur to Author Podcast, your host Scott MacMillan speaks with Julia Kuris, a Sydney-based book cover designer who works with both fiction and non-fiction authors to bring their books to life with beautiful covers that sell.

EPISODE LINKS

Website: designerbility.com.au/book-covers

GUEST BIO

Julia Kuris is the founder of Sydney based book cover designer working with self-published authors helping them bring their important message to the world by creating beautiful book covers that sell. Specialising in both fiction and non-fiction, Julia has had the privilege of designing covers for leading Australian and international authors and entrepreneurs.

CONNECT WITH JULIA

Instagram: @julia_kuris

facebook.com/DesignerbilityBrandStrategist

CONNECT WITH SCOTT

Episode Transcript

Please note: The transcript is produced by a third-party company from an audio recording and may include transcription errors.

Scott MacMillan: 

You're listening to the Entrepreneur to Author Podcast. 

Announcer: 

Welcome to the Entrepreneur to Author Podcast. The podcast for entrepreneurs turned authors and those aspiring to do just that. And now your host, Scott MacMillan. 

Scott MacMillan:

My guest today is Julia Kuris. Julia is a Sydney-based book cover designer working with self-published authors. She helps them bring their important message to the world by creating beautiful book covers that sell. Specializing in both fiction and non-fiction genres, Julia has had the privilege to design covers for leading Australian and international authors and entrepreneurs. And just to add to that, she's the designer behind the vast majority of the books that we publish here at Grammar Factory. Julia, thank you so much for joining us on Entrepreneur to author. 

Julia Kuris:

Thank you so much for having me. 

Scott:

To start, Julia, I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about your professional journey and how you got into designing book covers. 

Julia:

Sure. So, before I started my business, I free-lanced for some publishing companies and studios and so various types of jobs were landing on my desk and some of them were book covers and so that's kind of where I developed my I guess skill set because it's quite a specialized area of design compared to branding and I guess other type of design work that designers come across and so when I started my business I worked primarily with small business owners on their branding and their brand collateral and then eventually as their brands grew. I guess around that time it was that shift into the entrepreneurial world of creating a profile for yourself and going on to writing a book. So that was really gaining momentum and so a lot of the business owners that I worked with went on to writing books and so they would approach me saying well if you did this can you do that, can you do And so the two sides of the business started to really work well together over the years. 

Scott:

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. You kind of evolved into it, as is often the case with business owners in general.

Julia: Yeah.

Scott:

Let's talk a little bit about the design process. How do you typically collaborate with the author and with the rest of the publishing team to get to the point where you've got a cover?

Julia:

So it all starts with a brief, with a creative brief to get the ball rolling the author would typically supply us with a book cover name, I'm sorry, a book cover name (laughs), a book title, and a subtitle and perhaps some ideas. We've got a channel on which all of the Grammar Factory team collaborate. And so I always like to make the process as collaborative as possible to weave in some of the ideas from the author as well as bring a lot of my own ideas to the table. And as you know, Scott, when I go and design something, I'll always show it to the team and go, hey, what do you think of that? Have I missed something? And so I find that the process of the back and forth and getting ideas and everyone's input is how we always get to that best result in the end, because, you know, three minds is better than one, I always say. 

Scott:

Yeah, well put. As long as it doesn't turn it to design by committee, right? 

Julia:

Exactly. 

Scott:

How do you approach coming up with unique cover design concepts? Are there any tricks that you use to get inspired and creative and to kind of get, you know, hone in on a variety of interesting concepts?

Julia:

I feel like it always starts with a great title, because that really is the driving force behind a lot of my design ideas. I always research what's already in the market space within that genre because you don't want to design something that already looks very similar to and sometimes I know that you will often find something going oh Julia, I just found this cover, okay back to the drawing board because sometimes you just get surprised. So I'll always do the research to see to make sure that we design something that's unique. And then it's just about I guess ideas and seeing how we can translate the title in the most unique way so that it's not translated in a very literal sense. So whether it's using a really dynamic imagery or somehow turning a word into something a bit bit of an icon and a logo so the book cover can become a bit of a brand and a branding tool, that will probably be the best way to sum it up. 

Scott:

Yeah, well put, yeah, I often find that it's often those literal translations or literal interpretations that end up having a, you know, a bit of an unprofessional look, right? 

Julia:

Exactly.

Scott:

So, often where people go first and some of those other approaches are much more effective. 

Julia:

Absolutely.

Scott:

What are some of the key design elements that you believe are essential for non-fiction books? Because I know you designed some fiction books as well as non-fiction. And I'm sure there are some differences, you know, what makes each one effective? What is it for non-fiction books that make them effective? 

Julia:

I think in the nonfiction genre, we have a lot less time to capture the reader's attention because they're in a different headspace when they're shopping for a book in the non-fiction space. There's usually a pain point. There's usually a problem that they're trying to solve. And so we don't have that luxury of time where they're kind of thinking and indulging themselves in beautiful imagery and fonts, we've got to get them quick. And that usually happens with a really great title. And when you can combine that with a really powerful visual or a striking background colour or a font or sometimes even the budgets allow for production with like a particular effect, which doesn't always translate in online space, but if it's in a physical bookstore, then I feel like we get them at that point and we peakk their interests that can pick up the book and discover more and read the bad cover probably. So I think that would probably be the big difference because in the fiction space, you know, we can use these beautiful images and I guess be a bit more romantic with the look and feel. 

Scott:

Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought up that kind of decision process of grabbing attention cover that whole funnel, right? That whole funnel, that, what I call the book Consideration Funnel, is so important, right? And you can have the best written book in the world, but if you don't grab their attention and get them to look at the book and then read the back cover and then open it and read the table of contents and maybe even read the first few pages of the intro, they're never going to have the benefit of consuming that excellent editorial that the author spent so much time on. 

Julia:

Exactly. It's mapping out those touch points and the customer journey, which is three seconds of the front cover, but it's still there where they make that decision. 

Scott:

Right

Julia:

And not to forget also their face with all the other book covers on the shelves in a physical bookstore or in an online. So that's the bit to consider. 

Scott:

Absolutely. So how do you make sure that the design of the cover lines with the author's brand and message, but also does what you just said, right? Stands out in a crowded marketplace. 

Julia:

That's a good question. You know, I always say to authors that your book cover doesn't have to look like your brand in terms of the colour palettes and fonts. It can, where it's appropriate, and your book that we beautifully see displayed behind you is on brand. Ther are elements of the brand colour. But the book on its own can actually be its own marketing tool and be its own brand. So as a business owner, your brand will have its own brand voice and messaging and that can be carried through a title or the actual, the tone, the style of the writing inside the book. But allow yourself to experiment with the colour, with a book, especially if you’re engaging a design team, so that you have more freedom. Because if you think that the book cover should look on brand, I think a lot of the time it will limit the creative process, limit you as an author. And it can actually sometimes, like you said, do a bit of a bit more damage than good because it can be so much more. And if you're thinking my logo has to be on the cover or my font thing to be on the cover, it's thinking very in a very limited way. But, having said that, because the book can become its own brand within the bigger brand of the business, there's a whole range of assets that can be created to go with the look and feel of the book. And so then afterwards you're training the audience that this book and your brand are one, and so that's how you're able to blend the two and create a more powerful brand, if that makes sense. 

Scott:

Yeah, I like how you describe that hierarchy of the book kind of living within the business and being almost like a I mean, I don't want to call it a product, but it's almost like a sub brand to the overall brand. 

Julia:

Yes, exactly. Exactly. But I guess like you we see a lot of you know the successful global entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk or Seth Godin and they've written so many books none of them look like their brand but their brand is carried through the book title and the tone of writing and we're so sad those books with them as entrepreneurs.

Scott:

You know, we've talked a little bit about some of some of the things that can kind of end up making a book cover look unprofessional. I wouldn't mind diving into that a little bit further. What are some common design mistakes that you see business owners making when they're self-publishing their book and how can they avoid them? And you know, I'm thinking specifically about the ideas stuck in their mind around their cover and they get stuck on that. Having their logo on the cover would be an example that you just raised. What are some other ones? 

Julia:

I think some of the other ones would probably be translating the visual element on the front cover, translating the title in a very literal sense. And that's usually because they're so close to their writing these amazing ideas, which they discuss in the book, but they sometimes feel that a particular diagram or a graph that's very important to their process, their method, that they further unpack in the pages, that that's a really powerful way to translate the title. But quite often what happens, again, we're talking about that customer journey when the reader meets the front cover for the first time, they know nothing about the author, very little about their work and so it doesn't create that impact. And so I often have this conversation with authors not to translate their title in very literal sense, to trust the design team, because we've got that distance and that ability to see what works and what doesn't. 

I guess the other one is low resolution images. Quite often even it's possibly on the back cover, within the author bio, to have a really great professional photograph taken of themselves because, you know, we consume as we make meaning of things that we see that we come across and so you can have this really beautiful front cover when you turn on the back and it's like a really grainy pixelated photo of the author. And so in our mind, we think low budget, you know, and it's not, but we're just met with that we have to go through on daily basis that we just quickly decide that's that that's quality, that's low quality. So I would probably be another good way. Oh and another one is cluttered back cover because sometimes…

Scott:

We’ve seen that, haven’t we?

Julia:

We’ve seen a lot of that. They just want to give away the farm and again it comes from a good place because they've got so much to share but probably the back cover is not the place because it's another opportunity to peak their interest and get them to buy the book. 

Scott:

Yeah, very good. What's your best advice for authors to work effectively with their designer on their book cover? 

Julia:

Communication is the key. Share your ideas of what you would like to see, but also I think trust the process and the feedback that you get back, whether it's about colour combinations or particular design direction or a font. You know, quite often authors will have lengthy titles the kind of font that we can use, you know, perhaps some more condensed type to get the scale on the cover. So there are reasons why designers do what they do. So I guess trust the process and the team that you're working with. Yeah, but also bring lots of your ideas to the table so it could be collaborative and inclusive. 

Scott:

Yeah, the collaboration is so important, right? And I like the point you made about trust, because I find that authors take the cover design process in a very personal way, which they should, right? Because it's such an emotional part of the publishing process, and to the extent that an author can just be very upfront and candid about what they like and what they don't like and communicate that in a constructive way to the designer and the publishing team. That goes a long way into pulling the the design along and getting it to ultimately to the right place. 

Julia:

Absolutely. And also keep in mind that it's about the reader. Quite often I hear you know my favourite colour is…fill in the blank…and that's wonderful. But we always have to have the reader in mind. And what's I guess suitable for that space so that, you know, if the favourite colour is yellow and black, and within that genre there’s already 5 books out there on the market might not be the best thing, which again goes back to if your book cover needs to be on brand. If the brand colours a yellow and black and there's already five books out there, then that might not work best in that particular instance to release another one in that colour.

Scott:

Yeah, excellent point. It's always lead with the reader, right? That's throughout the process, whether it's designing the cover or writing or editing, everything's got to be about the reader in the end. 

Julia:

Yeah. 

Scott:

What advice would you give? We've talked a lot about the author, What advice would you give to aspiring book designers who are interested in working in the non-fiction and business genres? 

Julia:

Oh, that's a good question. probably familiarize yourself with the differences, I guess, between the genre that you might already be working in to the non-fiction and business space because it is very different. It's a very different hat that you wear as a designer when you're creating artwork for that space. And I would probably say also you take a chance and reach out to publishing companies or authors that might be happy to give you a goal. That's how I started and I still do. I think it's a forever-evolving process, a new challenge. Or create a whole bunch of books with made-up titles and reach out to publication companies and say, publishing companies, I should say, and say, hey, what do you think of these? But yeah, give it a go. 

Scott:

Good. That's wonderful, Julia. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about your work? 

Julia:

My website is designerbility.com.au and I'm on social on Instagram and Facebook. And it LinkedIn as well. 

Scott:

Excellent. Well, we'll put those links in the show notes so that people can easily access them. You know, listen, quality editorial is, of course, paramount in publishing a great book. But without excellence in cover design, get read. So thank you Julia for joining us and for letting us take a peek behind the curtain of the great design work that you do. 

Julia:

Thank you for your time, Scott.

Scott:

As we wrap up this episode of Entrepreneur to Author, remember this. Now is the time, time to write, time to publish, and time to grow. I'm Scott MacMillan until next time.