Have you ever thought about the real difference between an ebook cover design and a book cover? When it comes to publishing a book online or offline, the right marketing strategies are important. It will help you reach the target audience. The foremost step to launching a book is to first create an impressive cover design.
Whether it’s a print book or an eBook, a cover design is crucial to its success in terms of sales.
Most authors today release their books both in printed and digital versions. This helps attract online and offline readers. However, when it comes to designing their covers, there is a big difference between the print and eBook cover designs.
What is a book cover design?
A book cover design is a layout that comprises a strategic use of imagery and typography. These are the two most crucial parts of the cover design to convey a book’s content and message to its readers. So, a reader sees a book cover and gets its message, which in turn encourages the reader to buy it.
What is an ebook cover design?
An ebook cover design is an image that represents the book in online software libraries such as Amazon KDP, Apple Books, etc. A typical eBook cover design has the title, the author or publisher’s name, and an ebook’s summary. The eBook title, images, and typography are the major design elements.
What is printed book cover design?
A printed book cover design is an image printed on the thick paper of the book. The design comprises typography, images, and colors that represent the content inside of the book. A cover design becomes an attractive visual that potential readers and buyers first see at a bookshop. So, an impactful book cover design becomes a tool to grab buyers’ attention.
Ebook Cover Design vs. Book Cover Differences
You will likely release your book in print and electronic formats as an author. Therefore, consider designing your book cover separately for both versions. Here is how eBook cover design and print book cover are different:
eBook cover design
When launching an eBook online, first pay attention to its cover design. A thumbnail of the eBook is its cover design. Potential readers will see the thumbnail or cover design to judge if they should click on it or not to read or access the book content.
Dimensions
So, when creating your eBook cover design, consider its dimensions. The dimensions vary depending on the publisher of the book. If, for example, you get your eBook published from Kindle, the dimensions are mostly 1600 x 2561 pixels. When published from Lulu, the eBook cover dimensions will be mostly 612 x 792 pixels. So, the dimensions of an eBook cover varies from one platform to another.
Color profile
When designing your eBook cover, choose its colors strategically as well. Most eBooks have printers using RGB color profile, which stands for red, Green, and Blue. It is also known as an Additive color model.
Resolution
The resolution of the image also matters when sending the design to a printer. It is advisable to design your eBook covers for 300 dpi/ppi. Most eBook cover publishers ask the authors to send their covers in this resolution.
That contradicts most screen printers operating at 72 dpi/ppi (dots per inch – a printing term or Pixels per inch – for digital).
Printed Book Cover Designs
Printed book cover designs are entirely different as compared to ebook cover designs. The first thing about print book cover design is its color profile. Usually, the color profile includes CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) palettes. This color plate is subtractive, meaning each color you add will still produce lighter colors. However, the downside is that such colors are not vibrant enough to meet the designer’s requirements.
Moreover, some printers use ink in a controlled way in their designs. So, if your printed book cover design requires a rich black color that will prompt you to print 100% of CMYK. But such use of the color can cause some issues during the printing process. That is why the printer will restrict the use of ink across the four palettes.
Therefore, the rich black colors will become C=0%, M=0%, Y=0% & K=100%. It will not be as rich as a black color as your design requires. But it will result in a clean print of the book cover.
Book cover size
Another factor that comes into play for printed book cover design is the book size. The size of a book is determined by its front, back, spine parts, and bleed areas. Note that the bleed area is the 0.125 in wide vacant stripe that a book cover has at its edges on four sides.
So, the outer edge or bleed area is trimmed during the printing process. However, a disadvantage is that images extending to the bleed area get cut, and white lines run across the outer edges.
Other factors like page count, genre, and audience are considered when deciding on book cover size.
Fonts
When exporting your book cover design to a printer, fonts are the key considerations. The fonts you used in the cover design may not be available with the printer. Therefore, create a PDF with your fonts when sending it to the printer.
However, this is not a big issue since most Adobe software lets you export design files with their original fonts to the printer.
Resolution
When designing a print book cover, consider image resolution as well. The resolution for printed book cover is 300 dpi minimum, which is good enough to keep the cover image clean.
File format
You will send your book cover design in a file format that your printer is comfortable with. Most printers want the designers to send their work, including book cover design, as PDF/X-1a:2001.
What is the real difference between eBooks and printed book covers?
Now that you know the basics of eBook and print book cover design, find some key differences between the two. An eBook is a digital book, so it does not have the spine like printed books. However, eBooks and printed books are the same: to educate the readers on a topic. What matters is the cover design, which should be unique and reflect the book’s content.
Here are some key differences between eBook and printed book cover designs for your consideration.
Thumbnail
The eBook cover requires a thumbnail that guides the readers about the eBook. When placed on eBooks sites such as Goodreads, they give a sneak peek into the ebook’s content.
Printed book covers do not require thumbnails, as users can buy books personally at a physical shop by judging it from its cover.
Color
The eBook covers usually appear in black-and-white on their readers’ gadgets. However, printed book covers can be in a variety of colors.
The designer’s aim should be to create a book cover design that works well both as a print book cover and an eBook cover. You can use an excellent eBook cover design for print books as well.
So, these are the key differences to consider when designing a book cover for digital or physical versions. Many designers use the same design for both versions. However, creating a separate design for both versions with a high-resolution image is recommended.
If you do not want to hire an expensive eBook cover designer, Designhill can help. You can explore its ebook design templates to create it on your own after customization. Or, you can launch an eBook or print book cover design contest.
Wrapping Up
Cover design for eBooks and printed books are designed differently. For eBooks, the cover designer considers image resolution, size, and file formats. But a printed book cover is typically designed considering colors, fonts, and images that appear great while printing.