I read quite a lot of articles every week on ePublishing, but I think this is one of the best articles I’ve read on how to design a book cover that sways readers into buying your books. I found it over on Creativindie.com and it’s written by Derek Murphy. Check out this snippet on crafting clever covers for non-fiction books…

“Here’s a quick rule of thumb: non-fiction appeals to the brain. You want an instantly clever image to catch their men­tal atten­tion.  Non-fiction cov­ers should have a cen­tral “gim­mick” and a solid color back­ground or gra­di­ent (orange and yel­low are very pop­u­lar for busi­ness books. (BTW, notice how wide the spac­ing is between the let­ters on these two cov­ers). You catch the brain’s atten­tion by show­ing a jux­ta­po­si­tion — things that shouldn’t really go together and are unex­pected. Then the sub­ti­tle tells them what the book is about.”

I really liked some of the tips he gave on letter spacing, selecting fonts, color contrast, and adding a blurb on the cover of your book. Read the article in it’s entirety here: http://www.creativindie.com/8-cover-design-secrets-publishers-use-to-manipulate-readers-into-buying-books/ Let me know if you learned anything cool!