Author Platform Series

1. Book Cover Cohesion

If you have written a series it's important to ensure that the covers match. When you're a new author you need to start out with a brand for your author name, a single font or style that is used on all of your books. And if your name does not have any notoriety let it be smaller than the title on your cover design.

Once you are more popular then it will be safe to branch out into multiple ways of branding your author name.

Your author name and especially a series should have design cohesion from book to book. This is basic branding, used by marketers all over the world, of any product. Books are no exception.

For example if you look at Robin Hobb, each imprint of one of her series matches. i.e within that single imprint of that series, her name is always in the same font, the artwork is all by the same artist, the design is similar from book to book, using the same fonts, same look and feel in the entire series.

How to achieve this depends on what type of book you have written. Non-fiction covers tend to include photographs or digital art. Fiction, especially genre fiction like fantasy, often has paintings or other artwork.

For full flexibility of content, we tend to recommend digital art covers. For some examples of our artists' work please see our Australian Book Illustration Service page.

In self publishing it is up to you to ensure your book cover designer(s) understand the branding for your author platform and your series. Take note of the fonts and colours that are being used and make sure your illustrator is going to be available to create art for your entire series, not just book one.

For more advice please contact us to make a publishing consultation booking with Amanda Greenslade.