Your book cover gives your reader their first impression. Yet too often, designers, authors and editors have different expectations—leading to frustration and unnecessary revisions. Learn how to make these partnerships lighter, more productive and genuinely inspiring with Rick Szuecs.

It’s like a short but really intense relationship between authors and designers. It can feel like a long marriage in crisis. Both partners want the same thing but they cannot agree on how to get there. They struggle to communicate their feelings, and money is involved.

I truly believe we can fix this. All it takes is:

• Better communication
• Clear goals
• More knowledge about the process

I want to help reduce the pain between designers and authors, and improve the relationship between those agents. This is how:

• Clarify roles: Define exactly what the author or editor is responsible for, versus what the book designer expects to do.
• Write a great design brief: This is really, really important.

The Author’s Role: The Strategist

• Define the genre of the book—where does this book belong?

• Know the audience.
• Set the mood—hat does this story feel like?
• Provide all the specs: title, subtitle.
• The expert on the what: what is this book about? Not the expert on the how.

The Designer’s Role: Strategic Partner

• The fresh eye—the first person to look at your book in the distance, just like a potential buyer in a bookstore.
• The problem solver—your designer works with constraints. He has a very specific problem to solve. This cover needs to look good on a mobile phone.
• The filter—your designer is the one who can tell you, “We don’t need to have everything in there. We can have one single and powerful hook, and that will be enough.”

Collaboration: Intersection

• Clear Communication: Authors/Editors need to give the designer good and clear information (the designer won’t read your mind).
• Trust: Authors/Editors cannot design the cover. You need to trust the designer and need to trust yourself that you’re being clear enough.

The Design Brief: A Roadmap

The design brief is a roadmap. If your creative brief is vague or confusing, the cover will be wrong. It’s that simple. Put all your efforts and attention to write a good creative brief. It needs to contain:

The facts

• Title, subtitle, and author name
• Format and size: eBook, paperback, hardcover
• Deadline: How many days or weeks the designer will have to work on this project

The strategy

• Target audience: You need to be specific. (Example: women age 30 to 45 who love historical fiction; youth pastors on small churches).
• Book description: The designer cannot read the whole book. Sometimes an editor sends a PDF of the whole book; this is impossible. Designers don’t have the time. A two paragraph summary of the main idea the author wants to present would be great.

Vibe

• How should the reader feel? The tone, the emotion.
• Keywords: Mysterious, romantic, urgent, funny.
• Imagery ideas: Share a symbol that is important to your story.

Hierarchy

• Of the five items—title, author name, main image, subtitle, color—rank from most to least important.
• If the author is famous their name must be bigger.
• If you want to present a very good title, that should rank first.

Do’s and Don’ts

• Sometimes there is something that people must see on the cover (e.g., try to use a teal color). Sometimes you have information on what you should not do (e.g., do not use red).

Bad Brief vs. Good Brief

• Bad Brief (Micromanagement): Describing a scene (e.g., “blonde woman in a red dress… put a cat in the corner”). You are trying to design the book cover and not the designer.
• Good Creative Brief (Strategy): Describing the mood (e.g., “psychological thriller… isolation”). The designer has the creative freedom to solve the problem in a creative way.

The Danger Zone: Feedback

• Learn how to give good feedback to protect the trust between you and the designer.

• Ask the right question: “Does this work?”
• Be objective: Explain why you want something to change.
• Use the creative brief you wrote as your anchor. Don’t react emotionally. Ask yourself: “Does this cover meet the goals we set?” Use the brief to hold the designer accountable. Feedback based on logic is powerful.
• Identify the problem, not the solution. Tell the symptom. For example: “The title is too hard to read against this background.” Let the designer find the solution.
• Be specific: Don’t use phrases like “make it pop.” No designers know what that means. Tell the designer exactly what is wrong.
• Consolidate: Write one clear email or send one voicemail. Don’t send ten emails with ten different things, or the designer will get completely lost.

Recap

• Respect the roles: You are the strategist and the designer is the problem solver.
• The creative brief is king: Spend time on it. A clear creative brief prevents 90% of headaches later on.
• Collaboration is key: When you give feedback, look at your creative brief, not your personal taste. Ask if the cover works for the market, and not for you.

Final Pro-Tips for Success

• Limit the Options – One or two solid concepts are enough. Asking for too many options actually hurts the project because it forces the designer to split focus. I would rather spend 10 hours making one amazing cover than 10 hours making five covers I don’t like.
• Avoid Design by Committee – If you ask 10 different people, you get 10 different opinions, but none of them know the creative brief or the strategy. Design by committee always leads to a weak result. Trust the designer. Trust the professional.
• Confirm the Budget First – Get print codes first. Work on the budget and then you know for sure how much it’s going to cost. It’s really complicated to resize and redo everything if you learn later that you don’t have the budget to print the book as you wanted.