Grand Publishers
Speak to us+44 20 4600 5244Speak to us+1 (949) 356-6662Apply to Publish
Stage three

A document, made into a book.

A cover has about one second to say what kind of book this is and whether it was made by professionals. Everything at this stage is about that second.

Apply to Publish See the books

Covers we
have made.

Every one of these is a real cover on a real book. Open one and look properly.

Cover of Bipolar Sunset by David SummervilleCover of Frank's Guide to Caring for Bonsai by Frank WeaverCover of The Mystery on Greenfarm Road by Gail SimmonsGrand KidzCover of The CPO & The Wren by Geoffrey SpinksCover of The Complete Guide to Barbering by George BembridgeCover of Grandpa Billy's Book of Life by William H WebsterCover of The Adventures of Bert the Worm by Jade EntwistleGrand KidzCover of Honour Amongst Mercenaries by James Vincent O'DonnellCover of Little Hedgehog and the Moon by Cat RushtonGrand KidzCover of The Fathers in my Life by Louise Wynne JonesCover of Reg Dudley's Camping MemoriesCover of William and the Secrets of the Enchanted Forest by Idris JamesGrand KidzCover of Life Is Full of Surprises by Mason ChambersCover of The Silent Return by Franklin Josue Rutayungulwa

Bipolar SunsetDavid Summerville

What happens here

Four decisions
that show.

  • The cover

    Designed for your book rather than picked from a set. It has to sit on a shelf next to the books yours competes with and not look like the cheap one.

  • The typesetting

    Margins, leading, running heads, where chapters start. Nobody notices good typesetting and everybody feels bad typesetting — it is the difference between a book and a printed Word file.

  • The specification

    Trim size, paper, binding, whether it is matt or gloss. Decided for the book you have, not defaulted.

  • The thumbnail test

    Most people will first see your cover at the size of a postage stamp. If the title is unreadable there, the cover has failed regardless of how it looks at full size.

How a cover actually gets made

Four rounds,
and you have the last word.

Nobody designs a good cover in one pass, and no designer should be guessing what you meant. This is the order it happens in.

  1. 01

    You tell us what the book is

    Not what you want the cover to look like — what the book is, who it is for, and the three titles a bookshop would shelve it beside. Almost every bad cover starts with an author describing a design instead of a book.

  2. 02

    We come back with routes, not one answer

    Different arguments about the same book, so the conversation is about which idea is right rather than whether you like a typeface. You are choosing a direction at this stage, not a file.

  3. 03

    One route, taken properly

    The chosen direction is drawn out to full size and tested where it will actually be seen: at thumbnail on a retailer, face-out on a shelf, and greyscale on an e-reader. A cover that only works at full size has not been finished.

  4. 04

    The interior is set to match

    Trim size, paper, binding and typesetting decided for this book. The last file is print-ready and it is yours: you can take it to any printer in the world and they can make the book from it.

The thing authors are not told

A cover is a sales
document, not a picture.

It has one job, and the job is not to be beautiful. It is to make a reader who has never heard of you stop, understand in about a second what kind of book this is, and want to know more. Everything else is downstream of that.

The three sizes it has to survive

It will be seen at roughly a centimetre high in a search result, at about four centimetres in a recommendation strip, and at full size only if the first two worked. A design that has to be looked at properly to be understood has already lost the reader who was going to buy it.

Why the category decides half of it

Every shelf has a visual grammar, and readers use it to sort books before they read a word. A memoir that looks like a thriller does not read as original, it reads as confusing, and the reader moves on. Knowing which conventions to keep is most of the work; knowing which single one to break is the rest.

What you keep

The print-ready files, and a say in the cover, the title and the text. Nothing changes without you seeing it first, and nothing goes to print you have not talked through. It is written into the agreement rather than said on a call.

A printer at a wall of letterpress type cases, reaching into a drawer of lead sorts.

What our authors say

On platforms we do not own and cannot edit. The covers they are talking about are on the shelf above.

4.9out of 5Excellent

See all our reviews on Trustpilot

Design
questions.

Yes, and a real one. You see the directions before anything is drawn up, you tell us what is wrong with them, and nothing goes to print that you have not seen and talked through. We will also say plainly when we think a choice will hurt the book — that is most of what you are paying a publisher for rather than a printer.

See the shelf before you decide.

The catalogue is the portfolio. Every cover on it was designed here.

Apply to Publish See the booksOr call+44 20 4600 5244Or call+1 (949) 356-6662
WhatsApp