P30 – Day 23: Your Product Wants to Feel Pretty
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, “Make me feel important.” Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. ~ Mary Kay Ash
Back when we were talking about layout (seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?), I mentioned that how things look matters.
How your product looks to the outside world will affect its sales.
Make no mistake…
If it looks thrown together, jumbled, or sort of low-rent…people who don’t know you will make the assumption that the product inside will also be thrown together, confusing, and just not very valuable, even if it’s the most spectacular program on the planet.
Things that look as pretty outside as they are on the inside just plain sell better.
We talked a little bit about good design on layout day, but when it comes to covers and graphics, there are a few more things to keep in mind:
- Watch your fonts.
Don’t use more than two on any given product. Three if you absolutely have to. By the same token, don’t try to turn your book cover into a sales page. Less is more, or your book starts to look like a Microsoft box. - Also in the same vein, watch your colors.
Keep it to one or two, plus black and white. More colors than that can result in a cover that looks just a little bit like a clown in a blender, especially when it’s made small for promotional graphics. - Everything should have a purpose.
What is that graphic trying to communicate? Does it match the tone of the content? Does that subtitle take over the cover/graphic and look too cluttered? Take away all but the essentials. - Try not to fall into cliches.
Books with photos of trees and some kind of script font. Sunsets over mountains and some kind of blocky type. A tropical beach, photographed or silhouetted. If you’ve seen it a thousand times before, chances are, you don’t want to be a part of that crowd. - Do remember that readability is key.
If you can’t read the title in a 250-pixel square/rectangle, your potential customers won’t be able to read it in a thumbnail, either. You may also want to convert the image to greyscale when it’s done, to see if it looks good in black and white — if you end up making it available on the Kindle, the majority of readers will only be seeing it that way. Make sure it’s readable, even if it’s desaturated.
Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of that whole “make it look like a physical book” graphic that’s on every huckster’s website, but Tim is.
My reason: it has a high cheese factor and my audience would think it was too “salesy”. Tim, on the other hand, says it gives your customers a familiar touchstone for context. Final verdict: know your audience.
If you’re not fluent in Photoshop, GiMP, or one of the other photo/graphics programs, there are services out there that will turn your graphic into one of those book graphics for you for a fee. (Fiverr.com, for instance — five bucks, and you’ve got a graphic.)
Keep the color scheme of your cover and promotional graphics consistent. You’re effectively building a brand around your product…might as well be your own.
One last thing: remember your filesizes. Not everyone in the world is on high-speed lines with awesome computers. If your graphics for promotion are huge, some folks will never see your hard work.
ACTION TASK:
Create your cover, promo graphics, and, if you have to, one of those book-looking-pictures. You’ll be using these for all kinds of promotional tasks, so having them done as soon as the cover’s done isn’t a bad idea.
TOMORROW:
We’re getting even more salesy, and talking about how to write a good sales letter to send to your mailing list (which you all have now, right?), and/or that your affiliates can use to pitch your product.
