The Best Book Cover Ideas For 2024

A great book cover idea may get you a reader for life.

But a poorly designed book cover may never capture anyone’s attention.

This is because everybody judges a book by its cover.

Not only can it intrigue your target reader. But, it can also be used as part of your author marketing.

You can use it as the main focus in your book trailer or you can use it as a guide to building your author website or website for a book you’ve written.

But a successful front cover doesn’t just appear out of thin air. You need a solid book cover idea.

And if you’re all out of good ideas, you’re in the right place.

Why Book Covers Matter

Besides beautifully displaying your book, a book cover is the first step in telling your readers everything they need to know to help them decide whether to buy your book or not.

The colors, images, illustrations, fonts, and the arrangement of it all will reveal the genre and a loose depiction of the story inside.

Once the cover grips them, they’ll flip it over to read the book blurb and if that entices them, they’ll start reading the first chapter to see if they like the writing.

Tips For Coming Up With Book Cover Ideas

Your book cover idea needs to be unique enough to stand out but not so unique that it confuses the reader.

Follow these tips to make the most of your book cover:

1. Typography: Uniquely displaying the title and name of the author will make those details memorable.
2. Legible: Ensure what is on your book cover is readable from a distance or in a tiny thumbnail in the case of eBooks.
3. Striking Imagery: Make sure the images used support the story and genre.
4. Genre: Ensure the atmosphere created on the book cover accurately depicts the genre so readers will spot their favorite from across the room.
5. Clear Branding: Your book cover idea should honor your author branding while still having some individuality – consider what element will make a reader immediately notice that it’s your book without seeing the name itself

With a combination of these elements, you will be one step closer to having a book cover design that grabs the attention.

I would recommend, however, that you consider getting a professional to create your book cover. There are so many professionals out there who are talented and can help bring your vision to life.

21 Ideas to Inspire Your Book Cover

Even when you have a great book with a great title, it should still make an impact when someone sees it.

We’ll cover some of the top book cover ideas of 2024 that help you do this now.

1. Color & Contrast

The colors you choose to use on your book cover can help guide the potential reader toward a certain emotion.

For example:

• Dark, low contrasting colors give off a feeling of danger or fear.
• An accent color creates a focal point for readers to pay attention to.
• Deep colors with high contrast can give off the feeling that a dark story lies behind the book cover idea.

Of course, depending on the genre that you write, the colors you choose will be either more important or less.

For thriller and horror books, color contrast and the choice to use accents has a bigger impact.

2. Have A Focal Point

Giving all the attention to one specific object for your book cover idea is like giving the reader a visual summary of what the book is about.

You can create this simple book cover idea by using a solid background with an object or image that has a message behind it.

The book cover idea should support the title of the book, but also not hit the reader over the head with it. A related, but still not completely on-the-nose focal point will help give an overall understanding of what is to come.

3. Get Creative With Your Typography

Sometimes amazing typography is just what you need to make your book stand out. Because typography can be just as powerful as an image.

You’ll need to consider your audience when coming up with the right typography to grace your book cover idea. Think about what will make the reader want to know what’s inside the book.

Use the storyline of the book to help you decide what will make the most impact.

4. Add Dimension

Using 2D graphics or illustrations for your book cover idea is one way to go…but you can also add dimension to your cover art by going three-dimensional.

This will give your book that wow factor that will not only attract readers but have them stare at your cover in wonderment.

5. Focus On The Illustration

Illustrations can make your book cover idea distinctive, especially if made by a very good illustrator.

So, let the illustration be the focus and do the heavy lifting for your book cover idea. Pick a concept or theme from your book to base your illustration on.

Make sure the illustration suits your genre. A pretty cover is no use if it’s attracting a reader that doesn’t prefer your genre.

6. Make it Gritty (move away from clean design)

Book covers generally have a clean design and straight lines with clean and clear colors.

But, it doesn’t have to be like that, move away from the common clean design and go for a gritty design instead. Obviously, this will depend on the genre of your book.

I think it would be weird to see a gritty-dusty romance book cover. But, then again if you can pull it off why not.

A dirty or smudgy concept could make the book cover idea edgy and intense.

Purchasing decisions are usually based on emotion, so use this gritty design to evoke emotion from your potential reader.

7. Minimalist Covers Should Still Be Creative

Sometimes less is more when you are going for minimalism. But that doesn’t mean your book cover idea should be less creative.

The trick is to give the reader just enough information for them to want to know more.

To make sure your book cover idea still pops, consider using bright or contrasting colors and imagery to convey your message. And think about the alignment of the typography and the graphics to keep the cover clean and uncluttered.

8. Fit The Genre

We’ve mentioned standing out and being unique, but your book cover idea must still somewhat conform to the boundaries of your genre.

If you don’t, people who could be potentially reading your book may not even give it a second glance because the cover is so different from the genre they enjoy reading.

See how other book covers in your genre do this and spot the similarities so you can follow those general rules with your book cover idea.

9. Choose Impactful Imagery

A picture is worth a thousand words, so choose your imagery wisely!

You’ll be relying on your readers to make assumptions about your book based on the cover, so you need to point them in the right direction with the type of imagery and the accompanying design elements.

They won’t be able to actually say what the book is about based on these assumptions, but they’ll be drawn to your book without them knowing why, based on the way the cover made them feel.

10. Convey The Book’s Main Idea

You always want to have some correlation between your book cover and your book’s main concept. That way a person can somewhat have an idea if the book would interest them just by looking at it.

11. Use Tilted Fonts

Tilting your font is another way to add dimension. It gives your book cover character.

The angles and layout of the other design elements should complement the tilted font so that it doesn’t look out of place.

12. Abstract Designs & Graphics

Abstract designs are a great way to capture those who have an eye for art and anyone who might want to decipher the deeper meaning hidden in the artwork.

It also gives the reader confidence that if the book cover looks this great, then the contents will also be great.

13. Turn It Upside-Down

We always see book covers with right-side-up or portrait images. I think I can count the number of times I’ve seen a book cover that pushed boundaries by having an upside-down image. 

Be the one to push boundaries and try something different with your book cover idea.

This will get people to stop and stare while turning their heads so that they can see your book cover properly.

The upside-down design serves as an illusion that the reader wants to interpret.

The next thing you’ll want to do is to see what’s inside this interesting cover…then, mission accomplished!

14. Mirrored Text

You could also push the boundaries by using mirrored text rather than the usual text format. This was done well in the book “Change The Way You See Everything” as it goes with the title of the book as well.

If you don’t want to go as extreme, you could have only one letter or word mirrored or written backward.

Or there could be mirrored upside-down text under the regular text.

15. From A Scene

You can take a very interesting scene from the book and bring it to life by depicting what is happening.

For example in D.I Hills – The Detective we can see three people that are walking into a dark tunnel with what appears to be a red light at the end of the tunnel.

This is an actual scene from the book.

16. Geometric Design

You generally see geometric designs on non-fiction books, but if done properly they can be great even in fiction books.

The geometric patterns can be used to form a person or loosely represent an object.

Or the geometric patterns could be used to accent the book cover idea.

17. Make it Meta

Meta means about itself… It’s the idea of something being a kind of window into its own world.

You could either go simple or go wacky and play mind games with your readers – just don’t take it too far and break the multiverse…

18. Change The Perspective

Change the perspective around and show your readers a new angle to look at things.

Use the change in perspective to indicate the themes of your story. This way, long after they’ve bought the book they’ll be admiring the book cover and the link to the story.

19. Make a Mood Board

This is a collection of all the book cover ideas you like, can find them on Amazon, Bookbub, Goodreads, or this mega book cover blog post.

This can help you put together different elements that you like from different books to create a design or outline of what your next cover could look like. 

Depending on your genre of choice, you can take one of the below examples to add to your board for inspiration.

20. A Collection of Items

Display different items that may have meaning to the characters or are somehow important in the storyline.

Or they can be a collection of items that immediately make the link in the reader’s mind to the title of your book.

21. Use Contrasting Concepts

Put two ideas that don’t usually go together in the same space.

This creates tension and makes the viewer interested. The title of your book will play a vital role in showcasing the contrast for your book cover idea.

This will create a tense atmosphere that can elicit strong emotions from the reader, intriguing them.

Beyond Book Cover Ideas…

Coming up with book cover ideas can be both fun and overwhelming because unless you have design skills, it’s a lot to do on your own!

So, it makes sense if you hire a professional to help you out.

But we hate to break it to you…your book cover idea is just one vital part of the cog in the book marketing machine. You also have to make sure you have a fabulous space online to help readers find your work.

But you don’t have to do this on your own either…

If you need help with this, it’s what we do! Ready to take the next step? Fill in this inquiry form and we’ll be happy to help!