Instead, you skim through the many options and make a decision based on quick visual cues. There’s a few of them, but one of them is your cover. A good cover sells and keeps your book relevant in the rankings. A bad cover will see your book drop quickly to search result abyss.

Obviously you don’t want your book to get lost in the search engine. Carry on reading to learn the simple small details that make a book cover a best seller.

Don’t go for the cheapest option

Many people skimp on the cover and overlook this part of the kindle business equation. They find the cheapest designer for $5 on fiverr and call it a day. Sometimes this works if you get a good one, but this doesn’t work for some niches or topics. A lot of these designers have pre-made templates they use to quickly deliver the cover back to you, which is great but it also means a lot of covers start to look the same.

How do you stand out if your cover looks similar to 9 others on the results page?

You don’t. You don’t stand out at all, and people start scrolling right pass you.

Instead, what you want to find is a designer willing to work with you on something that a little bit more original. Unique layouts, colour schemes etc.

Don’t be lazy

I know a lot of people place an order with their designer and then call it a day. They do the bare minimum and in return they get something that doesn’t sell. Big surprise there. (btw that’s sarcasm guys)

What you want to do before even reaching out to your designer is to have a few ideas in your head. You’d want colour scheme options, font ideas, stock photos or graphic ideas. I’m not telling you to design it yourself, but I am telling you to do your research about your keyword and niche on Amazon. What is everyone else doing? Are there any covers that stand out and are selling? Can you replicate it and make yours more unique?

Go on Amazon, and do some searching on your keyword, niche and book category. Pay attention to what catches your eye and pay attention to the common, generic designs most books have.

Don’t look like an ebook

There’s nothing wrong with ebooks, but the traditional paperback book from a big publishing house will almost always look different compared to the cheap indie published ebooks on Amazon. I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about. Just take a look of the following examples below.

I don’t think I can put everything into plain language just yet, but here are some of my observations on how to avoid looking like an ebook publisher.

• Don’t use special effects on your fonts.
• Don’t use fonts that are easily recognisable from office word
• Don’t use stock photos with smiling people in them
• Don’t have a white background with the title on the top, image in the middle and author name at the bottom

Be as relevant as possible while still being creative

Let me explain this one with examples. I think it’ll be the easiest way to get your head around this one. I’m going to use the keyword, weight loss for this.

You want to stay relevant to the genre, niche, keyword and book topic but you don’t want to be too literal with it. It’s makes the book look unprofessional and it’s many people won’t pay any attention to such covers.

And those are the tips to getting a best selling cover. Follow the above and you’ll have your book selling more and for longer!

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Other resources you should check out:

• Hire a cover designer to work exclusively with you on freelancer for exactly the same price as a fiverr gig. 
• Use Freshbooks to manage your Kindle business properly. It’s the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to do your bookkeeping. You can get a 30 day FREE trial if you sign up here. 
• Learn how to hire a bestselling ghostwriter for your Kindle business.