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Designing covers for the thumbnail

Hi guys,

I just read, what I found to be, a very helpful blog about designing book covers for the thumbnail.

THING 2. Sucessful Seduction and the Naked Truth: Rethink Cover Design for a Small, Small World | Digital Book World

At first I had only clicked because I thought it was going to be a counter-argument in a related thread (mythicscribes.com/forums/cover-design/6921-hot-not-cover-art-article.html) that would provide some good discussion, but once you get past the 50 Shades of Grey hooks, it becomes more and more useful and interesting.

It really hit home with me because I had been going the OPPOSITE direction in making the title/author name larger and larger so that it would be readable on the thumbnail--but this isn't necessary because your thumbnail is rarely viewed by itself.
 

lawrence

Troubadour
Thanks for posting this Zero Angel, sounds useful, I'll have a read soon as I get chance. The whole thumbnail clarity issue is troublesome when trying to create covers.
 

Nihal

Vala
It's an interesting read. You know, thumbnails aren't useful just because it's what you see when browsing, they're a powerful way of making sure that your cover has some "rediability".

Here I'm not talking about being able to read the text, but the image itself. One thing I've learnt is that it's important to be able to glance at an image and be able to understand it quickly. Thumbnails are part of a set of tools concept artists use to make sure their composition is working and the image can be read.

If it looks good small, if it makes sense small it's going to look good bigger after you've added the details. Using the thumbnail approach you're able to easily control the composition, to where it should flow, the areas with information and the areas without, giving the eyes a rest. It's a good way to avoid too much jumble.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
I skipped a little to the end.

Amazon's ribbon is smaller than your standard thumbnail. The original covers in the article look beautiful, and the new ones, at the end, look amateurish only okay to me. But they do look sharper and crisper ribbon-sized.

While it's important to consider every circumstance your cover will be presented, I would think long and hard before deciding whether or not Amazon's ribbon is the viewpoint you want to optimize for. I'm not inclined to agree that it is for most books.

In particular, I would expect a first time author to have to bring people to their sales page on their own, which would completely bypass the ribbon.

Without looking into it, I would also wonder if you can submit a separate cover art graphic just for Amazon's ribbon so that you could optimize your cover art for each location.
 
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I skipped a little to the end.

Amazon's ribbon is smaller than your standard thumbnail. The original covers in the article look beautiful, and the new ones, at the end, look amateurish only okay to me. But they do look sharper and crisper ribbon-sized.

While it's important to consider every circumstance your cover will be presented, I would think long and hard before deciding whether or not Amazon's ribbon is the viewpoint you want to optimize for. I'm not inclined to agree that it is for most books.

In particular, I would expect a first time author to have to bring people to their sales page on their own, which would completely bypass the ribbon.

Without looking into it, I would also wonder if you can submit a separate cover art graphic just for Amazon's ribbon so that you could optimize your cover art for each location.

Great points, Devor. It would be nice if you could optimize your "cover" for different locations, but at least with KDP you are unable to do that. And even though the ribbon is smaller, the picture on the Kindle store or on Amazon's website is rarely enlarged. How often do you actually click on the enlarge button to see the bigger cover image? I guess you could increase that frequency by uploading more images for them to see.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
And even though the ribbon is smaller, the picture on the Kindle store or on Amazon's website is rarely enlarged.

The picture on your sales page is immense compared to the ribbon.

My issue is that optimizing for the ribbon made the covers look worse in their standard locations. The ribbon is just that small.
 
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The picture on your sales page is immense compared to the ribbon.

My issue is that optimizing for the ribbon made the covers look worse in their standard locations. The ribbon is just that small.

Agreed. I merely was referring to the difference between the enlarged image and the sales page. I think one of the more important things to take away from the article is that the text you include on your book cover does not need to be the focus that it is with print versions. I don't think you should forego traditional images or drastically alter your image so that it is ONLY appropriate for the sales ribbon or even the thumbnail on your sales page, but I don't think that the author and title need to take up 1/3 of the cover like they used to. It really started to seem like those names were becoming larger and larger as publishers tried to get them to be visible in the thumbnail images (both large thumbnails and small thumbnails).

There's no need for this anymore because your name and title are listed anywhere your book cover appears.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
It really started to seem like those names were becoming larger and larger as publishers tried to get them to be visible in the thumbnail images (both large thumbnails and small thumbnails).

There's no need for this anymore because your name and title are listed anywhere your book cover appears.

That's definitely true.
 
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