A great cover design can be one of your book’s biggest marketing assets. Our testing has shown that a cover alone can account for a 30 percent difference in clicks on a BookBub listing, and other sources have reported similar results.
In the past, we’ve written about some of BookBub’s overall cover trends, but different genres often call for different packaging. Below, we’ve collected several trends that stand out across categories.
Mysteries Cover Designs
BookBub’s mystery readers love cover designs with cats and picturesque properties. Successful covers have featured everything from palatial estates to quaint library interiors.
Women’s Fiction Cover Designs
If you read our post on overall cover trends, you’ll remember that the beach is a popular setting among readers in general, but our women’s fiction subscribers seem especially receptive to the ocean’s calming waves and white sand.
Contemporary Romance Cover Designs
There’s something about the winter holidays that makes us want to curl up with a sweet read. For our contemporary romance subscribers, snowy landscapes and Christmas elements perform particularly well.
Thrillers Cover Designs
Bold title fonts perform strongly in this category of action-packed plots and tough protagonists.
Historical Romance Cover Designs
Covers offer an opportunity to show off sumptuous period details — and our historical romance readers especially love seeing the gorgeous dresses of bygone eras.
Cooking Cover Designs
Vivid, enticing food photography can make mouthwatering recipes look even more appetizing. A high-quality photo on a cookbook cover can make a world of difference.
Advice and How-To Cover Designs
Advice books tackle a huge range of topics, and we’ve found that the subscribers of this list prefer covers with simple imagery and clean fonts that make the book’s subject matter clear.
Horror Cover Designs
Though the horror genre is most often associated with zombies and otherworldly monsters, we’ve seen that our subscribers respond especially well to atmospheric, creepy covers.
Erotic Romance Cover Designs
Our erotic romance readers are drawn to suggestive covers that give just a hint of what’s inside. Bondage elements — blindfolds, handcuffs, and ties — are also a popular theme.
New Adult Romance Cover Designs
Covers featuring attractive shirtless men sell books across BookBub’s romance genres, but we’ve found that they’re particularly effective with our new adult romance readers.
Paranormal Romance Cover Designs
Our paranormal romance readers are also fans of alluring, half-naked men on their covers, but for these subscribers it’s important to showcase the paranormal element — whether the book contains bear shifters, werewolves, vampires, or dragons.
Christian Fiction Cover Designs
The subscribers of the Christian fiction list love gentle color palettes and cover elements that recall the pleasures of simple living.
Chick Lit Cover Designs
Fun/vibrant colors, sweet treats, and comfort food are often favored on the designs of our chick lit covers.
Historical Fiction Cover Designs
Covers that strongly indicate the primary time period of the novel’s storyline tend to perform nicely to our historical fiction list. These readers also respond to images of female friendship and children.
Supernatural Suspense Cover Designs
Supernatural suspense readers gravitate toward eerie covers featuring dark forests and mysterious homes.
Any category not included in this post didn’t have any definitive trends we could point to amongst the top-sellers in those categories. However, having professional-looking covers always helps sell more copies. Stay tuned for future posts on cover trends, as reader preferences are always shifting.
What kinds of covers have worked best for you in your genre? Let us know in the comments below!
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