Cover reveals are often how books make their first impressions on readers, building excitement and buzz months before launch. They can also be a great way to jump-start prerelease sales if your book is available for preorder!
Once you reveal your cover, you’ll want to get it in front of potential readers as often as possible. Repetition is an effective advertising tactic that helps make a product more memorable. There are many different marketing assets you can update to make sure it’s easy for readers to spot and recognize your upcoming release — so many that it can be a bit overwhelming. That’s why we’ve created a printable book cover reveal checklist you can use as a task list! We’ll provide an in-depth look at each checklist item in this post.
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Options for running book cover reveals
Before diving into what to update for your cover reveal, let’s quickly review your reveal strategy options.
Note: If you plan to make your book available for preorder, it’s a good idea to do so before your cover reveal. If you’re unsure whether to do a preorder, check out this list of pros and cons.
1. Run your own cover reveal
If you’re an indie author, or a traditionally published author interested in doing your own marketing, running your own cover reveal simply means publishing your cover image across your platforms. You can include any links to preorder in the caption or description of your posts.
Here’s an example from dark fantasy romance author Gemma Ashborne. She shared the cover for The Sleeping Key to her feed and relevant communities on Threads, posting multiple teasers using spoiler tags to hide the image. The post she pinned to the top of her profile directs her followers to visit the preorder link in her bio.
Tip: If you’re unsure where to start creating graphics for your cover reveal promotions, Canva, DIY Book Covers, and Book Brush are easy-to-use tools with great templates for mocking up your book. You can also refer to this handy guide to social media image dimensions.
2. Ask your publisher to coordinate the reveal
If you’re traditionally published, as a first step, you can ask your publicist or editor if the imprint’s publicity team would be willing to coordinate the cover reveal for you.
Keep in mind that it’s rare for a publisher to coordinate a cover reveal for their authors. With publicists having limited bandwidth and resources, they usually only do big cover reveals for their major lead titles. These are the reveals you might see in publications like Oprah Daily or Entertainment Weekly. Publishers will also post them on their social media channels, as Dell Romance did for Josie Silver’s Crazy Spooky Love.
Often, publishers’ cover reveals are part of larger book list promotions to build hype for all their upcoming releases, like this one from HarperCollins’ Epic Reads:
View this post on Instagram
If you’d like your publisher to help with your cover reveal, it doesn’t hurt to ask! The worst that can happen is they say “no,” in which case you can find another partner.
3. Partner with a publication or influencer
Whether you’re traditionally or self-published, you can expand your reach by pitching an exclusive cover reveal to a publication your target audience reads. Popular publications that accept book cover reveal pitches include Book Riot and Reactor, and you can also look for genre-specific publications.
There are also plenty of genre blogs you can pitch, or publications not specific to books that share a relevant target audience. You can also pitch a relevant influencer to reveal your cover to their followers. Here are some tips on researching and pitching publications or influencers that might be a good fit.
For Adalyn Grace’s book The Wretched Divine, she partnered with “bookfluencer” duo KrisandMads, who shared an exclusive early look in an Instagram Story to build excitement:
Now we’ll look at all the places on your own channels to post your new cover, with more examples for inspiration!
What to update for your cover reveal
You don’t need to update every one of these — use what’s relevant to your author platform and marketing plan.
📚 Book Listing Platforms
✅ Retailer pages
If you’re independently published, simply upload your cover to each retailer where your book is available for preorder. If you’re traditionally published, typically your publisher handles this. So if your cover doesn’t appear on retailer sites when you expect it to, ask your editor to check on the status (or ask your agent to give them a nudge).
✅ BookBub
To add your book’s cover on BookBub, log in to your Partner Dashboard and navigate to your My Books page. If the book is not already on your My Books page, click Add Books and follow the prompts to add your book.
Once your book is listed on your My Books page, click Request Change.
Select This book cover is out-of-date and provide any helpful details or notes for BookBub’s team to keep in mind when making this update.
✅ Goodreads
To add your book’s cover on Goodreads, log in and navigate to your book’s page, then click Edit Details below your book’s information. In the sidebar, you’ll see the option to add a cover image.
If you run into any issues, post in the Goodreads Librarians Group and a helpful Librarian will make the update for you.
🌐 Author Website & Digital Assets
✅ Author website
There are a few key places to feature your new cover on your author website:
On the home page: Scott Tisch used BookBub’s Author Websites platform to create a clean design showcasing the cover and blurb of his upcoming book on the home page.
Carrie Patterson displayed her new book cover under the large heading “New From Carrie!”
On a series page: Beverly Jenkins has a page on her site for each series and upcoming sequel, so readers can see the newest book in the series they love.
On an upcoming books page: If you publish on a rapid-release schedule, it may make sense to dedicate an entire page to listing upcoming releases. Brenda Novak’s upcoming books page features the cover and a dynamic countdown for each book.
On an individual book page: Creating individual pages for each book helps surface your author website to readers searching for information about the book on Google, and allows space for more details. Matt Dinniman’s books each have their own page showcasing all the different formats and languages available.
✅ Link-in-bio page
Update your link-in-bio page with the cover image and link to preorder.
To make her new cover stand out, Pam Godwin used the Featured layout option in her Linktree to feature the cover image in a link labeled “Cover Reveal,” and also added thumbnail images to other links. The cover reveal link took readers to a Google Drive filled with ready-to-use graphics for fans to share.
Lauren Roberts added a new preorder link to her Linktree featuring the special edition cover for her upcoming audiobook release.
✅ Author media kit
If generating publicity is part of your marketing plan, update your media kit or create a new one just for the new book.
Pagan Alexandria includes book-specific media kits on her website, with details like “look inside” previews, Q and As, and reader reviews.
Andrew Joseph White’s website links to a Google Drive containing a folder for cover images.
✅ Email newsletter
Send a dedicated email to your subscribers announcing your cover reveal.
Veronica Roth sent her Substack readers an exclusive first look at her cover for Seek the Traitor’s Son.
You can also update your newsletter branding to feature your new cover so readers see it in every email. Kaira Rouda keeps the preorder promotion for her new book at the top of her newsletter and top of readers’ minds!
📱 Social Media Profiles
Instagram offers multiple ways to showcase your cover reveal:
Posts and pinning: Pin your cover reveal post to the top of your profile to direct visitors straight to your upcoming release, like Elisabeth G. Mark did for Epilogue of Kings:
View this post on Instagram
Reels: An animated cover reveal is a great way to catch readers’ attention when they’re scrolling through static images. Here’s an example Reel from Shea Ernshaw pointing readers to a preorder link in her bio — the post saw over 1.5k likes!
View this post on Instagram
She also pinned the Reel to her page for extra visibility:
Stories and Highlights: Instagram Stories are a great way to share exciting cover reveal updates with readers in real time! H. M. Wolfe shared her publisher’s UK cover reveal to her own followers.
Stories only last for 24 hours, but if you’d like it to be available for longer, you can save a Story to your profile as a “Highlight.”
✅ TikTok
TikTok’s platform also offers multiple surfaces for your reveal promotions:
Posts: Max Walker posted a cover reveal video with a clear caption, using the description to encourage readers to preorder and receive extra goodies!
@maxwalkerwrites 🐺🏒COVER REVEAL TIME!! Wowowow, is anyone else howling at the screen or is that just me? It’s been a bit since I had a cover reveal, but I think the wait was totally worth it. @diarOza captured these guys perfectly. Gabe’s possessive neck grab, Eli’s yearning look, the wolf cloud up in the night sky, it’s all soooo perfect! 😍 And for the first time ever, my paperback will have colored edges! You can pre-order it now from my website (in my bio!) and not only receive a signed paperback, but you’ll also get three art prints (one of them NSFW ), a bookmark, and a month subscription to my Patreon where you can read the book early! And here’s what you’ll find inside: 🏒 A professional hockey team with a majority of its players secretly shifters 🐺A fated mate situation with a consensual catch 💙Hurt/comfort between the guys 🌈One player in the closet and the other openly out 💦Special shifter traits (you’ll have to read to figure this one out) And so much more. I’m so proud of this book and I’m in love with these characters. I hope you will be too when it releases this March!! #werewolfromance #hockeyromancebooks #shifterromance #booktokbookrecs #kindleunlimitedromancebooks
Pinning and playlists: Caitlin Devlin pinned her cover reveal for So Very Lucky and created a playlist for all her content about that title.
@catmdevlin COVER REAL TIME!! My third novel, SO VERY LUCKY, will be released 1 March ⭐️ I’m so excited for this one! blurb below if you’re curious, and if you fancy it, you can PR3RDER NOW When celebrated singer Calista plunges to her death during a concert in Rio, her former girlfriend Stevie is watching, along with the rest of the world. But while millions of fans mourn, Stevie can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right. Then Calista returns—alive, a little changed, but wanting Stevie back in her life for the first time in years. At first, seeing her again feels like a miracle. But as Stevie is drawn deeper into Calista’s world of smoke and mirrors, she begins to question everything: Calista’s overprotective team, the gaps in her memory and the clues that don’t add up about what really happened the night she fell. As she gets closer to the truth, Stevie is also falling for Calista all over again. Stevie must decide: is uncovering the truth worth losing the person she loves twice? #BookTok #author #newbook #bookrecs #coverreveal
✅ Bluesky
On Bluesky, you can add your cover and preorder information to your profile header and pinned posts.
Kris Madigan, who changed her display name to “Kris Madigan has a novella for preorder” for the promotion, posted the cover reveal for The Wine-Dark Sea with the book description.
✅ Facebook Page cover photo
Your author page on Facebook is prime real estate for showing off your new cover. Sarah Addison Allen updated her cover photo with a beautiful graphic displaying the book alongside quotes and the release date.
✅ YouTube
On YouTube, you can update your channel art and publish video reveals.
Britt Halaas added the cover for her new book Price Check on Love to her header.
As well as updating his header with the new cover for his completed trilogy, Marc J Gregson created a Short of the reveal for more reach.
For her new book Treasure, Octavia Randolph posted a full-length book trailer revealing the cover and details on where to preorder.
YouTube is also a great place to expand your audience by collaborating with fellow writers! Madeline James invited multiple authors to join her for a live streamed cover reveal celebration.
✅ Pinterest board
Once your cover is live, add it to your official Pinterest board for this book (and if you don’t have one yet, create one!).
Alexandra Bracken’s dedicated board for her upcoming novel Immortal Rose includes images of the cover among the pins that inspired the book.
✅ X (Twitter)
On X, you can update your header image and pin an announcement.
Ryan Cahill updated his X header to showcase the next book in his series and encourage readers to preorder.
Shaina Veronica pinned the cover of her upcoming rom-com to the top of her page, along with the release date and blurb.
Since X also allows links in posts, you can link a post directly to more information. Jasper L. Walker’s cover reveal post pointed readers to his ARC sign-up.
✅ Threads
Pin a cover reveal post to the top of your own feed, and reach a wider audience by posting in relevant communities. Book Threads is the main bookish community on Threads with 425k members, but look for niche communities for your genre, too.
In Julie Olivia’s pinned cover reveal for her new book Love Felt Like This, thanking the illustrator was a nice touch!
✅ LinkedIn (for nonfiction/business/academic authors)
LinkedIn is an important platform for reaching a professional audience, and the banner feature offers another good branding opportunity for nonfiction and academic authors. We love the bold banner climate scientist Bill McGuire used to promote his book The Fate of the World.
👥 Reader Communities
✅ Private reader group posts
If you have a private reader community on Facebook, Discord, or Patreon, post about your cover reveal early with these core fans to make them feel like VIPs. They may become your biggest promoters on public reveal day!
Note: Since these are private communities, we can’t show examples, but the strategy is to share your cover 24–48 hours before your public reveal.
✅ Facebook Group cover photo
Your Facebook Group cover photo is visible to all readers, even if your group is private, so it’s worth updating with your newest book. Catherine Cowles updated her series banner with the release of the sixth installment, Secret Haven.
✅ Substack
If you have a Substack, this is a great spot to share an exclusive cover reveal with a private, engaged community.
Soman Chainani shared his cover in a special Substack-only announcement:
🎨 Physical & Promotional Materials
✅ Bookmarks
If you’re traditionally published, as a first step, ask your publisher if they can design bookmarks for you. If not, you can either design them yourself or hire a freelance designer. Bookmarks are great to bring with you to events, to hand out in lieu of business cards, or to mail to readers as part of a giveaway prize. They also make great fodder for Instagram!
Jayde Collins created an entire series of tightly branded reveal posts showing off her cover, including a “bookmark reveal” after asking readers to vote for their favorite design.
View this post on Instagram
✅ Business cards
If you’d like to update your author business cards, this is a great place to display your newest cover! Andrea Bartz has her name and contact information on one side, and her book cover on the other.
✅ Display ads promoting the preorder
If you’re already running display ad campaigns to promote your preorder, it’s time to update the creative with the cover or imagery from the cover. And if not, consider starting a campaign to drive more early sales and boost exposure.
R.J. Blain ran a BookBub Ads campaign to reach hundreds of thousands of fans of similar authors; the graphic included a catchy blurb and the release date.
Remember, you can download this checklist as a printable PDF to keep handy anytime you’re ready to coordinate a cover reveal. (This will subscribe you to the BookBub Partners Blog, which you can opt out of at any time.)
This post was originally published on November 13, 2019, and has been updated with new examples.
