Reading “Irish”

October 3, 2009 · Filed under irishprecious · Tagged book cover, book illustrators, confessions of a smitten soul, irishprecious, Orcom, Organizational Communication, UP Manila, upm orcom

Another project for my advertisement class. This time we were asked to make the book cover for our would-be-self-authored book (if ever we decided to make one). I entitled my book “Confessions of a Smitten Soul”, which was the same name I have been using for all my personal accounts.

At first, I though it would be easy for me to come up with a book cover. I have already read a lot of books, so inspirations wouldn’t be that hard. That was what I thought. Later on, I found myself asking this main question, “how will I make sure that my book would sell?”

Like what my Adver Prof told us, it’s not always true that people don’t judge a book by its cover (literally speaking). Most people would really look at the book cover first. If they liked what they saw, then there’s a chance that they would read the synopsis. If they loved the synopsis, then there’s a higher chance that they will buy the book; unless, of course, your already a well-established author or your book is already popular.

In my case, while I was doing my book cover, I have to first imagine myself as a brand–a new brand in the market.

• To whom do I want to sell my book or who would be my potential readers? (target audience)
• How will I make my readers buy it just by looking at the cover? (strategies and tactics)
• How will I design my book to stand out from the others categorized in Biography? (unique selling proposition)

Well I’m not entirely sure if my thoughts were reflected on what I did, and I wouldn’t have a way to find out since I wouldn’t really be selling a book. In the end, though, I learned and gained a new respect for Book Illustrators, who were most of the time taken for granted. So, next time that I would buy a book, I would probably take the time to know about the artist behind the book cover.