in Design
Laying out the back cover
The back cover has more to do than the front and less room to do it in. Here is how its parts fit together.
The front cover persuades someone to pick a book up. The back cover persuades them to keep holding it. It is where a browser turns the book over to find out what it is about, and it carries more information than any other part of the cover.
What the back cover carries
Most back covers include some combination of a short description of the book, often called the blurb or cover copy; one or more endorsements or review quotations; a short author biography, sometimes with a photograph; the publisher's name or logo; the barcode with the ISBN; and, depending on the market, a price.
Not every book needs all of these. A hardback with a dust jacket often moves the author biography and longer copy to the jacket flaps, leaving the back panel for quotations. A book with no endorsements may give the whole space to the description.
The description comes first
The description is the most important element and should be the most prominent. Most browsers give it only a short look, so it should be brief enough to read in that time, which usually means a paragraph or two, and set at a size that is comfortable in the hand.
A strong opening line matters more than anything that follows it. Many back covers open with a single line in larger or bolder type, a hook, before the main description.
Long blocks of small text, text in a decorative typeface and text reversed out of a busy image are all hard to read. Text that is hard to read gives a browser an easy reason to put the book down.
Hierarchy and space
A back cover works when the reader knows where to look first and where to look next. That usually means one clear focal element, most often the hook or the description, with the other items arranged around it in descending order of importance.
White space helps. A back cover crammed edge to edge with text looks anxious. Room around each element makes each one easier to read and makes the whole look more considered.
The back cover should share the front cover's typefaces, colours and general feel. It can be quieter, since it carries more text, but it should look like the same book.
The barcode and the practical items
The barcode has a fixed job and fixed requirements. It usually sits at the bottom of the back cover, often in the lower right corner. It needs to be printed at a size scanners can read, as dark bars on a light background, with clear space around it. It should not run across the spine fold or sit over a busy image.
Plan room for it from the start rather than squeezing it in at the end. The same goes for any price, category line or publisher logo.
Everything on the back cover needs to stay inside the safe zone, well away from the trim and the spine fold. A line of text that runs too close to the edge may be cut off, or look cramped once the book is trimmed.
Finally, test it in the hand. A back cover is read at arm's length, held in one hand. Printing it at actual size and holding it is the quickest way to find text that is too small, too long or too crowded. If it takes more than a few seconds to find out what the book is about, there is too much on it.