They say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but when we’re buying books, we do exactly that, every time. The most amazing book in the world will not sell a single copy if you put the wrong cover on it. You may think that a cover doesn’t do much, but it gives the reader an idea of what they’ll be getting when they purchase the book. A good cover tells your readers exactly what they’ll think and feel before they even pick up the book.

How can you make sure that you’re creating the best cover for your book? Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way.

Check Out the Competition

Go to the bookstore or go online, and check out other books in your genre. What do the covers of the bestsellers look like? When you design your cover, you don’t exactly want to copy those cover designs, but you want to emulate them to a certain extent.

Choose the Right Images

Remember, you’re not just putting a pretty picture on the cover; you’re placing an image there that will evoke a certain response. A suspense thriller is going to have a very different cover image from a romance novel. Think about how the images make you feel when you’re selecting the right one for the job.

Everything on the Cover Counts

Don’t overpopulate your cover with too many images or too much written text, and other “noise”. You want your title and your name to stand out first. Then you want the eye to move to the image and perhaps to a quote from a good review. That should be the extent of your cover. Less is definitely more, and everything counts.

Don’t Be Afraid to Call a Professional

If you don’t have any experience with design, or you aren’t sure how to create an effective cover, go ahead and call a professional graphic designer. It’s far better to spend a little bit of money now and sell a lot of books later than to do a poor job and sell very few books.

The evolution of literature publication is incredibly exciting. Not too long ago, getting published was a huge, daunting task that involved as much luck as it did skill. Today, getting your book out there is as simple as writing it and clicking a few links.

Because it’s so easy to self-publish ebooks and print-on-demand books, there has been a huge proliferation of poorly written books with bad grammar and tons of spelling mistakes. That means, just by making sure that your book has proper spelling and grammar, you can really stand out from the crowd.

These guides should be a part of every writer’s library:

 The Chicago Manual of Style

 Strunk and White’s The Element’s of Style

 Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Each of these books has answers to almost all of your grammar and style questions. You should also have a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, or subscribe to the online edition of the OED for those spelling questions that your word processor’s spell checker just can’t answer. It’s also a good reference to ensure that you’re not misusing any words in your text.

Of course, these references do you no good at all if you don’t use them, but how can you tell if you have a grammar problem? When the time comes to revise your work, try reading it aloud. If you stumble over a sentence when reading it out loud, it probably has some structural or grammatical errors and needs to be revised. When you find this happening, take a look at what’s going on in the sentence or paragraph you’re revising, and then go to your grammar and style guides.

Writing is an elusive art form. You get an idea for a novel, manual, history book, or anything else, and you start to write. It’s going well at first, but then you get stuck. You experience your first writer’s block, and it seems like getting even a single word on the page is completely impossible. This creates stress, which creates more blockage, and before you know it you’re stuck in a downward spiral of self-doubt and anxiety.

So, let’s talk about how you can reduce your stress, rid yourself of writer’s block, and stay positive about your writing.

Deal With the Stress

Whether you’re stressed about your writer’s block, your job, your family, your dirty house, or anything else, that stress is going to create serious problems for your writing. Entrepreneur Magazine has some pretty great tips for dealing with stress, including repeating positive affirmations to yourself and challenging your negative thoughts. Basically, if you let your stress overrun you, you’ll never get anything done. So, take a breath, do some yoga, and get your mind in a positive place.

Create a Routine

Once you’re feeling a little calmer, sit down and map out a routine schedule for your writing. Most people have to work their writing time into their daily schedules, either before or after work and in between cleaning, cooking, and daily chores. If you schedule out your week and create a writing routine, you’ll be a lot more relaxed about your writing, and you’ll be more productive and happier.

Take a Break

If your writer’s block still has you down, step away from the project you were working on and take a break. Now, that doesn’t mean you should take a break from writing. Rather, pick up a book or magazine about writing (we recommend Stephen King’s On Writing, John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction, or Writer’s Digest). Spend some time leisurely reading about writing and about new tips and exercises you could use. Before you know it, you’ll be excited to get back to work on your writing project.