Why Publishers Should Design for the Thumbnail… Instead of Just Squishing “Regular” Cover Art

Although Apple debuted its iBookstore in April 2010, they sent one of the first major email promotions to their customer email list about it

Although Apple debuted its iBookstore in April 2010, they sent one of the first major email promotions to their customer email list about it just this Sunday Jan 15th 2011. I guess it’s tough for product managers to get their broadcast on the schedule over at the marketing department, sort of like planes jostling for runway space at an terribly busy airport.

The promo was list of book cover art thumbnails, with nothing more than book name and author in text. No info blurbs, no sales copy, no reviews… none of the writing that books traditionally rely on to sell themselves. Now, if you clicked through to a book page, then there was heaps of info. But, the email just had the book jacket blurbs.

Which made me think, that book jacket is more important than ever for getting the sale — because you have to get the click before you can get the conversion.Which makes me wonder, how many book jacket designers are designing these days with a thumbnail in mind? I am willing to bet that 99.9% of them design with a “full size” mock-up on their computer screens. And I bet the publisher’s marketing department approves book covers as they look at the full-size as well. Which, increasingly, is a bit like designing and approving a new music album’s cover by designing for a 33LP size record cover … and then shrinking it down to fit a CD box as seen by a shopper surfing iTunes on their mobile device.

If you are doing publishing any sort of ebook, ibook, digital magazine, or PDF report, you must design your cover for legibility and what I would call compelling-ness in thumbnail format, because most often that’s what people are looking at online when they make a purchase or download decision. For more specific tips on how to do this, here’s a how-to article we published over at Subscription Site Insider’s membership site.

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