4 Different Ways to Brand Book Covers for Series

When it comes to selling books, branding is key. Your brand is your signature. There few different ways of branding book covers for series. Below you will find some ideas and examples of how to do them, some more common, others not as much. In total there are 15  branding examples from around the web and some of my work. Hopefully, this will be educational and very inspiring!

1. Same Cover Concept with Small Differences

This is the easiest branding option for book covers is coming up with one design concept and then changing small elements of it while keeping 80-90% of it the same otherwise. This can be as simple as changing the color of the entire cover or swapping one color for another on a single element. In the case of the latter, the single element is usually the one that stands out the most.  As this is one of the easiest options to produce, it is often the least expensive and fastest.

Another, more recent example of similar this small change for basically the same look is this Sam Rader series covers:

 

2. Different Cover Concepts with One ”Signature Element”

A good example would be Russell Blake using the same font for author name across all his books, even though he also has his separate series branded and look different too. You can see both examples here, but the font of the author’s name stays the same. So it’s almost double branding, author can have a specific font + different ”feel” for each brand. In the 2nd series shown above, the font has more treatment and effect so it looks a bit different but is still the same.

3. Traditional Series

The most common and strongest series branding is to keep the general color scheme, font, and, if possible, placement the same while rotating the main image. It’s a traditional way to do things and it will always work. It’s very easy to recognize for the readers, looks great and when working with a book cover designer it’s not as expensive as making covers for individual books. Many designers offer a series branding discount for this type of work, so you don’t need to pay for each cover as a completely new one. Another example of similar branding below:

4. Clever, Multi-Piece Designs (Or Puzzle Designs)

This a rare thing and rightly so. Some amazing series were made from having to combine all books into one bigger image when you have them next to each other. Really really cool, but more for Print books. Ninja level stuff and probably most time-consuming. For bold authors who want to and can stomach the risk.

Can Premade Book Covers Be Serialised?

With premade book covers becoming more and more common, many authors wonder if it’s possible to serialise them. Absolutely, most of the time most premades can be turned into series covers. And it can be done in two ways:

1. Most designers will be willing to take any premade cover and make a series out of it with finding new stock images for next covers and then using the same elements and style from the premade. Example, I took one romance premade cover and turned it into 4 cover series:

2. Most designers also can take multiple different premades from their selection and make them look like a series by taking the design look from one and applying it to others. Simplest example would be just taking the fonts and text style from one cover and applying to others (row 1 were original covers, row 2 updated series). Other covers can have more elaborate changes with color scheme changes, background changes etc:

Book Cover Inspiration

Sjon series by Rodrigo Corral

Peter Carey books designed by Jenny Grigg

Shakespeare Book Cover Series by Alex Cruz

Book Covers for Garbiel Garcia Marquez by Eduardo RH

Harry Potter covers reimagined in classic Penguin covers style by M.S. Corley

9/11 Series designed by Marius Hole

Urbanite’s Guide book series designed by Alyssa Liegel

Eli Weisel’s Night Trilogy designed by Carla Brown

Lemony Snicket’s Unfortunate Events series designed by Christie Tandiono

Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers designed by Trevor Hutchison

Hope you enjoyed this post and it gave you some inspiration and ideas for your book covers. As you see there are plenty of options and great designs to get inspiration of. Many many talented designers too. Picking the right designer for your book cover can be hard because of so much choice, you can learn some hiring tips in this post – 12 Tips for Hiring Book Cover Designer.

Best wishes,

Adrijus