The physical or digital exterior of a book, including the front cover, spine, and back cover, serving as both protection and marketing.
A book cover is the complete outer packaging of a book, encompassing the front cover, spine, and back cover. In print, it's a tangible thing you can hold. In digital, it's the image that represents your book on screens everywhere. The front cover carries the title, author name, and key artwork. The spine shows the title and author for shelf browsing. The back cover typically holds the blurb, author bio, barcode, and any endorsement quotes. Together, these elements form a reader's first impression.
Your book cover is doing a job every second of every day, whether it's sitting on a bookstore shelf, appearing in search results, or getting shared on social media. It communicates genre, quality, and professionalism before anyone reads a word of your prose. A cover that looks self-made or mismatches its genre will quietly turn away the exact readers who would love your story.
The original 1960 cover's simple tree-and-sky illustration has been reimagined dozens of times, but most editions maintain the understated, literary feel of the original.
The redesigned covers with bold, iconic imagery became wildly popular on BookTok, demonstrating how a cover refresh can bring new readers to an existing series.
The uniform tri-band design with an orange-and-white color scheme made Penguin covers instantly recognizable worldwide, proving that consistent branding can become iconic.
Pull three physical books off your shelf (or find three in a bookstore). For each one, examine the front cover, spine, and back cover separately. Write down what information each surface conveys and what design choices were made. Then sketch a rough layout for your own book's cover, marking where you'd place the title, your name, blurb, barcode, and any artwork.