Writing a Good Book Cover and Summary
A book is an artistic medium for recording data in the form of text or illustrations, usually written on a single page and enclosed by a hard cover. The most common technical term for the physical arrangement of a book is codex. The term means “fold” and refers to the bound volume in which the book is stored. The term folio means “booklet,” and refers to the hard-bound edition of a book. The term folio also refers to the first folio, or first page of a printing publication.
The main body of the text, called the text box, appears on the first page of the book, called the cover. The inside of the cover, called the inside flap, is called the inside blurb. Foreword, footnoted acknowledgment page, and table of contents are other important design elements. If you are creating a book for a public domain, the copyright statement in the copyright notice will appear in a separate document called a table of contents.
On the title page, a bookseller may insert a simple line or two to let the reader know what the book’s subject is called, the publishing date, and the name of the author. If the text box is blank, the author’s name may be spelled out, as in Robert Frost’s The Great Gatsby. The Prologue, which appears at the beginning of the text, may contain acknowledgments, a synopsis of the characters and plot, or a biographical description of the author. The epilogue describes the end of the story, offering either a conclusion to the tale or an ending to the characters’ individual journeys. The acknowledgements page generally includes the same information as the prologue.
The Table of Contents appears after the Table of Content, and lists the books in alphabetical order, from left to right. It is useful to indicate which book is next or to suggest to readers that book series they might want to start with. The introduction of a novel is the first part of a book series and includes a foreword written by the editor.
The back cover is also important. Usually the cover will be the size of a standard book cover, with the same color or font used for the inside table of contents, table of chapters, and table of contents. (The back cover also may include a synopsis of what the book entails and a review of the contents.) The back cover can often include a short teaser of what is to come in the book and a synopsis of key points about the author, the characters, and the plot.
After the Table of Contents, and the Introduction all have been looked at, the last thing the reader needs is another lengthy introduction to the characters, the plot, or the history of the book series. The author bio should only include facts that are directly related to the content of the book. If it is too long and if readers aren’t interested, they will end up skipping the section, and the book isn’t being read.