Author Hates the Cover? 6 Tips for Navigating Design Conflicts

We’re all a little on edge these days. Whether we’re stuck at home, navigating strange new work environments, or suddenly being pressed into duty as full-time substitute teachers (ahem), our fuses are shorter and what used to be minor disagreements have the capacity to blow up into full scale fiascos. Which means a common source of friction—authors and publisher not seeing eye to eye on the design of their book—can suddenly become ugly and prolonged battles. And that’s not good for anyone.

To help you avoid a fracas, here are 6 tips for navigating difficult design conflicts in the publishing process. While these are primarily related to book design, they also work for any type of design conflict with any stakeholder.

Tip 1—Be Upfront about Expectations and Goals

Regardless of what armchair designers like to think, visual design is not simply a matter of personal taste and making things “look good.” Good design is about achieving specific objectives. Most people understand this when considering UX design or product design, but it’s just as applicable to visual design. With that in mind, it’s important to establish clear objectives for the design of a book based on category, audience, and price point—just as you would any marketing component—and to communicate this to the author, before the design process even begins. Many authors are not their intended audience, and explaining this early will make it easier for them to understand why a cover that doesn’t appeal to them could still be successful.

“it’s important to establish clear objectives for the design and to communicate this to everyone before the design process even begins.”

Tip 2—Provide, and Ask for, Comps Before You Begin

While no one wants to outright steal designs, it’s obviously beneficial to understand what the market is doing to align with consumer expectations and see what’s successful. Trends exist for a reason and that’s because, at least for a while, they work. Even if your aim is to differentiate yourself from the crowd, it’s necessary to establish what you’re differentiating from. With that in mind, find a few covers from popular titles in a similar category and share those with everyone involved with providing design input before you start the design process. This will instantly level set expectations. You can also ask your authors to provide some as well. If they’re way off from the objectives you’ve established for the book, this gives you the opportunity to point this out and come to a consensus early on.

Tip 3—Ask for Critique, Not Just Feedback

In their book Discussing Design, authors Adam Connor and Aaron Irizarry break down the concept of feedback into three distinct types—reactive, directive, and critique. Reactive feedback is typically emotional and passionate and is, as they put it, a “gut reaction.” Something along the lines of, “gah, it’s so lavender!!!” Directive feedback, on the other hand, “typically starts with an instruction or direction…[and] in many cases, that’s where it ends.” Think “you shouldn’t have used a lavender background,” followed by silence. The third type of feedback—critique—asks reviewers to engage critical thinking skills and look at each element as a design decision, compare that element to the original objective, and then describe how it either does or does not align with that objective. Guess which type of feedback they recommend.

In addition to being less emotional and more constructive, and therefore less likely to put team members on the defensive, critique also requires people to be specific. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had this conversation:

“It’s all wrong! We can’t use this!”
“Well, what if we changed the title font to this?”
”Oh, yeah, that works great.”

With this in mind, it’s easy to see how “this is a book about surviving trench warfare in World War I aimed at a late-middle-age male readership. I’m not sure a lavender background aligns with that,” might be more constructive than a gut reaction or claiming it to simply be “wrong.” And maybe lavender does work! But it’s easier to get there by offering critique, as opposed to emotional reactions.

“Critique asks reviewers to engage critical thinking skills and look at each element as a design decision.”

Tip 4—Give Options, But Keep them Focused

When working with your designer, either in house or a freelancer, you’re almost certainly going to request multiple mock-ups; at least three, perhaps more. My recommendation is to offer your author the same opportunity, though preferably from a curated list of two. This accomplishes a number of things, including letting the author feel involved in the decision-making process and preventing them from going far afield with recommendations. More importantly, it highlights how each element in the cover is a design decision, nudging them to think analytically. It also highlights why some elements work better than others in meeting objectives and gives everyone an opportunity to see how things might mix and match to create a stronger design.

If there is a design option that you feel is particularly strong, and you’re feeling a bit sneaky, you can always explore presenting a false choice with what my teams called the “stinker option.” A quasi-dirty trick of designers everywhere, the stinker option is a purposely less-than-attractive design that highlights the strengths of a layout you feel is particularly effective. Maybe it’s a little gray hat, but it works—most of the time. It also can backfire spectacularly if your author (or client) latches on to the stinker, which happens more often than you’d probably like. Still, even this has a silver lining—it allows both parties to level set and see how much of a gap they need to close early in the process. In fact, working on a particularly bad idea on purpose may actually help you see what’s right.

Tip 5—Solicit and Share Feedback from Others in the Sales Chain

As anyone who has been through a marketing meeting with their distributor knows, sales reps have opinions. Leverage this! While not always on the nose (they’re just as guilty of emotional, reactive feedback as anyone), these are the people selling your book to booksellers and they have a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t. If you have an author who is really digging in their heels, soliciting feedback from your account rep or the sales force at your distributor, or your own internal sales team, can be very persuasive.

To be honest, I use this as an option of last resort because it feels like an appeal to authority, which I find a bit distasteful. It also can push the other party to start soliciting outside feedback they feel is credible (see the cousin/in-law/friend who has some tangential relationship to design but carries a lot of weight with your author), which can create a showdown. Still, when nothing else seems to be working, telling an author that the person responsible for generating sales (and, thus, royalties!) likes a particular design can be particularly effective.

Tip 6—Be Flexible and Open

“If you’re having a prolonged conflict, ask yourself, ‘Am I the a**hole?’”

Finally, a piece of advice that goes a long way in a lot of areas: remain open-minded about the design. There’s a popular forum on Reddit called “Am I the A**hole?” (it’s Reddit, so probably NSFW, whatever that means these days) where posters describe a situation and then ask if they’re in the wrong. More often than not, they are. If you’re having a prolonged conflict about a design, this isn’t a bad question to ask yourself, especially if you’re getting feedback from credible sources other than the author that clashes with your own opinions. Publishers and editors and marketing managers are just as susceptible to emotional reactions as anyone. Looking at your own motivations may help you see where there’s an opportunity to compromise, and likely, improve the finished product you take to readers.

Need help with your cover design? Paper Door offers a full range of publication design services, including cover design, interior design, marketing materials, and more. Contact us to see how we can help create a beautiful book that keeps your author happy.