When it comes to online marketing, the design and content of physical book covers must be adapted for a digital audience.

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, the buying, selling, and marketing of books are happening on online markets. Because of this, book covers are less often seen on shelves and more often seen as digital thumbnails on websites. This presents a problem because digital thumbnails are unable to fully represent physical book covers—they may lack blurbs, reviews, and book descriptions. Publishers can utilize the digital tools at their disposal to fully transform physical book covers in ways that optimize reader connection and improve a book’s success in the digital market.

THE RESEARCH

In 2019, Sophie Darling analyzed how we can best transform book covers into digital formats in her research article, “How Are Book Covers and Their Components Represented in the Digital Market?” Darling conducted one case study and two in-depth interviews to learn about the current process of digitizing and reorganizing physical covers for online markets. 

Interviews

The interviews were conducted with experienced, professional book designers; their responses indicate that cover design has shifted toward using a single design for both print and digital books. This single design utilizes stronger colors, higher saturation, and more legible text to help the small thumbnails stand out. Darling points out that because digital formats are limited to a front cover only, blurbs, reviews, and other data that are usually found on the back of physical covers must be optimized and relocated for the digital form of the book.

Case Study

To learn about what and how to optimize and relocate that data in the digital form, Darling completed a case study analyzing the popularity of “Blind Date with a Book,” a concept which began at a bookstore in Australia that uses only keywords to advertise and sell books, hiding the covers with brown paper wrapping. 

This case study indicates that even without the visual cover, books continued to sell by using only keywords. Darling notes that as a consequence, in digital spaces we might need to rethink our conception of what a book cover is: “The digital book cover is not found in the single thumbnail. Instead, it is the entire webpage of enhanced metadata” (31). This metadata takes the form of words or phrases that a reader might search online, and can be drawn from the text that “would appear on the back cover of a physical book” (52). She then explained that metadata can be enhanced by including author bios, text excerpts, and media reviews, which can further contribute to the successful sales of books.

Rather than a single cover which comprises all of the necessary information for successful marketing and selling, the elements of the ‘cover’ in the digital market are not limited to one space. Instead, the front cover is transformed into a thumbnail to capture the consumer’s attention. This is then supported by important metadata, which would appear on the back cover of a physical book.

Sophie Darling (2019)

THE IMPLICATIONS

Book covers continue to evolve as they are transformed and optimized for the digital market. Darling’s research demonstrates that the successful transformation of a book cover from a physical to a digital format requires intentional design and content reorganization.

These processes produce useful digital thumbnails and quality metadata that work together to support online bookselling. In the digital space, consumers use keywords in their searches, so keyword-rich content—given through metadata—is vital for connecting readers with their desired content.

In summary, in order to facilitate successful digital book sales, publishers can do three things: (1) select cover designs that work as both physical covers and digital thumbnails, (2) reenvision digital book covers as visual thumbnails with back-cover copy as supporting metadata, and (3) ensure that the metadata is thorough and enhanced to highlight the book and improves its online discoverability. 

To learn more about the process of digitizing book covers to optimize online sales, read the full article:

Darling, Sophie. 2019. “How Are Book Covers and Their Components Represented in the Digital Market?” Interscript Journal 2(1): 20–35. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.2398-4732.004. 

—Katelyn Uibel, Editing Research

FEATURE IMAGE BY GERALT

Find more research

Look into David Walter’s (2016) research article “Nielsen Book UK Study: The Importance of Metadata for Discoverability and Sales” to learn more about how metadata inclusion affects book sales.

Read Mckenna Tolman’s (2025) Editing Research article, “Standing Out on the Shelf: Helping Book Buyers Find the Right Books” to learn more about important book features.