How to reveal your book cover

In this post I want to talk about how to reveal your book cover. A cover reveal is the moment you officially reveal your book cover online. There are plenty of different ways to do a cover reveal that I want to discuss in this post. You can make this as hassle free or simple as you like or make it a bigger event. In this post I want to explain different aspects that can be part of your cover reveal, so you can decide how you want to reveal your book cover.

Things you can include in your cover reveal

Now let’s look at the aspects you can include as part of your cover reveal.

• Post on your own social media, blog or newsletter. I think this one is essential for a cover reveal. Simply post it wherever you can on your social media accounts, blog and/ or your newsletter. This way you can make sure your fans hear about your upcoming book and can check out the cover.
• Include a call to action (pre-order or Goodreads link). This is a good way to make your cover reveal even more effective. When posting your cover try to have ideally a pre-order link or Goodreads link for the book. This way people who are interested in the book can take action immediately. Another option is to provide a link to where they can sign up for your newsletter. You want to make sure they don’t forget about your book, so giving them the option to either pre-order your book (or wishlist it) on a vendor site, add the book to goodreads or encourage them to sign up for your newsletter increases the chance they will actually buy the book or be aware when your book is available.
• Hire a PR or blog tour company. One way to add more to your reveal beyond the basics is to hire a PR company or blog tour company to organize a cover reveal for your book. These companies often have a lot of contacts and can reach more people (bookbloggers, bookstagrammers and those with social media accounts) who can then share your cover. This ofcourse does cost money. The benefit of this is that you can get more visibility for your cover and book with multiple other people posting about your cover as well.
• Ask your followers/fan to share your cover. A cheaper way to get others to post about your cover as well is to ask your followers and/ or fans for help. This can be as easy as asking them to share it on social media on reveal day. Or you can set up a form they can fill out with their details and then send them the materials for the reveal a few days before the actual reveal, so they can post on reveal day.
• Run a giveaway. Another thing you can add to your cover reveal is a giveaway. You can also combine this with the previous option and use the giveaway as a way to encourage people to share your cover on social media. This can also help getting people to add your book to Goodreads for example. Or put the focus on whichever goal you want with the giveaway. Many giveaway programs exist and they often have options to add different entries by which people get points and a higher chance to win. Or you can randomly pick one of the people who shares your social media post to win the giveaway.
• Post in Facebook groups that fit your genre. Another thing you can do on your cover reveal date is post your cover and/ or call to action link in Facebook groups about your genre. There are many Facebook groups that allow this type of promotion posts, it varies from group to group so make sure to read their rules first. This can be a great way to reach a bigger audience.
• Run a discounted pre-order. Combining your cover reveal with a pre-order announcement is a good way to encourage pre-orders and/ or people adding the book to their wishlist. Another way you can enhance this is by doing a discounted pre-order. This is especially handy if you want to encourage people to pre-order versus waiting till release day to buy it.

Why do a cover reveal?

So why would you do a cover reveal for your book? Personally I think cover reveals are just plain fun. Besides that cover reveals can help build excitement for the book, as well as encourage pre-orders. It all depends on your aim and goals for a book ofcourse, if you’re planning a surprise release a cover reveal won’t fit into it that strategy well. If you’re doing a pre-order anyway I think doing a cover reveal to show off the cover as well as encourage people to pre-order is a great way to create excitement for your upcoming book. In general I think cover reveals are optional and whether to do one depends on your overall strategy and whether it fits with that. You can just skip a cover reveal and don’t announce the cover at all and just show it once the book is live. In other cases I think making a bit of an event of your cover reveal can be fun as well as effective.

How far in advance should you do a cover reveal?

Again the answer is: it depends on your overall strategy. I usually think doing a cover reveal when you put the pre-order live or shortly before that is a good idea. So that depends on when you’re putting your pre-order live. I’ve seen authors who did successful long pre-orders from months or even a year long and also those who do very short pre-orders of only days or weeks. You can also do the cover reveal as soon as the cover is done as an announcement type thing where you announce the book, title and show the cover. In general I would advice to do a cover reveal about a month or two in advance and at the shortest a week or two in advance.

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