Book Cover Artwork Specifications
How to calculate book spine thickness and create a book cover.
You’ve written your Magnum opus and spent hours editing and rewriting. You’ve shown numerous drafts to friends and family and they’ve all given it the big thumbs up. You are finally ready to have your book printed. There is just one thing left to do... the cover.
It's worth remembering that often people really do judge a book by its cover, so it's worth spending a bit of extra time to ensure you get it right.
So how can you be sure your cover will do your book justice? Rest assured - ASK Print has all the tools and advice at hand to help.
Firstly find out your book spine width. Simply put your book specifications into our easy to use ‘Book Spine Thickness Calculator’ on the right and find out the final width of your hardback or softback book spine.
Hardback Book Covers
The diagram below will help to identify the separate components of a hardback book cover.
Artwork for your hardback book cover needs to be larger than for a softback book because the cover image needs to be able to wrap around the edges of the greyboard card used to create the hard covers and spine.
With that in mind we require 5mm to be added to the width and height of the front and back cover. This will allow for artwork to be wrapped around the actual edge of the book cover. There also needs to be a 15mm bleed margin (see the above diagram) added to both the width and height of the cover. Once the book has been created this area will be on the inside covers of the book and will be covered by the internal end papers.
The following examples should be helpful, though if you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us.
Need to know paper sizes?
Book example: 152 page A4 hardback book printed on 100gsm paper
Hardback Book Front Cover
Width: 210mm + 5mm = 215mm
Height: 297mm + 5mm = 302mm
(+15mm on outside, top and bottom edges for image bleed)
Hardback Book Back Cover
Width: 210mm + 5mm = 215mm
Height: 297mm + 5mm = 302mm
(+15mm on outside, top and bottom edges for image bleed)
Hardback Book Spine Thickness
Artwork Width = 13.6mm (See Spine Thickness Calculator)
Artwork Height: 297mm + 5mm = 302mm
Download as a PDF
Softback Book Covers
As the cover doesn't wrap around a softback book the only addition needed is a 3mm bleed around the edge of the combined covers and spine.
