Collect the final cover assets
Obtain full jacket or cover spread where permitted
If the publisher allows it, get the full jacket or wraparound cover file (back, spine, flaps) for your media kit and archive.
Authors often hire help with this: design or production.
Why it matters
The spread is the complete visual record of the edition, including the back copy and endorsements that never appear in the metadata. It is useful for a media kit, for showing bookstores what will arrive, and for your own archive when the next edition changes things. It is worth considering rather than essential because the front cover alone covers most needs.
Your part
- What you do
- Ask. Someone else normally owns it. Get an answer, then record it.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author. Publisher provides where permitted; author stores
- When
- Before the media kit is completed, typically three to four months before publication (Collect the final cover assets: twelve to six months before publication, as soon as the cover is approved)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
The front cover is what most people need, but the full jacket or cover spread (back cover copy, spine, and flaps on a hardcover) is useful too: it shows the endorsements and the back copy in context, it lets a bookseller or event organizer see the finished object, and it is the most complete record of what the book looked like at publication. Some publishers share it freely; some treat it as an internal production file.
Ask once the cover is final, and ask for the print-ready spread as delivered to the printer. At a trade publisher the answer may be no, which is normal and not worth pressing, since the front cover is what matters for promotion. Where the spread is your deliverable, on a hybrid contract or from your own designer, make sure the file you have is the one that went to the printer: spine width often changes late, when the page count is final.
Store it with the front cover files and note in the Book Identity Sheet whether external use is permitted.
Common mistakes
- Keeping a spread with a spine width from before the final page count.
- Posting the full spread publicly when the publisher asked that only the front cover be used.
- Confusing the hardcover jacket with the paperback cover, which usually differ.
- Pressing for a file the publisher treats as internal, when the front cover would do.
What done looks like
- The full jacket or cover spread as a print-ready PDF, matching the version sent to the printer.
- A web-sized flattened image of the spread for the media kit if permitted.
- A note of whether the publisher permits external use, and any restrictions.
- Stored with the front cover files and named with the title, format, and version date.
Ask your publisher
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Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
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- How confident we are
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