Each axis lists exactly the genres it was coded on — coverage varies by axis, and the row list is the coverage. So a claim about romance can be checked against thriller instead of taken on faith.
“Among the genres coded on this axis, cookbooks are the outlier: light grounds where thriller, fantasy and romance go dark.”
“Cookbooks lead with a photograph; the fiction and poetry samples coded here do not.”
“Thriller and romance put the title ahead of the image; the poetry sample splits evenly.”
“The most widely shared convention on this index: a single focal element leads every genre coded on this axis except cookbook, where it is a plurality rather than a majority.”
“Romance and children go serif; thriller inverts the rule with heavy condensed sans / slab.”
“Warmth signals dominate this axis — metallic accents on fantasy, saturated palettes on children.”
Every stat below traces back to one genre's own coded sample, named in that block's masthead — jump to any genre's landing page or blog write-up from the links at the end of this page.
Direct visual inspection of current category bestseller lists, coded by hand against a fixed set of axes. Observational, not causal — these are patterns on the shelf, not evidence that any pattern causes sales.
Evan Kane is the founder of MakeMyBookCover and runs the cover-archetype research behind the product — coding category bestseller lists by hand for every genre in the Bestseller Cover Visual DNA Index, and re-coding them as the lists move, to keep the genre-signal models honest.
Every number on this page is reference-first — link to it, quote it, or check it against your own shelf. For the full write-up and worked examples per genre:
These figures are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Reuse them anywhere, including commercially, with attribution to MakeMyBookCover and a link back to this page.