Everybody knows a cover can make or break your book, which is pretty sad considering the amount of love you’ve put into your story or information. But it’s a fact, and we live with it. So. What’s a wordsmith to do?
I read a recent post that said there were only 2 ways to choose a book cover, but really, there are more than that.
Here are 5 ways to choose a book cover:
DIY Cover – PowerPoint
My friend, prolific author Nancy Moser, creates her own covers in PowerPoint. Who knew that was a thing? Rather than try to explain how she does that in this small space, please go to her tutorial for creating book covers in PowerPoint here.
DIY Cover – PhotoShop
My poor kid. After my previous publisher produced three nice, but totally disconnected covers for my Otter Bay Novels, I decided, once rights were reverted to me, to have them redone. Only I didn’t want to spend a lot of money in case they didn’t sell (wah-wah). Enter young adult son.
First, I went to my depositphotos.com account and saved a bunch of photos of happy couples. Then, I gave said young adult kid my password and said, “Pick three.” Long suffering son did and created three cohesive covers. You can see the new Otter Bay Novel covers here.
In other words, readers can see at a glance that the books are connected–yay! (And happy note: multiple thousands of copies of the Otter Bay Novels have sold since changing those covers!) Why the original publisher never did this I will never know. But as an indie, YOU have complete control over this!
DIY Cover – Kindle Create
I’ve never created a cover from scratch using Kindle Create–a fairly new process that’s available in your KDP Dashboard–but I have used this process to create a back cover for one of my books. Here’s what I did: I uploaded the eBook-only cover and simply added a back cover and spine using Kindle Create’s template.
If you don’t have a front cover or stock photo, you can use one that Amazon provides. One friend said that her biggest issue with Kindle Create was the lack of professional-looking fonts. Still, she was thrilled to have an easy, free program to use to start her indie career. (She has since made some $$ and purchased new covers–win-win!)
Pre-made Cover
There are TONS of pre-made covers out there. Just Google them. These are designers who typically create custom designs, but who also offer low-cost pre-made covers that simply need a title and name added to the front (included in the price). I bought a pre-made cover for a novella I wrote years ago while working a job I hated (LOL) and it still works.
Hire a designer
Except for a few times when I’ve asked my kids to help me with covers (see the Otter Bay Novels by my son, and the Cottage Grove mysteries covers designed by my eldest daughter), I’ve hired RoseannaWhiteDesigns.com to design book covers for me. She’s phenomenal and patient (definitely a plus). She has designed my Sea Glass Inn Novels, as well as a few of my chocolate series books. She’s also an amazing writer of historical fiction.
You might also want to check out this post with 5 tips for choosing a cover design by my friend and Pulitzer-prize nominated author, Sibella Giorello. She, too, hires a designer for her covers, but in her case, it took a few tries to get it right! She highly recommends derangeddoctordesign.com for cover design, but she shares a few tips on her post too.
See? It’s not that hard! Don’t be limited! There truly are more than two ways to choose a book cover.
Hope this info has helped you. For more help publishing your book to Amazon, grab my free pdf guide here: