book cover design

Several years ago I published a book on “how to write, format, publish and promote your book without spending any money.” Download the book: PDF VERSION | KINDLE At a book conference recently, one of the most popular talks was on the same subject. I’ve put together tons of resources to help authors publish on the cheap, but it’s worth pointing …

I asked illustrator Jessica Warrick to help me out testing print quality between Lightning Source and Createspace for her new book, 50 Happy Things. Previously, I’ve always heard that LS has slightly better print quality, but I haven’t recommended it because it’s a pain to work with and the assumed benefits aren’t really worth it.   HOWEVER, in this side-by-side …

UPDATE: after several months of work, we just launched a brand new 3D book cover mockup tool, and it’s amazing. Go check it out! I’ve been trying to find a way for authors to make better graphics for a long time – for book covers mostly, but also for book promotion graphics and 3D mockups. I’m still trying to find …

My friend Ricardo from Reedsy just sent this awesome infographic. It covers the basics of work with a designer, but misses some of the important stuff (what is a cover that sells? What actually goes on the cover?). They address some of that in the actual article on cover design – and the main advice is “hire a professional and let them …

Today I redid some of my covers. I’ve actually gone through at least 5 covers for Shearwater (my YA mermaid romance novel), and since publishing part one I haven’t been happy with it. Even though most people like it, and it performs OK, I wanted something stronger. But people are asking me why – why switch covers? Isn’t that bad for …

I see a lot of authors asking for feedback between a few cover design choices. This always has mixed results, since people on Facebook don’t know anything about book cover design, they probably aren’t your target market, they probably aren’t ideal readers of your genre, and they aren’t designers. So what inevitably happens is, authors think, “The results are pretty …

I talk SO MUCH about book cover design, but I thought it would be easier to just see all the important stuff in one simple book cover design checklist. So before you publish (or if you see someone’s hideous cover and want to gentle encourage them to make a better one) please share and use this graphic. If you don’t …

All the designers I know who are decent at book cover design charge over $500 – but the majority of indie authors think paying $200 or so for a cover is “reasonable.” I don’t like setting a price threshold on publishing, or saying that if you publish you HAVE to pay a lot of money to do it professionally. You …

I noticed something interesting in the book store last night. I’m pretty familiar with YA books, because that’s my genre and I stalk them on Amazon. So I know which ones have hundreds of 5 star reviews and which ones have under 100 reviews and a four star average. I’d been assuming that most people buy their books online, which …

This is the cleverest book cover / marketing / design I’ve seen in a long time. Somehow it’s a moving video/gif of the book cover, with two moving balls in the maze. How amazing would it be to have the scene of your book cover be a “movie” that actually moves, where pictures could dance or swim, faces could smile. …