If you’re a book cover designer or indie author designing your own book cover, you may need to make a barcode from your ISBN. Here’s a free and simple online tool you can use to generate high-resolution, print ready barcodes for your book cover.   I’ve moved the tool to my main cover design website, you can use it here: …

Today I saw that Hugh Howey had posted an article on book cover design. “That’s cool,” I think. Hugh Howey is one of the most successful self-publishing authors in the world. He started out with pretty unprofessional book covers that embody the design tastes of most indie authors (they focus on scenes and symbolism and details, instead of being simple …

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 …

I’ve been designing covers for a few years, and I often have to confront cover design myths perpetuated by indie-publishing gurus and thought leaders. There’s a lot of advice out there for indie authors, and some of it is contradictory, which has the unfortunate effect of allowing indie authors to accept the advice they like and agree with, and ignore …

Tari Akpodiete made this awesome chart of cover design resources.  Click the image to view the PDF in Dropbox, then zoom in to see all the links and content.   Follow Tari on Twitter SELL MORE BOOKS (without spam). I wrote a free book with all my best book launch and marketing tips - if your book isn't selling and …

I started this series of videos from a quick list of 7 book cover design tips for indie authors. That’s a 40 minute video you can watch if you want. But I lost my list and tried listening, and only found six. 1. title font = genre. 2. colors = mood 3. setting = place and time 4. humanizing element …

I haven’t talked specifically about cover design in awhile, and I usually ignore those raging Facebook diatribes where everybody has loud opinions and gives bad advice, but I got involved in one tonight that is important enough to share. The reason authors get their covers wrong is not just an educational gap. They’ve never designed a cover before, or studies design …

Today I saw this post about Richard Prince taking other people’s Instagram photos without permission or warning and selling them in a New York art gallery for $90,000 each. It’s not his first offence: he’s previously taken photos from magazines or from other photographers and changed them just a little bit (like cutting out and swapping them figures). He’s been …

Indie publishers are slowly coming to realize the importance of an amazing book cover. Since many self-publishing authors are starting out on a very small budget however, homemade, DIY book covers are still a popular choice. But be forewarned: although book cover designs come in a wide variety, publishers consistently use reliable, time-tested techniques and guidelines to catch your attention …

I recently gave this blog a facelift, and since I’ll be publishing four books this year under the umbrella of my personal brand Creativindie, I needed a logo for my book covers. I hadn’t worried about this for the ebooks, but I’m getting organized and putting out some high quality paperbacks as well. Most books have a small publishing imprint …