What is Cover Design?
Cover design or Book Cover design is the MOST essential marketing tool for all authors.
Do you pick up a book at the store based off its cover? Most readers will answer, yes. Some prefer reading the blurb first. Some want to check the Amazon reviews before buying.
Personally, it’s the book cover that attracts me first.
The colours… the placement of the various elements… the character design or other artwork… how the title fits in with it all and also resonates with the theme of the book… all these things are very important for me.
If it’s my favourite genre, I won’t bother to read the blurb. But that’s just me.
An ideal book cover –
- speaks to the target reader from a sea of books in the same genre.
- aligns the title and author name in an attractive but readable manner that showcases the theme of the book.
- can be adapted for all book formats, i.e., paperback, ebook, hardcover, audiobook.
Why do authors need a Cover Designer?
Let’s think about it. We’re authors / writers. We love writing.
We visualise stories. We write the first draft, edit it, rewrite it, edit it again, rewrite some more, send it to a professional editor, get it through final proofreading and finally get it ready for publishing after months of toil.
Check out Devon’s The Editing Process on Substack for more info.
At this point, we want a fantastic book cover that does justice to the story. But how many of us actually know or understand the elements of design?
I have many years of experience in the VFX and graphic design industry. Yet, I find it difficult to create a book cover that would stand out in a book store or online.
Getting a professional Cover Designer to bring your story to life through your book cover is the worth every penny, and also leaves you more time to keep writing.
Finding a Cover Designer
A professional Cover designer knows what your book needs on the cover.
They can –
- create the artwork that is visually appealing as well as aligned to your book’s theme.
- understand how font aligns with design elements and speaks to the target reader.
- make your book cover up to industry standards for every book format.
- also format your book in uniformity with the cover design.
- also adapt the artwork for other digital marketing areas such as website and social media.
Selecting the right Cover Designer is a challenge, too. Main points to keep in mind are your book’s theme or core concept, what is popular in your book’s genre, your budget and deadline (if any).
Where do you find Cover Designers? The internet has many sites where you can search for such artists.
Fiver or Upwork is the most used site. Reedsy Marketplace is a good resource, too. Facebook has many design groups where you can post a call for cover designers.
Devon Gambrell will write a post soon about the do’s and don’t of Finding a Cover Designer. Watch this space.
The All Call Indie database lists professional Cover Designers who can bring your story to life for a fee.
Book Cover Makers Online
While you don’t really need to design your own book cover, there are a lot of book cover maker websites that allow you to do so.
Cover Creator is a tool within Amazon KDP Publishing that helps you create your own book cover for all book formats, and also allows you to format the interior of your book.
Pros: It’s free, quick and easy to use and publishes directly to Amazon.
Cons: Images in the internal gallery are limited and reused by several users. You can upload your own image, but you still need a cover designer to help you create a custom image and format it for uploading to KDP.
Canva is a great tool for creating free book covers and other digital content for social media. I use it regularly to create marketing material for my book. I’ve also used it to create book covers for my Princess Amodini series.
Pros: It’s free, fast and much easier than Cover Creator. Quality of the graphics is also much better. Allows you to adapt your book cover design to other formats for social media, i.e, mock-ups and banners.
Cons: The free version has limited access to their graphics and photos. So, either one must scroll through it for a long time to find a good background photo that resonantes with the book’s theme, or sign up for the premium version and get access to their full gallery. However, like in Cover Creator, you can upload your own image, but you still need a cover designer to help you create custom artwork for your book.
Adobe Xpress, Freepik, Placeit, and Postermywall are other websites like Canva, which you can use to create free book covers.
The catch is that you still need a cover designer to create the artwork that best represents your book. Plus, with the advent of AI, most of these websites are flooded with AI images and you need to be very careful before selecting a free image. Websites like Amazon restrict the use of AI images on book covers when publishing.
So, I always recommend working with a Cover Designer instead.
What does a Cover Designer not do?
A Cover Designer will NOT –
- professionally edit your manuscript
- proofread your manuscript
- offer manuscript critique
- offer constructive feedback on your story (that’s what critique partners and editors are for)
Professional editors, proofreaders and beta-readers make up separate parts of your editing process.
To learn more
Check out for the following blog posts on All Call Indie.
- The Editing Process
- Critique Partners: A Beginner’s Guide
- Beta-Reading: Yes or No?
- How to Budget your Book Launch
Coming soon.
- Proofreading: A Beginner’s Guide
- Do’s & Don’ts of Finding an Editor
Disclaimer: All Call Indie does not charge any kind of fees for connecting authors to freelancers or any commission from freelancers for their services. It is only a database for authors to refer. All discussion related to services should be kept confidential between the author and the freelancer.
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