Self-Publishing: Judge Me By My Cover, Do You?

We've all heard that old idiom. You know the one. The fact is that books are judged by their covers, and now, with bookselling happening online, books are judged by thumbnail-sized digital images representing what may or may not be an actual cover. 

You need a great cover. You can't just skate by on your superior writing skills. No one is going to click on your link if your cover doesn't catch their attention. Ideally, you'll hire a professional cover designer. (Might I suggest my friend Kelsey and her company?) But what if you can't afford them? What if you decide to DIY your book cover? I have some tips for you. 

Look at covers for similar books. 

Go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and check out the top ten best-selling books in whatever genre your book is. Look at the book covers as thumbnails and as full-size images. What do you like? What grabs you? What don't you like? I recently spent some time on Harlequin's website looking at Blaze book covers, since the story I'm currently working on has the same sort of feel as those books. You can do the same at other publishers' websites.

Read graphic design and book cover review blogs. 

If you're not visually inclined, reading graphic design blogs can be daunting. Those wacky artists talk about all sorts of things I don't really understand. Read them anyway. It's the same as any other research; Google any terms you don't understand. You will eventually absorb some information and figure out how to use what you learn. As for book cover review blogs, I like Your Cover Uncovered, even though it's relatively new. 

How-to guides on graphic design are good for you.

Read about things like how color affects people and which fonts are a bad idea. Watch things like how to design a book cover. I'm not saying be a copycat. I'm saying learn something. 

Download free photo editing software.

I use Photoscape. It's not as sophisticated as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, but it's pretty good. I've heard good things about Picasa, too. (My father is a photographer and he uses Picasa when he's away from Photoshop.) After you download it, play with it. A lot. Watch tutorials. Share what you create with people who will give you their opinions, and listen to those opinions. Get better.

Use royalty-free images.

Back when I was designing the cover for Cass, I Googled "free royalty free images." (I ended up creating the neon heart shape on my own. Please don't ask me how, it was a fluke and I doubt I could ever recreate it.) I ended up finding Dreamstime, a website with an enormous free stock image library. Their prices are reasonable ($10 per image seems to be industry standard); I may actually end up buying an image for the next book cover. Just be sure you read the terms of service. At Dreamstime, you can use free images for up to 10,000 sales, and paid images for 500,000 sales; online use is unlimited. Don't forget to give credit where credit is due on your copyright page.