Cover Design

carnelian door FRONT cover

make room for blissFlaky's Big Dream

KATIE KREIG FRONT COVER

9781944887087-Perfect cover.indd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our partners design covers for a variety of genres, including cookbooks, business books, memoirs, children’s books, and novels from sci-fi to romance. Whether your novel needs to make a bold statement or your children’s book needs to entertain, our designers will create a custom book cover that you will be proud of.

You want your cover to stand out in the crowd but there is credibility in knowing what crowd you’re part of. Think about where your book would be if it was on the shelf at your local independent book store. To see cover designs for specific genres, look for fiction by Steven King, Anne Dillard, Nora Roberts, or anything published by Harlequin. Then look for non-fiction by Mary Oliver, Malcom Gladwell or Wayne Dyer. Watch for artistic commonality. Whether you do your research online or in a bookstore, you’ll notice the following:

– Romance novels—expect skin, cleavage, bare chested men and lots of drama
– Thrillers—watch for strong fonts, strong images, primary colors and lots of action
– Historical novels—you’ll probably see a male or female character in period costume against a landscape background
– Biographies—probably an image of the subject on the cover, if the subject is well known. This is also true for non-fiction/Self-Help books written by well known experts
– Business books—look for bold faced type, clean, relevant images and reviews from people in the field to give credibility to the content
– Nonfiction books—typically more text on the covers
– How-to books—even more text

Without naming names, some of the fee-based self-publishing or vanity press houses are famous for offering inexpensive cover designs. Problem is, they offer just one design option for the cheaper price and don’t consider the author’s input. You might find that the images aren’t appropriate and there’s nothing you can do. For example one author found an air force plane on his cover but the book was about a navy pilot. Another author found a 9mm glock on his cover but the gun in the story was a western revolver. There was nothing they could do without paying a huge surcharge to make changes to the “inexpensive” cover.

BE SURE you own your cover design. We’ve run into many authors who pay for a cover only to find they don’t really own it and can’t make changes or reprint the book.

whole world drumming_final.inddhow to become a published FRONT COVER