Doing the cover design for your ebook

Doing the cover design for your ebook

Keeping it simple (or at least I will try to from now on!)

In hindsight I seem to have spent way too much time messing about with my cover designs, so I thought I may as well do a post about it here.

Basically, for each story I tried to create an image that would capture at least a part of the main theme, while also including something that would catch the eye or help a potential reader notice my books.

After a long and occasionally awkward  process (I had to ask the graphic designer to amend a few things due to the fact that I can be pretty indecisive at times), I finally narrowed the process down to this:

1. Brainstorm / doodle a few images.

2. Sketch the final choice.

3. Send it to someone who can do ‘vector graphics’ on adobe illustrator (I don’t have the patience to learn it myself!).

4. Ask for any revisions.

5. Send the .ai file to a graphic designer.

6. Make sure it is a jpeg with 1600x2400 and 72dpi, and again ask for revisions if necessary (or in my case whenever I realise I’ve made a mistake – for instance initially using Pooh instead of Poo!)

7. Upload it with your book to be published (for instance on Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords).

8. Add the image on Pinterest, Flickr, Goodreads, your facebook page and twitter feed, or wherever else you so choose.

One obvious piece of advice which some people still fail to follow is to never start the design process until the story has finished being written – as stories can evolve and the cover can become a bit of a distraction too.

To find a good, affordable designer I suggest shopping around on Fiverr to see who suits what you're looking for. You could even send the same gig to a few different sellers and whoever seems to be the most skilled and cooperative, you can then go to more exclusively in the future.

Fiverr - best for cover illustrators and designers

Fiverr is a great resource that can offer real value for money - from what I could find, anywhere else appeared rather expensive for pretty much the same service.

Here are some good ones that I've used...

Artists for the image / illustration:

Rissa88 (who turned my rubbish sketch into a cool and funny cartoon):

Cool vector graphic designs on Fiverr

Billbig (see an example of his work below):

Great Adobe Illustrator on Fiverr

Cover designer:

Fluxydesign (great style and service):

Excellent book cover designer

As an example of how I did one of my covers (in a rather around about sort of way), this is the process I followed for ‘The Poo Princess’:

My first idea for the cover

But after a designer followed my instructions, I didn't like what I'd created!

With a little help from a friend, I changed it to something a reader might recognise!

I sent it to another illustrator and this is what he did with it - much better!

The cover designer then did her thing and I was very happy with the final product!

Too bad I had to alter it yet again due to a 'Pooh versus Poo' controversy! Ah well, at least the change will be just in time for my 'Smell of Poo' children's book collection in paperback  ;-)

And here is the final version:

The final version!

If you have any design advice or recommendations of your own, feel free to share them here!