What to Do if Your Book Cover Sucks

By Karen Amanda Hooper, @Karen_Hooper

Part of The Indie Authors Series

JH: A terrible book cover can not only break an author's heart, but hurt the sales of that book. While traditionally published authors have little say (usually) in what their covers look like, indie authors have full control--but that doesn't mean they always get it right, either. Please help me welcome Karen Hooper to the lecture hall today, to share her experience with redesigning her covers and why.

An Amazon bestselling author, Karen Amanda Hooper writes magical romances for all ages. Her books range from the sea to the stars and beyond, including: The Kindrily series (YA paranormal), The Sea Monster Memoirs (YA fantasy), and Virtual Arcana (YA science-fiction).

Karen was born and bred in Baltimore, frolicked and froze in Colorado for a couple years, and is currently sunning and splashing around Florida with her beloved rescued bulldog. She's addicted to coffee, chocolate, and complicated happily-ever-afters.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads |

Take it away Karen...

3 Things to Consider When Designing Your Novel's Cover

By Ray Flynt

Part of the Indie Author Series

Cover design needs to hit some specific targets to catch a reader's eye.

Have you made your New Year’s Resolution yet? I gave up on the usual “lose weight” resolution about 35 pounds ago. I hope you’re planning on sharpening skills on the business side of being an indie author. Columns in Fiction University’s Indie Author Series are designed to share best practices and stimulate your thinking on HOW you can do just that.

As you read, please consider topics for Indie Author’s that you’d like to see covered in the coming year. Share them in the comments section below.

Last month, we discussed book covers. This month, let's look at three things to consider when designing your novel's cover.

5 Tips to Improve Your Next Novel Cover

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series

One of the things I’ve been working on recently is getting my cover-making work started up. I’ve been making covers for myself since 2011, but only recently started looking at it as a sideline, and thus have been honing my Photoshop skills and trying to practice every day. Not unexpectedly, this has been an eye-opening experience for me, not only as to the limits of the PS program, but also how the parameters I’m given make the possibilities for covers better or worse.

So my cover artist self has some tips to pass on to my writer self that will help make my next cover better.

Tip #1: Short words are better for titles

You CAN Judge a Book by Its Cover

By Ray Flynt

Part of the Indie Author Series

As difficult as it is to write a book, choosing an indie author path requires attending to so many more aspects of the entire publishing experience. Among the most important is creating a book’s cover.

First, I want to recommend a post by J. Kathleen Cheney from this Indie Author’s Series back in February. She addresses various cover design resources.

A few of my thoughts might overlap, but that’s okay since it never hurts to reinforce good ideas.

We caution against clichés in fiction writing, but in forums like this one, their use can be a shorthand way of making a point. You’ve heard the expression: You can’t judge a book by its cover. True, somewhat. But a cover provides a prospective reader with a sense of what the book might be about. It sets a mood. It reflects your degree of professionalism.

3 Ways to Get Book Covers on a Shoestring Budget

By J. Kathleen Cheney, @jkcheney

Part of the Indie Authors Series 

JH: Another new indie author is joining the faculty this month! Please help me welcome J. Kathleen Cheney, who'll share her tips and thoughts on indie publishing this week every other month.

J. Kathleen Cheney taught mathematics ranging from 7th grade to Calculus but gave it all up for a chance to write stories. Her novella “Iron Shoes” was a 2010 Nebula Award Finalist. Her novel, The Golden City was a Finalist for the 2014 Locus Awards (Best First Novel). Dreaming Death (Feb 2016) is the first in a new world, with the books of The Horn coming out in 2017, and the sequels to Dreaming Death in 2018

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | Tumblr |

Take it away JK...

Cover Design on a Budget

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy
 
Part of the Indie Author Series

You don't have to spend a lot of money on a great book cover.

A while back I wrote a post on How to Save Money on Editing Your Book. Since I’ve been covering How to Find and Select a Cover Designer and 7 Tips to Make the Most of Working with a Cover Designer, I wanted to make sure I also talked about cover design on a budget before I ended my mini-series on cover design.

One of the biggest challenges we face as indie authors is financing our books, especially when we’re starting out. Yet we’re told not to scrimp on editing and cover design (which is excellent advice).

7 Tips to Make the Most of Working with a Cover Designer

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy
 
Part of the Indie Author Series

Work with your designer to get the best cover for you novel.

Last month, I talked about how to find the right cover designer for our project. Unfortunately, once we’ve selected our cover designer, it doesn’t mean everything will move forward smoothly or well, even if our cover designer is both talented and professional.

Why? Well, a business relationship is still a relationship. That means a large part of the success of the relationship depends on communication. We need to clearly communicate our needs and desires to our cover designer.

So this month I’m sharing my top seven tips for making the most of working with a cover designer.

How to Find and Select a Cover Designer

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy
 
Part of the Indie Author Series

Readers do judge a book by its cover, so make sure yours looks professional.  

Making sure my books had covers that would attract readers rather than turn them away has been one of the scariest parts of independent publishing for me. Readers do judge books by their covers. An ugly or unprofessional cover can make a reader pass on our book regardless of how great our content is.

Most of us are writers, not artists or graphic designers. We can’t design our own covers. (Or, at least, most of us shouldn’t.) So how do we find a cover designer who can create the perfect cover for our books—one that’s visually appealing and also accurately represents the content inside?

10 Tips for Shooting Your Own Cover Photo

By Julie Musil, @juliemusil

Part of the Indie Author Series

When Jeff Fielder created my cover for The Boy Who Loved Fire, he used stock images. When it came time to design the cover for my next release, The Summer of Crossing Lines, we hit a roadblock.

My protagonist infiltrates a theft ring and crosses moral lines. I envisioned a teen boy and girl...plus police tape. Try searching for that on stock photo sites, and you’ll see some strange images. Seriously. None of it worked for me. While my designer explored other options, I worked to create the image I saw in my head.

Finding and Working With a Cover Designer

By Jordan McCollum, @JordanMcCollum

Part of the Indie Authors Series

They say you can't judge a book by its cover. But they're wrong. A cover's there for readers to judge the book—it's a major factor in sales—so getting your cover right is extra important in the competitive market today.

Professional cover design is a major quality indicator for ebook readers. A poor quality cover that looks homemade often makes readers think the interior of the book is similarly unprofessional.

Finding a Cover Designer

 
As with editors, finding great covers and asking who designed them is the best place to start. Often cover designers are credited on the copyright page of a book, so be sure to check there if you love the cover.