I may have a problem. I really really enjoyed designing my book cover. I reached a point where I started making fake book covers because they make it so so easy to create on Canva.
Here’s my fake book:
Someday, I may have to write this book, because I have the book cover. I have a title and tagline. I mean, that’s sometimes the hardest part. I don’t recommend writing books this way, but I’m tempted. Very tempted.
I love using Canva for design ideas. It’s very simple to get started and you have so many templates to start from.
First, select what are you designing? For instance, an ebook cover. Then pick your layout. Pick a new background photo. Change the Title. Add your author name. Put in your tagline. Boom. It’s a book cover.
Okay, so maybe it doesn’t happen that quickly.
For my first book, I spent a long time experimenting before I came up with this final design. How did I go about it?
Final design for Book 1 Fairy Doctor Falls in Love
Program used to design: Inkscape
Font: Playfair and AlternateGothic2 BT
Image source: Shutterstock
Version number 12
Step 0 Marketing
In one of his videos from AtoZ Self publishing advice, Ian Rob Wright suggests that “cover art should ask questions and not give answers”.
I love this, it’s like advice for writing, only applied to design. You show don’t tell, but from a slightly different perspective, from a marketing one.
Who are your readers?
Who’s attention are you trying to capture?
Before you start designing, please consider your book and who is going to buy it. What is your genre? What is the mood? Fun? Dark? Does the book have a mascot? Animals? Is there symbolism you can use? A bell? A song? Music? What is your story about?
Knowing the answers to these will help you in your designing and research.
Step 1 Ideas and Study
Book covers are fascinating. I’m planning to study more about them. I’ll research design from the early 1900s and on through the decades, focusing mostly on fantasy fiction. But that’s a project for later.
Know your Genre. Do your research
I researched by looking at books on Amazon, their recommended Romance and Fantasy books. I also went to my local bookstore and browsed for books in my genre. I made notes. Romance books tend to feature the man or the woman on the cover in a provocative pose. The urban fantasy and paranormal books are similar but will often feature a fantasy element like wolves or red eyes. That’s how you know it’s a werewolf book, or a vampire book. However, these book are the darker side of the genre. There are also stories on the opposite pendulum, with a comedic and light tone.
My Fairy Doctor books are on the light side. There are jokes and silly things happen all the time.
These kinds of books have bright colors, bright illustrations, usually of the female main character in a stylized artwork. I searched for illustrations, but never found anything I liked. I couldn’t get myself to draw anything. Instead I found a model and a photograph with bright colors. That’s perfect.
Where can you find free images online? I have a post about that. Or you can search for artwork at a royalty-free stock photo sites like: Shutterstock, or Istockphoto, etc. It is also a good idea to use Google’s reverse image search so you can know if your artwork was used for another book or project.
Since I was making my book into a trilogy, I wanted to have the same style for all three books. Either the same model, or something to tie them all together. Theoretically, I could have put my main character Lillia on Book 1, then picked the love interest Marquez for Book 2 and my villain, the Baron for book 3. But instead I found Shutterstock allows you to view photographs with the same model. The one I picked has the perfect option for Book 2 and a couple of other options for Book 3.
Once you have your artwork or photograph, you can begin designing.
Step 2 Design process
Typography is an Art form
Design and typography are intriguingly connected. It’s so complicated to talk about font families and font types and font faces and the lingo gets very technical. I won’t go into that because it makes my head spin, but I can appreciate a good font when I see one.
For the font, I wanted something playful and fun. I also I wanted to drop a fairy into the title. At first I picked a handwriting font, like a Doctor’s scribble.
Logo 1
Logo 1.5
I did something similar with Logo 2, just a different font, and the same kind of fairy as the first logo.
Is it a fairy, or is it a bird?
Which do you see?
Early drafts
Before I found my model, I tried to use some landscape photos I took when I visited Singapore. I experimented with a day setting, a night setting and then a stylized poster. None of these worked, and for a while my favorite was one with a black background with neon green text.
I digitized a photo of the supertrees, which are a key setting featured in my story. They have a party on top of one of the supertrees.
I experimented with big over-sized text, and barely any photograph.
The problem with all these early drafts is I created these before I did my research. None of them fit my book’s genre or expressed the mood of the story.
Once I found my artwork I finished the design. The artwork made everything work. I put my girl on the left side, and my text on the right big and bold and easy to read.
On a Side Note: Canva vs Adobe Spark vs Inkscape
I started using Inkscape for the first few covers.
Inkscape is a free open source software that allows you to design logos and basic layout. It’s similar to Adobe Illustrator. It’s wonderful.
Then I discovered Canva. I love Canva, but I had reservations about using it for my final design, especially after watching a YouTube video about why not to use Canva. The biggest drawback for me is the fact you don’t have access to the original design files. Everything is on-line. What happens when I want to make a print cover?
I like Canva because it’s simple and fairly easy. But I use it more to brainstorm or look at layouts and design ideas. I didn’t use it for my final layout.
Adobe Spark is very similar to Canva, and I enjoyed the layout and the design templates available. I had a problem saving my project though, and the website crashed, so I never went back. Perhaps it will work better for you, but that’s a deal breaker for me.
Final Step
After you design it. Show it off.
After I made version 12, I knew I needed some opinions, or an extra set of eyes to know if I was headed in the right direction.
I got opinions from my sisters. One suggested to keep the font in black because that stood out the most. The other told me I shouldn’t feather the white shadow behind my title, but just leave a white outline. They’re very smart girls, my sisters, and I trust their eye for design.
Eventually I had to tell myself. It’s done. You got your cover design. Stop fiddling with it and get back to editing your book so you can sell it.
Next up, the print cover. What am I going to do about my back side and the spine? Oh, I’m a little excited.