Blog Classic

  Thriller, mystery and suspense covers have subtle differences that are important to get right. Even a poorly designed cover can work as long as it’s obviously communicating the genre, but having a beautiful, powerful cover works even better. Here are some of my favorites. [...]

This is a real quick post on getting more book reviews, biggest it’s one of the biggest obstacles to publishing success – especially since Amazon has started deleting hundreds of reviews from friends or family. It’s tempting to give up and throw in the towel, but you NEED at [...]

Many writers get stuck in the “idea” phase – they have too many stories to chase and constantly jot down scenes and characters, but have trouble writing a WHOLE book. I had that problem too, which is why I changed my goal: instead of trying to finish a novel, I tried to write [...]

Publishing a book is all about book design. All you really need to publish is a formatted book that’s professionally laid out for print, with smart font choices that match your genre or subject. Then you can convert your manuscript in ebook formats (epub and mobi) – I even have [...]

After designing over a thousand book covers (and earning about a quarter of a million bucks from my design business) I decided I’d rather write full-time than design covers for a living. But, since I’m deeply committed to helping indie authors and pretty established in the [...]

I spent lots of time looking through premade covers. I find way more than I can ever buy (in my last shopping trip I added over $20,000 in covers to my cart). But I want to share these great deals with other authors, and also keep them altogether in one place in case I’m trying to [...]