How to make a book cover (process of professional book cover design)

how to make a book cover

I was just reviewing my old book cover design gallery and thought I’d share a modern update on how book cover design works. This will include important things to watch out for, whether you’re going design your own book cover or hire a professional.

What IS a book cover?

Your book cover is packaging. It’s 75% of whether a reader will even begin the process of considering buying your book. Most cheap book cover solutions look homemade and unprofessional, but the process is the same – it’s just putting it all together takes time and skill.

Best photos and images for book cover design

Book designs spend hours searching for stock images for book cover designs. These are mostly photographs. So for book cover “art” we typically photobash – which means blending layers together in photoshop. We might add a big face and a landscape. Or a small figure and a scene.

The *size* of your main character on your cover depends on the genre. Closeup is more personal. Urban fantasy is more action and character-driven. Usually the top half of a character in an action pose. An epic fantasy would have a big sweeping landscape, and a small character, to show it’s a story-driven world.

All stories are about people: so you need a *humanizing element.* It doesn’t have to be a model or stock photography image. It could be a scene with some personal items.

Making a book cover scene illustration

Most book cover designers aren’t actually illustrators, and illustrations in genre fiction don’t sell. Photobashing stock photos is the best option. The *quality* of the book cover will depend on how well they can blend images together to look aesthetically pleasing. It should look like one scene, but sometimes it’s a blended scene of two images.

For nonfiction, one perfect stock photo might work; but there’s a chance someone else will publish a similar book with the same stock photo. That’s the problem with using stock images, but it’s the only real option (more on that later). Most authors want a specific scene from their book… but that probably won’t work.

The cover doesn’t tell them what the book is about or what happens. It only needs to communicate the genre to the right readers, and look professional and beautiful enough to catch their attention and get the click. Also traditionally published or classic books need different covers: they sell in bookstores or through marketing, or because the author is famous. They can take risks with covers because the books will sell anyway.

Indie authors have a huge advantage online, selling ebooks and controlling our own platform. But you need book covers that look great on Amazon and convert well so you don’t go broke. For most genre fiction, you don’t want a detailed illustrated scene. You want one character in one environment, looking cool and hinting at the unique and intriguing world you’ve bet.

But you also want to fit in, not stand out. Don’t whine that “all book covers look the same” – and try to do something *different*. You need your cover to look vaguely like the bestsellers in your genre, so readers can judge in a glance if it’s what they’re searching for. But it also needs to be better than your competition.

A great book cover will have depth: a background, a character, and a foreground. Usually, a book cover designer will buy about 10 images for a cover, and build everything together. It’s tricky to make it look natural and like one realistic scene, so it takes a lot of time to blend layers. And you need photoshop… unless you use my free online book cover maker, which does most of the same things.

Book cover design process

Some of the stuff I made on this website is over 10 years old, I started in 2012 – the same year I got married. A few are just sample projects. Since then I’ve designed hundreds of covers, earning over $200K in 5 years. But then I kind of dropped the ball. I was getting too much work and I didn’t feel confident in my design abilities.

You see, some genres aren’t too difficult to find stock photos for. I was good enough to be competitive and get clients, but it was difficult to make really powerful covers with limited stock photo options. But around 5 years ago, Daz 3D – a software to render character models – got really good. So a *lot* of new, cheaper designers were making really stunning art.

It’s like creating a virtual doll; you buy the character, the poses, the costumes, dress them up and then take pictures of them in different positions. This 3D character is a transparent PNG, so you just toss it against a background and add text – and the cover looks pretty great already. But the faces look plasticky, so most designers do a “headswap” replacing the face with a stock photo portrait, add some lighting and texture to the background, maybe some sparks or leaves to the forground, add some text… done.

It could take dozens of hours, or it could take one. It depends on the amount of time searching for the right images to use. People started selling these 3D images and other stock assets *just* for book cover design – which was great – but increased the chances that designers would use the same stock people or backgrounds and have too similar designs.

This week I spent redesigning one of my fantasy series, and it was maddening. I probably spent 20 hours staring at the computer for each cover. Making tiny changes to the lighting, the characters pose and clothing and face and hair, trying to make the scene look natural. It’s honestly a lot of work to get good results. You can make a passable cover pretty fast with the right stock resources and assets. But it will look flat and lifeless, without getting the depth and lighting right and making everything cohesive – including the typography!

It can be a lot of fun, or it can be work. And some things like fantasy and science fiction are really hard… no pictures! So we had to photobash or find creative solutions to make spaceships or spellcraft. Stock resources like Daz renders made it easier to put things together. The best designers did overpainting of illustration for that illustrated vivid look.

I know about 20 really good book designers. Some of their samples are better than mine (though I haven’t updated my gallery in awhile. I’m still pretty good). That list represents what I think is peak commercial genre book design – for the hard stuff like scifi/fantasy.


Choosing fonts for book cover design

The other huge part of book cover design is the typography. Designers have to purchase stock photos, and also the fonts they want to use on your cover. They will have invested a lot of money into design resources so that they have the capabilities to do things in photoshop you can’t do, like textured font effects (my free tool does that too)… but you’ll also need to choose the right fonts for your genre. That’s something a professional book cover designer would know.

*Tip* don’t just hire some illustrator or artist to create something, and then add your own text. Use my templates at least. Each genre has 10 or 20 fonts that everybody uses, it’s not that hard to get right but you need to try – or hire someone really good. Not all artists are book cover designers, and you have to get the typography right. Here’s a list of best fonts for book cover design.

Book cover premades and templates

So here’s the thing: designers often make stuff that looks pretty similar. And they can do it fast, by making a cover that is awesome and would sell a story. These are premades, and they sell for $150~$750 depending on quality. Big authors buy these. I’ve bought a ton even though I’m a designer! They are great for inspiring a story and staying motivated; a small author treat for yourself.

But they don’t always get used, cover design trends change, and once a book is written we may decided the cover doesn’t work anymore. (I’m sitting on a horde of premades). But premades can be a good, affordable option: designers can make something cool and pretty and sell it right away, no fuss. Authors can get something immediately, exactly as they see it. No complicated process trying to express their story and ideas.

Book cover templates are something else: it’s a sample cover, with typography that you can edit and save yourself. There are some options for online design software, like Canva, but they usually make flat covers (no blending, no erasing) and have limited fonts and text effects, that don’t work for most genres. Years ago I made a package of book cover templates in microsoft word and they’ve been popular – but they’re a makeshift solution. A few sites sell “ebook covers” that are loud and poorly designed, meant for online marketing and salesy stuff.

So I’m excited about the new cover design tool and templates I’m making for DIYcovers.com, and I think they’ll be a great, cheaper option (you provide your own art, but I have tutorials and resources for that). Basically unlimited book covers you can easily design yourself.

AI art and midjourney for book cover design

I’m suddenly demotivated and galvanized (at the same time). I was building templates for my new tool and playing with midjourney… and I stumbled on some prompts to get amazing AI art for book cover design. Combined with my templates (I spent months just coding the text effects), you can seriously make an amazing, $1000-cover for nearly free. It’s too powerful, it’s too easy. It makes me feel like quitting cover design and focusing exclusively on my writing – to make sure I have the best covers before anyone else does.

I’ll probably share the templates first, and then start building the new cover design tutorials, which will include a section on AI art and midjourney (with the exact prompts I’m using). But I’ll do it later, in a few months. I want to publish full series with my new AI covers and really establish a strong branded author platform, before everybody else starts using my resources to upgrade their covers. I think we’re going to see some huge shifts in publishing and book design, so there’s a lot of controversy right now.

But authors will continue to seek solutions, so they can get a great cover and publish their book, whether that’s custom, premade or DIY template book covers. Whatever you’re looking for, we have it! So stick around to watch tutorials and learn more about book cover design – or just let us do it for you!

AI generated images for book cover design (midjourney and dalle2)

midjourney book cover art

A huge controversy is raging surrounding AI art tools that allow you to generate artwork with text prompts. Many cover designers are strongly against it, but we believe in consumers’ right to choose the best and easiest option for them to make great book covers.

We here at Creativindie covers do not use AI art, though if we do so in the future, they will be clearly labelled and explained – there are some copyright limitations to Midjourney and similar tools that authors need to be aware of.

Book covers are about more than just sourcing reliable copyright-free stock photos. The text and typography is also hugely important. So far, most AI art would need heavy photoshopping (actually, this week I discovered a few best midjourney prompts for book cover design that are unreasonable good, without needing any fixing…so I’m going to use them as templates and teach how to use AI for book cover design *if you choose to*.)

I understand that both cover designers and authors want to make sure they don’t get in any legal water over ill-defined AI art usage terms – which is why many cover designers are outright rejecting Midjourney as a tool.

That said, it’s an exciting possibility that is sure to shake up the publishing industry in huge ways over the next year, so you should read more about using AI art in commercial design and potential copyright issues.

How to make an ANIMATED book cover that blows people’s minds

Yesterday I saw something on Twitter that blew my mind: it was a promotional image of a book; but inside the book cover the pieces were moving around. It was amazing.

So I started researching animated book covers. I found some examples, looked for tools I could use for making animated gifs, and came up with these.

Animated book cover design, YA fantasy cover by Derek MurphyAnimated book cover design, YA fantasy cover by Derek MurphyAnimated book cover design, YA fantasy cover by Derek Murphy

How to make an animated book cover design that blows people's minds.

animated book cover design YA dystopia

animated book cover design dark fantasy

If you like these covers, can you help me out by pinning them on Pinterest?

If you actually want to READ them, check out my fiction site, Urban Epics.

 

What good are animated book covers?

They won’t work on Kindle or iBooks (though I’m going to test them anyway, maybe I can find a workaround). But they WILL work on Wattpad, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other social media sites. So whenever you post a promotional picture of your book cover, you could awesomefy it (that’s not a word but it needs to be = make awesome).

Now I just need to learn how to make those animated covers look amazing on a static 3D product shot… I’ll learn that next. The danger is, of course, once I give away all these secrets, everybody is going to do it, so on top of all the author-spam you usually see on Twitter or Facebook, now the images will be moving. It’ll be like Myspace all over again (obnoxious, hard to look at).

So what I should do is keep these secrets to myself, so they only show up on my covers and I have a marketing advantage. But.. I’m not going to. These covers were easy to make, and the tools are cheap. Be extremely cautious, don’t overdo it, but for shits and giggles, here’s a tutorial on designing your own animated covers.

If you like this tutorial and animate your book cover, share your cover on Twitter and tag me: @creativindie so I can see it.

How to make your own animated book covers

Firstly, add some sparkle. I used this site, paid to remove the watermark. It only has a few features, but it plays off the natural light/dark contrast of your book cover, and you can select the areas for some amazing effects.

Here’s a video tutorial.

Secondly, I found DP Animation Maker, a bit more expensive at $37.77, but it can add great effects, especially for light, water and movement.

Animated book cover effect for Michelle Madow's Elementals

Thirdly, I wanted to find a way to morph images, so, for example, a face can blink, or smile. To do that I’d need two or three pictures and merge them together.

Animated gif version of Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave - learn how to make your own animated book cover!
animated book cover design The 5th Wave Rick Yancey


I can do that with http://gifmaker.me. First I have to make the different versions of the cover, then I add the photos and turn them into a gif. I thought this might work especially well to add a “splash” effect with a big quote, review, or description – a little bit of extra sales copy space on your cover image.

You can also make an animated book cover in Photoshop but it’s more of a process.

How to save/share your animated book covers

The gifs you make can be pretty big; you can try to use Gifmaker’s resizer to make them smaller. If you upload them to Giphy.com the file size doesn’t really matter – Giphy is great for posting on Facebook (if you use a Giphy link it will preview the animated gif, but if you upload the gif straight to Facebook, it won’t play).

However, on Twitter I’d rather just upload the picture directly – Twitter DOES show the animation. A Giphy link works too but it clicks to Giphy, which I don’t like. You can embed the pictures on your website as well, and pin them to Pinterest (where animation works).

Have fun! Remember to tag me if you make your own animated covers so I can see.

Want more tips, book cover design templates and some free books?

I have more free stuff – templates, an email series on cover design, and my books on writing and book marketing.

 

Free book reviews for self-published authors (how to get more reviews on Amazon)

person holding white and brown newspaper

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 least 10 reviews before you even think about sales or marketing, even if Amazon has a duty to protect its consumers by removing biased reviews.

SO: How to get book reviews?

First, you need to build a list of potential reviewers. These should be people who actually like your genre or subjects, who regularly buy and review similar books on Amazon. This is important, because if you send your book to a bunch of people who don’t read your genre, it’ll screw up your also-boughts and hurt long term visibility.

Look at the top 20 books in your genre, go through the reviews and see if they have a website or email to contact them. Do this with multiple categories. Make a list of the top 10 most similar books, which have lots of reviews and are selling well. Then Google those titles + “review” and go through the first 5 pages of Google to see who’s reviewed them. You can also find reviewers on Goodreads.

What you want to do is offer a free review copy to as many potential readers as possible. I give out several hundred ARC copies of each new release. I don’t expect or demand readers review (you can’t actually trade a free book “in exchange” for a review – reviews with that language will get deleted). All you can do is let lots of readers read for free, try and build a relationship with them, maybe check in once or twice. This is a little dangerous because you’re cold-calling, but if you write a short, polite email and a link to a free book, few people will be annoyed (some will be grateful!)

What you don’t want to do is, ask friends or family if they’ll review, then send them a paperback copy, then nag them into posting (even though they didn’t read it, didn’t like it or don’t know what to say about it). I prefer building a big list with book giveaways and Facebook ads, and offering them a free copy. Now that I have a platform, I keep my ARC copies limited to the real fans in my private FB group, which increases the free books to reviews ratio (before I would give out 500 copies for 25 reviews… now I can give out 50 for the same number).

50% review rate is actually really high. You’ll be frustrated if you get angry because only 6 out of 10 reviewers posted a review after they said they’d take a look. Sometimes not reviewing is an easy way to say “I didn’t like it.” Don’t pressure them too much.

One last thing: you can gift, or use giveaways, or a free book campaign to give copies of your book straight to reviewers so they show up under verified reviews, which may be important going forward. Otherwise, I usually use BookFunnel, but those won’t show as verified and might get deleted.

How to write a book – steps and ideas for first time writers

young lady typing on keyboard of laptop in living room

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 a strong beginning and reach the halfway point.

I did that 5 times, until I was comfortable with it, then went back and finished the second half for those books.

My point is that learning to write the first half of a novel is not the same as learning to write the second half. Writing a WHOLE book at once can be intimidating because there are so many pieces to get wrong, it’s easy to get stuck or frustrated, and there are also gaps or broken bits that need fixing.

Writing a book is kind of like building a bridge. First you need a rough sketch, then temporary scaffolding, then the foundations, then the internal architecture… only after all that do you being laying down the permanent, external stuff and removing the temporary stuff. 

I love this quote from Neil Gaiman, answering the absurd question “real quick, how to plot a book?”

 

 

book writing tips from famous authors

 

UP NEXT: 65 YA adult authors share their #1 writing tips!

In a recent video I made about Guerrilla Publishing, I accidentally said something like “just write the best book in the world” – which is misleading, because of how I define “best”. Most writers focus on the words and sentences, the quality of the writing. That’s a bad idea for two reasons:

  1. The rough draft is always bad. You have to allow yourself to write badly and get the story down first.
  2. Most readers don’t care about the writing – they focus on story or content.

To have a successful book that readers love (which, I think, is the only kind of book worth writing), you need to do it deliberately (it can be done accidentally as well, but that path leads most authors to frustration). Almost all commercial books follow standard tropes and genre expectations and universal story architecture. If you want to write a GOOD book, you need to learn the rules and know your audience. A lot of authors resist this, which is why most authors fail (or work far harder than they need to, and spend more than they earn on publishing).

I have a huge guide on how to write a book you should check out. I’ve published over 20 books in the last few years so I’ve had a lot of practice.

For more on writing fiction, read these:

For nonfiction, start here:

How to publish a book yourself on Amazon for FREE

book cover design publishing

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 a free ebook conversion tool.

Next you’ll need a Kindle ebook cover (about 1600 x 2700 pixels, which equals 6″x9″ @300dpi).
If you don’t have photoshop, you can get a cheap cover on Fiverr (which aren’t great) or use my free book cover design templates to make your own.

That’s enough to set up on KDP for the Kindle version – you could also use Draft2Digital to distribute your ebook (though I prefer Kindle Unlimited’s Select program). Print books are more complicated, because you need to calculate the spine width based on page count, and get the trim right, and it has to be precise or Amazon will reject the files (Createspace is more forgiving if you skip the automatic previewer. KDP print is picky).

Upload your files, congrats, you’re published!

Free book cover design software and formatting templates

book formatting design templates

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 publishing community, I’ve devoted thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours into building DIY book cover tools, templates and resources – so authors can design their own covers without making critical mistakes.

This is obviously a work in progress, because cover design is complicated, but the templates have been downloaded by nearly 100,000 authors, and my YouTube videos have over a million views. Here are some things to get you started.

If those resources are useful, please share them! If you need more help or more advanced templates, you can join my Epic Book Design Package and get my first first book marketing course for free.

Free Vella Covers (writing contest giveaway)

I’m excited about Amazon’s new platform for serialized fiction Vella (if you haven’t heard of it yet, here’s a post where I break down the details: “What is Kindle Vella?”). To celebrate I’m giving away 33 POC covers to promote diversity in publishing. You can see all the free covers on theyashelf.com.

Just upload a short sample/first chapter and win the cover of your choice. I may do more events like this in the future, so make sure to follow my main site or join the guerrilla publishing group on Facebook. I’ll also be making some tutorials on making quick Vella covers on YouTube.

Like this? Click here to win yours!

$30,000 worth of beautiful premade book covers for indie authors

premade book cover templates

I spent lots of time looking through premade book 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 find them again, so I decided to link to my favorites here.

Please note, many of these are not good enough as is – they have potential or great art, but in many cases (not all) the text would need to be redone to really make the cover as epic as the art suggests.

 

Where to find premade book covers?

Here are a few sites that have premade covers you can check out. I also recommend following book designers on Facebook to see their latest premades.

PS This is an old list so the covers below probably aren’t available, and book cover design has gotten so much better these looked great years ago but aren’t competitive enough today.

Betwixt

Sold By::
Exquisitely Covered Books

 

Creatures – ebook and paperback

Sold By::
Andrei B.

 

Blue Forest – ebook and paperback

Sold By::
Andrei B.

$200.00

Shadows – ebook and paperback

Sold By::
Andrei B.

$250.00

Shadows – paperback and ebook

Andrei B.

The Ends of Space

Sold By::
Covermint

 

 

Tame the Magic

Sold By::
Covermint

 

Elsa

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers

 

Sanctuary

Rocking Book Covers

 

 

 
Straight to Hell 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
  The Seeds of Hatred 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Crusader 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Abduction 

Sold By::
Grady Earls
$200.00
$200.00
× Warlock 

Sold By::
Grady Earls
$200.00
$200.00
× Porch 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Forgotten 

Sold By::
Grady Earls
$200.00
$200.00
× Zero Hope 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Displays 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× The Kingdom 

Sold By::
Grady Earls
$200.00
$200.00
× The Decent 

Sold By::
Grady Earls
$200.00
$200.00
× The Journey 

Sold By::
Grady Earls
$200.00
$200.00
× Cindy 

Sold By::
Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× For the Crown 

Sold By::
Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× The Last Spell 

Sold By::
Winter Editorial Design
$85.00
$85.00
× Mystic Woman 

Sold By::
Creative Book Covers
$90.00
$90.00
× Shattered Glass 

Sold By::
Cover Quill
$145.00
$145.00
× Opaque Divinity 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Into the Woods 

Sold By::
Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Wolf Ridge 

Sold By::
Plumstone Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Divided Hearts 

Sold By::
RobBridges
$200.00
$200.00
× Contessa 

Sold By::
Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Reputation 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Flock of Crows 

Sold By::
Cover Quill
$145.00
$145.00
× Policing 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Magic of Elysyum 

Sold By::
BRoseDesignz
$180.00
$180.00
× Wide Awake 

Sold By::
Joy McGee
$80.00
$80.00
× Warrior biker 

Sold By::
Erica Petit
$290.00
$290.00
× South winds 

Sold By::
Aeternum Designs
$275.00
$275.00
× City of war 

Sold By::
Aeternum Designs
$230.00
$230.00
× Autumn death 

Sold By::
Aeternum Designs
$299.00
$299.00
× Thrall 

Sold By::
Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Silent tears 

Sold By::
Aeternum Designs
$285.00
$285.00
× Visionary 

Sold By::
Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Rain of leaves 

Sold By::
Aeternum Designs
$275.00
$275.00
× Daria 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Dream World 

Sold By::
matyan90
$50.00
$50.00
× Quiet Wind 

Sold By::
Bukovero
$80.00
$80.00
× Wanderer 

Sold By::
Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× The Flight 

Sold By::
Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Hammer of Doom 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Master of Insanity 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Dreaming of Adventure 

Sold By::
Exquisitely Covered Books
$120.00
$120.00
× Into the woods 

Sold By::
Raquel Neira Digital Art
$90.00
$90.00
× Secrets 

Sold By::
Harper Design
$75.00
$75.00
× Unspoken 

Sold By::
Harper Design
$75.00
$75.00
× Set Adrift 

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Covered Creatively
$75.00
$75.00
× Into The Waves 

Sold By::
Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Thorns 

Sold By::
LML Book Covers
$80.00
$80.00
× Midnight 

Sold By::
Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Caught in the rain 

Sold By::
Adriatica Creation
$100.00
$100.00
× The Storm 

Sold By::
Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Vampire series three covers 

Sold By::
Erica Petit
$890.00
$890.00
× She was every inch a Queen 

Sold By::
IndiElaborates
$70.00
$70.00
× Spell Bound 

Sold By::
Susan Digital Designs
$90.00
$90.00
× THE STORM 

Sold By::
Ragdoll – Digital Art
$60.00
$60.00
× The Red Queen 

Sold By::
Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Bad Boy 

Sold By::
Erica Petit
$290.00
$290.00
× Torn Ebook Cover 

Sold By::
Ebook Covers Online
$60.00
$60.00
× Wasted Years 

Sold By::
Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Awakening 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Warrior night 

Sold By::
Erica Petit
$490.00
$490.00
× Fantasy night 

Sold By::
Erica Petit
$490.00
$490.00
× The Pendulous Wood 

Sold By::
RobBridges
$150.00
$150.00
× Flying 

Sold By::
topbookdesigner
$99.00
$99.00
× Offville 

Sold By::
Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
× Arabella 

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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Clerical Conspiracy 

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Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
× Urban Fantasy 

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Love Books
$60.00
$60.00
× Runaway 

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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× In the Forest 

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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Woman in Blue 

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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
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Bukovero
$80.00
$80.00
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Ammonia Book Covers
$89.00
$89.00
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Ebook Covers Online
$60.00
$60.00
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topbookdesigner
$99.00
$99.00
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topbookdesigner
$99.00
$99.00
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topbookdesigner
$99.00
$99.00
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Winter Editorial Design
$70.00
$70.00
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Covered Creatively
$75.00
$75.00
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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
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Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
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Iskon Design
$89.00
$89.00
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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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Ivan Zanchetta
$149.00
$149.00
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ArtestudioTeo
$75.00
$75.00
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JMN-ART
$50.00
$50.00
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Drop Dead Designs
$70.00
$70.00
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Aeternum Designs
$285.00
$285.00
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Adriatica Creation
$150.00
$150.00
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matyan90
$50.00
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Aeternum Designs
$285.00
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Aeternum Designs
$199.00
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Aeternum Designs
$250.00
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Aeternum Designs
$240.00
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Aeternum Designs
$230.00
$230.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Deception 

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Ivan Zanchetta

 

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Peculiar Perspective
$100.00
$100.00
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Camilla Design
$99.00
$99.00
× The Rise of Today 

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Everpage Designs
$70.00
$70.00
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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
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lady_amarillis
$85.00
$85.00
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Cover Quill
$85.00
$85.00
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$99.00
$99.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
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Graphic Lane
$46.00
$46.00
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$75.00
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Enchanted Whispers Art
$90.00
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Covermint
$69.00
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× Inborn Alienation 

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Bukovero
$80.00
$80.00
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Aeternum Designs
$250.00
$250.00
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Aeternum Designs
$199.00
$199.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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$79.00
$79.00
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Aeternum Designs
$175.00
$175.00
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Rocking Book Covers
$60.00
$60.00
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WaterFall
$30.00
$30.00
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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
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Aeternum Designs
$230.00
$230.00
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Ammonia Book Covers
$89.00
$89.00

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Dragon Warrior 

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Cover Quill
$80.00
$80.00
× So Faraway 

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Book Covers 2 Buy
$150.00
$150.00
× DARK HUMANITY 

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Juan Padrón
$35.00
$35.00
× Evolution 

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Willsin Rowe
$60.00
$60.00
× Trapped 

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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
× Dark Angel 

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Book Covers 2 Buy
$150.00
$150.00
× Book Cover #12 (EBook or Paperback) 

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Amy H.C Design
$90.00
$90.00
× Angel of Mercy 

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Book Covers 2 Buy
$150.00
$150.00
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$150.00
$150.00
× Midnight 

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Aeternum Designs
$430.00
$430.00
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Scepter 

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$150.00
$150.00
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$90.00
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$210.00
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$210.00
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$65.00
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London Montgomery Covers
$90.00
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Drop Dead Designs
$70.00
$70.00
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Juan Padrón
$40.00
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$35.00
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Book Covers 2 Buy
$120.00
$120.00
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Enchanted Whispers Art
$80.00
$80.00
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Enchanted Whispers Art

 

 

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× Dragon Breath 

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Enchanted Whispers Art
$130.00
$130.00
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Covermint
$79.00
$79.00
× The Belladona 

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London Montgomery Covers
$80.00
$80.00
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PastFuture
$65.00
$65.00
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Book Covers Art
$150.00
$150.00
× Salem 

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Erica Petit
$210.00
$210.00
× X Squad 

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arte´ book designs
$60.00
$60.00
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Book Covers 2 Buy
$150.00
$150.00
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Madelene Martin
$50.00
$50.00
× Tidewater 

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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
× Dream Catcher 

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Enchanted Whispers Art
$80.00
$80.00
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Covered Creatively
$60.00
$60.00
× Vintage 

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Victoria Cooper Art
$80.00
$80.00
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Victoria Cooper Art
$65.00
$65.00
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Erica Petit
$210.00
$210.00
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Enchanted Whispers Art
$70.00
$70.00
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Enchanted Whispers Art
$80.00
$80.00
 

How to become a book cover designer

photo of woman writing on tablet computer while using laptop
A lot of young designers (or old designers!) reach out and ask me how they can become a book cover designer or get started in this business.
If you want to start book cover design… watch all the videos on www.diybookcovers.com first; then make 50 sample mockups and put them in a portfolio; then contact a bunch of authors with platforms and offer to remake their covers for free in exchange for a link and testimonial.
If you have great samples, and your price is reasonable – between $100 and $1000, depending on your experience, quality and expertise – you’ll get orders.
How many orders depends on traffic and conversion. So you need to find more ways to convince people to trust and buy from you, and then you need to find ways to build traffic.
I started with nothing and had to work at it for a few years. I priced really low. I did a lot of free work (I still do!). Now I’m focused more on building great content.
If you want to start quickly; run a contest every month for a free cover design and use it to build links, shares and traffic, as well as an email list (of people you know need covers).