It’s tough being an indie author–and one of the toughest things we have to tackle is cover art for our books.
It’s a dilemma–pay a graphics designer somewhere between $100 – $500 for a cover image that looks professional?
Go with a cheap designer and hope for the best?
Or…(gulp)…make the cover ourselves?
Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t going to be a rant about how expensive covers are. Covers are incredibly important for attracting readers. A skilled graphic designer is worth the hefty fee.
But if you’re just starting out and you don’t have the money to invest in your writing career, hiring a pro might not be an option.
It’s a catch 22: you need a fantastic cover to sell books so you have enough money to pay for a fantastic cover.
In the meantime, the best option is to keep your covers simple, whether you’re doing them yourself or hiring a less-experienced artist.
Let’s take a look at some great and not-so-great covers, and see what we can learn from them.
(And before I continue, I just want to say that I’m not in any way commenting on the actual content of the books–some of these books with not-so-great covers could tell amazing stories! We’re not judging a book by it’s cover, just looking at how the cover could have done a better job of selling the book.)
Since most authors don’t have extensive Photoshop skills (me neither!), I’m focusing on the simplest kind of cover you can make: one with a single stock photo with words added. No special effects required.
This one’s really simple, but striking: because the image is a closeup, and the man is nuzzling the woman’s neck, it feels intimate, which suggests we’re going to get a sexy romance.
The text is large enough that it’s easy to read, even in a thumbnail, and the girliness of the title font fits with a romance. The colors of the title font are also feminine, and they contrast with the image strongly enough to jump out.
The text is positioned such that even though it covers the lower part of the woman’s face, we still have a very clear, immediate understanding of what’s going on in the picture. Nothing crucial is obscured.
Compare with this one–the way the couple is positioned, the image is also intimate, but not in a graceful way.
The colors on the cover are vivid, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they fight with the even more vivid title text, which glows like a neon sign, giving it an adult store vibe. The title font doesn’t match the raw sexuality that the cover artists seems to be going for either–the swirly, feminine font would look better on the cover of a Disney DVD.
The author’s name is in a font that clashes with the title font, and the whitish text is hard to see against the paleness of the girl’s forearm, which means at a first glance, I come away with the impression that the author’s name is “K.L. dleton.”
Both of these covers are simple text over a stock photo, but which one do you think readers will choose?
Here’s another excellent cover made from adding text to a stock photo.
It’s a very simple design, but it looks very dynamic — the cover artist tilted the title slightly, so it looks like it’s taking off, and it balances out the contrasting slant of the knitting needles that the Amish girl is holding.
Part of the title is done with the same color as the girl’s ball of yarn, while the rest of the cover text is a lighter shade of that color. Not only do the two shades of blue tie the cover together, they also stand out against the girl’s gray dress and the white-painted boards she’s facing.
The title font is old-fashioned looking, which fits with the book’s topic, but it’s also easy to read.
Under the author’s name is a generic flourish, but the cover would still work without it.
Compare this one–the artist did sometime similar in terms of matching colors, using a paler shade of the model’s orange swimsuit for the author name and the heart in “you.”
But…the heavy black bars framing the image at the top and bottom scream “self-published”, and the title font is super-feminine–it doesn’t go with the hypermasculine, heavily-muscled man we’re looking at.
Also, as a side note, it took me a couple of minutes to realize that the model was wearing a swimsuit–the white stripe on the side is mostly obscured by his arm, and that orange is the same color that prison jumpsuits are made of. Exacerbating that impression is that the man is hunched forward aggressively, like he’s ready to pounce on something.
Here’s another excellent (but also very simple) book cover — the black and white picture of the man has excellent contrast, and the look on the cover model’s face is intense (it fits with the series title “A Cold Fury Hockey Novel”).
The only splash of color is the title, which seems to be the hero’s name; even though the title is somewhat transparent, it still stands out, due the b&w background and the fact that the letters are outlined in white.
The author’s name, in white, is clearly visible against the dark waistband of the model’s shorts.
Super-simple design, with all the text in the lower quarter of the image, but striking. when you see it at thumbnail size in an Amazon search, this one jumps out at you.
The summary for the mystery “Dead Soprano” looked interesting, but the cover was extremely off-putting.
The photo is a blurry black-and-white image with poor contrast, and it actually looks a little bit fuzzy, like it might have been very low resolution or a poor-quality scan of a photo.
The title is in a difficult to read font–with some parts of the letters oddly thick and other parts so thin that they almost disappear–and the blue text doesn’t really stand out well from the grays in the cover model’s hat and suit. It’s work to figure out what the title of the book is, and the author’s name is almost illegible.
Here’s another mystery that might be amazing, but whose cover scared me off. The color scheme is garish, more appropriate for a teen romance that’s actually targeting girls who want to be cheerleaders. It doesn’t scream “murder mystery”, it screams “pep rally.”
Also, why does the cheerleader have an off-center “no” sign on her chest?
The placement of the title and author name is actually fine, but there are three different fonts used, and none of them go together.
Finally, the series title, “A Jim Richards Murder Novel” is sufficient–or the wording at the top that explains that Jim Richards is a senior citizen/sleuth is sufficient–but put together, one of them is redundant.
Not a romance cover, but a mystery, and it’s just about perfect.The stark, leafless tree in black-and-white suggests death and the dark tone that goes with murder mysteries.
Like the artist of “Not Over You” (above), this cover artist added a black shape to the image for the sake of making the author’s name stand out. But instead of identical black bars at the top and bottom, this artist chose a more organic, rounded shape at the bottom that feels much gentler.
The title font is also stark, and seems to be overlaid with the texture of weathered wood with peeling paint, which not only ties in with the book’s title nicely.
There’s a quote at the top that’s small enough that it’s hard to read at thumbnail size, but that’s okay–if the artist had put it much lower on the cover, it would have felt like clutter instead of a helpful blurb that’s visible when you click on the book.
Are you starting to see that the good covers all have something in common?
- Simple, striking image that communicates either the content or the tone of the book.
- Not a lot of text (so the cover doesn’t look cluttered).
- Fonts work together if there’s more than one, and they’re chosen for how they fit with the image.
- A simple color scheme, with only one or maybe two bright colors used to highlight something important (like the ball of yarn and the word “murder” on the “Murder Tightly Knit” cover).
- The words are integrated into the design in some way–the design doesn’t feel like a stock photo with words tacked onto the edges.
