Book cover time!
Grab your weapons of mass curiosity and don your active wear, it’s time to search for a book cover designer to create the perfect book jacket.
No matter what your Grandma may have told you, books are inevitably judged by their covers.
Damonza.com
The hunt is a thrilling mix of balancing what you want, what you like and what the industry standards and readers expect within your genre.
Putting aside your artistic ambitions and favourite colours, try to combine the above in a chase to find the cover that fits your story and still shouts ‘buy me’ from a tiny thumbnail on Amazon and other sites. It also needs to jump out at the book buyer as they peruse the shelves of their favourite book store. A big ask!
Some exciting options:
- Fivrr – with a huge range of talented artists at reasonable prices, this could be a winner. My hubby and I have used Fivrr before to source the most incredible trumpet player for a song we’ve written and recorded. The process, with her at least, was seamless and although we ended up paying a tiny bit extra for revisions, her work was so amazing and close to the brief, it was well worth it! In total, we paid less than we expected overall. She’ll be credited on the song when we release it.
- Reedsy – the super easy to use, helpful outfit where I found my incredible development editor Jasmine Gower
- Range Road Press – if you’re local (NZ) and on a strict budget, Sheryl Buchanan offers a very reasonable service based on templates that can be edited to suit.
- Damonza – based in NZ but mostly working with US authors (and so charging in US$), the team at Damonza is a books-focused design company with plenty of experience and some talented designers who know their stuff. Plenty of services on offer including cover design, social media materials, interior formatting.
The hunt is over. I chose Damonza!
Straight away, I found that some of the information I’d written to explain what my book was about to Jasmine the Development Editor at Reedsy, came in handy. Damonza asks you to send in:
- A description of your book – I sent the genre, a brief book blurb style synopsis and a summary of my intentions for the series
- A description of key elements in the story – I sent information about important symbols and themes, plus any other visuals I thought might be a good idea to represent on the cover
- Links to other covers you like
- Any other images that you like or relate to your story – since I use drawing to envision my characters, settings and world building, I sent them a couple of images of book cover mock ups I’d sketched with some basic ideas
A great start to a fascinating process!
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