Amateur To Published: The Fiction Writer's Guide To Publishing

7 - Create Your Cover(s)

Your cover matters. A lot. It is the single best investment you can make inyour indie career because it can make or break you. It is what the readers seefirst when they consider your book. It's attractiveness can either draw areader into checking your book out or ignoring it. If you want people to giveyour book a second glance, get a good cover. This is how to do that:

STEP 1: RESEARCH WHAT'S SELLING

Many writers get confused and think that their coversare a piece of art. The more beautiful the cover, the more books they'll sell.That's a wrong assumption. A professional cover does not necessarily make aneffective one. It doesn't matter who made your cover or how much it costs. Whatmatters is whether the cover instantly conveys the expected reading experience.

You might not like all the naked torsos that dominate theromance lists, but there's a reason books that have them are at the top. It'sbecause when readers see those books, they instantly know what story to expect.Your cover is a piece of packaging. If the reader cannot immediately tell whatyour book is about from the cover then you haven't done your job.

To find out what's selling, browse Amazon's top 100 bestsellers inyour sub-genre. What you're looking for is the common element that covers inyour sub-genre have. Note the trends in terms of images uses, the titles, thefonts used etc

STEP 2: COLLECT EXAMPLES

Find 3-5 covers that you like on the Amazon top 100 bestsellerlist in your sub-genre. A million surveys, opinions of other writers oranecdotal preferences by your family pale in comparison to statistics of whatcustomer's are actually buying. The bestseller charts are the ultimate focusgroup that definitively answers the question 'what do readers want'.

Find a mix of trade published books and self-publishedtitles. However, make sure that the trade-published books have cover designconsistent with the genre otherwise they might just be a bestseller because ofa huge ad-push. Don't choose self-published books that are priced at $0.99either. They're probably on the list because of a recent promo and might notstay there for long. Also, don't select classics. They are there because of thereputation they've built but the cover design is probably old and out-of-style.

Yes, you might have preconceived ideas of what your covershould look like, but if it doesn't fit with the genre then those ideas shouldbe shelved. Don't let your own terrible ideas get in the way of a good cover.

STEP 3: UNDERSTAND DIMENSIONS

Different versions of your book will need different cover sizes.You need to know these dimensions before you get your cover made so that youdon't end up wasting your effort.

- EBook. eBook covers are usually portrait size i.e.rectangles with the height being the longer side. Dimensions that are more than1600x2400 px seems to work well for most platforms. Don't go lower.

- Paperback. The size of your paperback cover will depend onwhat size of book you chose (trim-size) when creating the interior for your paperback and the number of pages your bookhas. Google 'how to create a paperback cover with Amazon KDP' to find more information about the cover size.

- Audio-book. While eBooks are portrait size, audio-books are truesquares. Usually requires a cover of 2400 x 2400 pixels

STEP 4: DECIDE YOUR BUDGET

While spending a few bucks on a professional coverdoesn't guarantee sales, it usually makes your book dramatically movecompetitive than a blatantly homemade cover. That being said, the mostimportant element of your cover is not the beauty of the design, but itseffectiveness at conveying the genre.