You're going to town on your rough draft right? Time to get your cover going! Unless you have invested heavily in your own graphic design training, I recommend you do not attempt this at home. There are designers who will work with you regardless of your budget.

There are a few different ways you can go here depending on budget. You can hire an illustrator to create artwork from scratch, that would be the expensive end, (photos and photo manipulation almost always sell better than illustration) or you can get your designer to source graphics for you, also expensive, or you can do the leg-work of finding an image that you like for the cover. You'll need to spend quite a bit of time pouring over imagery in stock photo sites. They will usually require an extended license for a book cover, so read the fine print when you find one. I recommend Shutterstock because their basic license covers up to 500K copies sold, and if you sell that well, you can afford to upgrade the license. When you think you've found one, upload it here so you can see what else that image has been used for. If it's already a book cover, you might want to either do some photomanipulation or find something else. You can also view the "similar images" that come up and see if there's something else that would work better for you.

Sourcing graphics can be time-consuming and that's why I'm having you start now. If you have a tough concept to communicate, it's absolutely fine to not have a graphic that is perfectly representational. There is a trend towards text based cover design, and I have to admit I like it. Here's an example of that.

It's text with a nice galactic background that's oh so appealing to the current Charismatic Christian market. And another.

Destiny Image knows their market, and they cater. Traditionally published books don't give the author much if any input on the cover, they just make it saleable.

You'll want to spend some time browsing the categories on Amazon that you plan to place your book in (you get to pick two) and take in what the current trends are. Your book needs to look like it belongs, it needs to not look self-published and if you do something too different, yes it will stand out, but it may also be off-putting because it may not fit the genre and "look" like the kind of book your audience is already primed to buy. It isn't about what you like. It's about what the audience will buy.

If you turn it loose to a designer, you'll need to write up something to submit to your designer that is as specific as you can get, so there is little need for revisions. Specify your books genre, even link them the Amazon category, and include anything about colors, mood or feeling that you want to evoke, but also leave them room to be the genius professionals that they are. Do try to pick somebody with lots of book experience. Having basic design skills is better than being an amateur, but knowing the ins and outs of current cover design trends, what's working in different genres etc is better than only having awesome Photoshop and Indesign skills. Showing other book covers that you like and why will help them immensely. Otherwise, hands off and let them design you something nice.

Having choices is good for drumming up buzz. Just as you were able to ask your audience about titles, now you can ask about cover choices. It all builds excitement for your book to come out. You can and should post for feedback, but take all feedback with a grain of salt, because social media brings a mixed bag and not everyone who responds is your target audience.

Now at this point, all you'll probably be able to do is an ebook cover because you need a page count to give your designer for them to make the spine the correct size. If you want to wait and do it all at once, that's totally fine, but since this can be a long process, I'm having you get into motion and making decisions now.

Creative Indie - where this infographic came from is a great source of design tips. Here are some great considerations. This post will help you when considering graphics as well as help you evaluate what your designer has done.

A Great Cover

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