If you plan on designing your own book cover, the last thing you want is for people to assume the book is going to be bad just because the design is bad. Despite how much we all might like to think otherwise, people do judge a book by its cover, and the design is a HUGE marketing tool. You don’t want to mess it up, but you might not have the budget to hire a designer. If you plan to design your cover yourself, here are five mistakes you’re going to want to avoid.
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Mandi Lynn published her first novel when she was seventeen. The author of multiple books, Mandi spends her days continuing to write and creating YouTube videos to help other writers achieve their dreams of seeing their books published. Mandi is the owner of Stone Ridge Books, a company that works to help authors bring their books to life through cover design and digital book marketing. She is also the creator of The Book Launch Planner, a planner designed to help authors publish and market their books. When she’s not creating, you can find Mandi exploring her backyard or getting lost in the woods.
DISCLAIMER: This video and description contain affiliate links. By purchasing a linked product or service, Mandi Lynn will receive a small commission at no additional fee to you.
Title: 5 Mistakes That Make Your Self-Published Book Cover Look Amateur
Search terms: book cover design, self publishing mistakes
#selfpublishing #bookcover #bookcoverdesign
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Hello Mandi, I’m honored to be the first to comment on your brand new video, hot off the press! Timing is perfect too, because I am now working on the paperback edition of my first novel, Spheroid. Your video will surely come in handy, as have many of your other fine videos which I studied carefully before publishing by book. Keep up the good work!
Best of luck with your book!
Check your license. I use Adobe Stock and they limit their commercial license to 500k copies (digital & print).
I personally used Depositphotos, but yes, you should always be looking at the fine print on commercial rights
😮😮😮❤❤
Hi Mandi! I love the way you do things as an Indie Author! Your videos have helped me SO MUCH! Because of you and your videos I am publishing my first book this month as a teen Indie Author! I’m excited and I just wanted to thank you for making me feel like I COULD do this, instead of giving up. I hope you have a blessed day!
🙌🏻Thanks so much! So happy the videos have helped!
My first book hit #13 in sci-fi, and it used a deceptively simple-looking cover. In the planning stages, my daughter (who did the actual cover, since I can’t do graphic design) and I picked three or four items that were actually notable in the story and could be used together. It seemed to work out quite well.
My biggest pet peeve in covers is when they don’t match what’s inside the book. Heroines who are redheads are blonde on the cover. She’s got a pet raccoon instead of a ferret. I mean, couldn’t the author provide even a few salient details that might matter for the cover?
If you’re going to design your own covers you have to be objective about them and see them as other people do. You have to be prepared to ditch them if they are not selling as well as you’d hoped. Book covers need to pop off the page. They need to scream “buy me” because you’re competing with everyone else in your genre. A muddy colour palette is not going to help your cause. Neither is choosing amateur looking fonts. And if the cover illustrations are badly done with banana hands and weird goggling eyes, you need to be able to see that.
Occasionally, I have purchased books for cover alone, without even reading the blurb. The cover has to be exceptional to achieve that though. But, at the minimum, it has to be polished and professional. And be solidly reviewed and recommended and the blurb has to be on point.
If the cover looks even remotely unprofessional, I will not purchase it, regardless of the blurb or reviews. The cover can be not to my taste. That happens all the time. But unprofessional? No. Ang expertly renewed cover is the minimum hurdle to cross before I spend my money.