How to Design a Book Cover in Photoshop – Step-by-Step Tutorial // Being a self-published author means you have control over every step of the process, including what your book cover looks like. If you have experience in design or want to learn, then you may have wondered if it's possible to design your book cover yourself. And the answer is yes! In this video, I'm going to walk you through my six steps to designing a fantasy book cover in Photoshop.
Learn about my cover design courses:
Watch my video on designing cover wraps:
Watch more videos on book cover design:
In this video:
2:19 – Concept
2:40 – stock photos
3:25 – Composition
4:19 – Add text
4:57 – Effect/final touches
5:40 – Walk away
→Book Cover Design Courses:
→Book Formatting Course (print & ebook formatting):
→Writing Stickers:
→Newsletter:
→Hiking YouTube Channel:
PLANNERS – – – – – – – – – –
→My Writing Planner:
→My Novel Outline Planner:
→My Book Launch Planner:
→2025 Writing Planner (paperback):
→2025 Writing Planner (printable):
NON-FICTION BOOKS – – – – – – – – – –
→How Your Book Sells Itself:
→Grow Your Author Platform:
→Book Sales That Multiply:
→Secrets to Selling Books on Social Media:
→Plan a Profitable Book Launch:
FICTION BOOKS – – – – – – – – – –
→Meet Me at the Summit:
→Let the Rubble Fall:
→The Trail to You & Me:
→Essence:
→I am Mercy:
→She's Not Here:
→Mr. Moon's Big Move:
FIND ME ONLINE- – – – – – – – – –
Content for writers: @mandilynnwrites
Content for readers: @authormandilynnbell
MY FAVORITE TOOLS- – – – – – – – – –
→Find KDP keywords and categories, PublisherRocket:
→eBook Formatting, Kotobee Author:
→Social media graphics, Canva:
→Music in videos, Epidemic Sound:
→Email software, Kit:
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.
#bookcoverdesign #selfpublishing #bookcover
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.
Thanks, Mandi!
ohh its going down!
Want to learn more about designing book covers in Photoshop? Learn more about my courses: https://bit.ly/coverdesignbundle
Fantastic tutorial!!
Thanks for watching!
This was incredible! ❤❤❤
Thank you!
Hi Mandi, thanks for the tutorial. I think the “step away” advice is really valuable.
Question for you on bleed. I got a cover template from both KDP and Ingramspark and both companies recommend a bleed of 0.125 inches. When I designed my book cover in photoshop, I got the template from KDP and Ingramspark and I imported both into photoshop then setup my guidelines using those templates. In your course indesign course for book formatting you recommend a bleed of 0.25 especially for Ingramspark. Ok to use a bleed of 0.125? Is there a problem with using that bleed size?
Also, do you recommend a 70lb paper for “business” paperbacks?
Book formatting is just for the interior of the book. When designing the cover of the book, you just want to use the template file provided by each print on demand company. I hope that answers your question!
I personally am not a fan of heavier weight books. I’d compare to other books in your genre for page thickness
@ Thank you!
Thanks for this. I design most of my own covers, and occasionally, I use this method, but I generally like an older school style of art that is very difficult to get when using stock photos. So I often use AI image generators as part of my design process. If you tell certain image generators to design an image in a specific year and style of art, and then tell it what you want, you can get some really good vintage style art stock images for a good cost. Using what you’re showing here can really change the game for authors creating their own covers in vintage styles.
K but now I want to read this book! LOL great cover
I bought your Book Cover Design bundle and I absolutely love the amount of detail you’ve put into all the videos. I still have the old Photoshop CS5, and it doesn’t have the glyphs feature, which I really like from your typography lessons. I may need to upgrade my Photoshop version.
Yay! Love to hear you’ve loved the course 🙌🏻
knowing the concept is the hardest part ahhaha
From where do you get the vectors
This was a great video and the cover you made was impressive! :0
Thank you so much!
Hi. Is your Indesign course for book design still available? And follow-up question if it is. Is it designed for beginners? many thanks.
I created the cover for my husband’s second book he just released. It was my first cover and so fun to put it all together and, like you, did it all in Photoshop. I used stock photos along with a photo I took of my daughter.
Too much talking
Hi Mandy – I’m getting a great deal of benefit out of your content. Thank you very much ! I’ve heard you mention that you design book covers but I couldn’t find the link on how to reach out for pricing / discuss that possibility. I am writing my memoir and I intended to do all the work myself but I’m running out of both bandwidth and skill! lol 😂
I no longer offer cover design services as I don’t have the time for it anymore.