Covers!

a little fiasco, a little fun

(the “starting point” picture of Heejong)

As promised, October is all about self-publishing, and today I’m sharing — in real time — about cover design!

When you self-publish, you make lots of decisions. One I feel pretty strongly about (except for simple, nonfiction books) is that I will HIRE a professional book cover designer, not make my own.

I have seen tons of self-published books TANK because their well-meaning authors did not realize how complex and specialized cover design is, and then they made their own cover, which wasn’t up to the industry standard. I find this quite sad because, often, it’s a GOOD BOOK! But… so here’s my story with professionals:

BOOK #1 - Micromanaging

When I published my first book in 2021, I had a very strong idea of what I wanted on the cover, and I told my designer exactly what I wanted. I found these images and told him I wanted the box frames around my photo. After a couple of rounds, we ended up with this:

I found this designer on Fiverr.com, a site for freelancers. I paid him about $400, as I recall, for both the ebook and paperback, as well as social media images.

As time was on, I started considering my micromanaging a mistake. True, he didn’t meet my expectations with his own designs either (because he didn’t know the book’s story well), but next time I decided to NOT micromanage.

BOOK #2 - The Super Professional

For Hope Diamond, I decided to hire someone MORE professional and went to Reedsy.com, which curates their freelancers and assures that they are good. (This is where I found my editor, Holly Welker, who is awesome!)

I found a very creative and professional designer, and her designs are beautiful, and I’ve accepted one. Lots of co-working later, I’ve paid $550 (plus 10% to Reedsy as middle-man connector) which I think is a very fair price. (The original quote was $400 but the work became complex.)

But in the end, my family, close friends and I, still felt it was wasn’t exactly what we had in mind.

So what to do??? I had paid, and she had done the work, and some of the designs were gorgeous! In the end, I decided to accept this design and use it for a SPECIAL EDITION (like valentines month or something, with extra interior photos.) Here’s that cover, which I’m pretty excited about completing:

BOOK #2 - The Cover Service

I decided to try something else just to check if it would work better for the “everyday cover.” (I really want a Korean culture-nod and a lighter color/feel.) For $200, I enlisted 100 Covers, which was recommended by Derek Doepker, whose email list I somehow ended up subscribed to. (I had a 50% off coupon, so I bought their $400 package, which includes everything imaginable — even images for making cups and t-shirts, if I want that. But $200 is the price for ebook and paperback. Very good price.)

Their approach is very different, and in the intake form, I was asked to provide Amazon links to the bestsellers in my genre, books most similar to mine that had done well RECENTLY. This gave me confidence, and amazingly quickly, like in a couple of days, I now have TWO rough drafts to consider:

VERSION #1 (rough draft)

I don’t like this one as much.

VERSION #2 (rough draft)

I like Version #2. But I’m not sure I like the font style or font color that much.

What do you think?

I’d love your opinion

…as I work through how to finish up this cover! By Launch Month (next month — ahhhhhh!) I’ll have TWO covers, one for “everyday” and one “special edition.” It’s not exactly what I had in mind, but life is often Live and Learn, right?

Hopefully, I’ll learn enough through this to make your journey smoother. I’m not ready yet to say which path I prefer yet — freelancer or service — but I’ll keep you posted.

I hope this sharing helps you, and PLEASE DO give me any thoughts you have on these covers, especially Version #2. I’m working on this THIS WEEK.

Today’s Questions:

1. What do you think I should say to the cover design service to finish up Rough Draft Version #2 (the light one)?

2. What do you think of this self-publishing journey so far? Does it sound fun and creative, or are you ready to jump off and pay a hybrid publisher instead?? LOL