10 Resources for a Great Book Cover Design, Whatever Your Budget

Your book needs a cover design that is as good as its content!

Since a picture paints a thousand words, and since your cover will be the one that really grabs the attention of people browsing Amazon, you really have to make sure it’s the best it can be (within your budget).

Here are some options to get a fantastic cover design created quickly, whether you’re happy to spend $ 5 or $ 500. Or even if you’re not looking to spend a single penny!

Now of course you can create a cover design yourself using software like PhotoShop or even just Microsoft Word, and if you’re artistically inclined, that may be a great option for you. However, that can be quite a complicated process.

In fact, I’ll be talking about some software that makes creating your own covers super quick and easy, much easier than advanced graphic design software!

But first of all, you should start with ideas in mind, as it makes the design and decision process on your final cover a lot easier.

Here are some options to get started with your market research:

• Explore Amazon in your market for design ideas. Pay special attention to the best-selling books.
• That said, you don’t need to limit yourself to your market. Take time to search for best-selling books in other related markets and see what ideas they bring you.
• And it’s also worth downloading book samples from Amazon to see how other authors have designed and presented their books.

Now let’s go over ten great options for creating your own fantastic book cover:

Get dozens of designs in 99 designs

99 Designs is a very popular site to get lots of design ideas in just a few days, and the final design a few days after that.

Its operation is as follows:

• As a customer of the site, you will have hundreds of designers competing to create the perfect design for you.
• So, initially, you choose your “prize” level. This is a financial amount, and the higher this amount, the more designers will compete for your attention and the better quality the designers will have.
• You prepare a summary of the project and launch the contest.
• Designs begin to appear.
• Once the contest is over, from all the designs you received, you choose the finalists.
• You work with the finalists to create the perfect design for you.

Now 99 designs is not the cheapest option, but the amount you spend depends on the amount of the prize you choose. However, with this site you get what you can’t (affordably) with any other site, dozens of design ideas in just a few days.

Get a unique design for $ 5 on Fiverr

Fiverr is a very popular online marketplace for services, where everything costs just $ 5. Well, the basic options start at $ 5 anyway. There are often many changes that can increase the price significantly. For example:

Do you want a response time of 24 hours? That’s an extra $ 20.

Do you want all the source files for your design? Add $ 10.

… and so.

But, with a little searching and reading the reviews, you can get a decent cover design.

Usually it will be created relatively quickly (a few days) and will probably be ok, maybe even well. Probably not great. But of course, for $ 5, your expectations can’t be too high. If you are looking for a lot of collaboration between you and the designer, this is not the site.

Find Talented and Affordable Designers at UpWork

oDesk and eLance used to be two separate sites that were marketplaces for services. Sure enough, sites where people could post projects of what they needed to do, and then freelancers would bid on the project in an attempt to get the job.

One (not entirely unfair) way of categorizing the two sites was that oDesk was suited to the cheaper end of the market, whereas eLance used to be more expensive and by implication the quality of freelancers was higher (though not always the case).

However, the two sites have now become one! And it’s called UpWork.

Now, there are thousands of very talented designers on this site from all over the world, and prices vary quite a bit by country, skill level, and sometimes simply because freelancers are overrated or underestimated.

So you can either approach a freelancer directly and set up a private project with them, or you can post a project and let the designers bid on it.

If you post a project, then you filter through the people who have bid on your project to choose who you would like to communicate with the most, so you can choose one (or more) designers to work with.

When choosing designers, be sure to check their work history and portfolio. It is ideal if they have created book covers before and can show you examples of their work.

And if you are clear on what you are looking for and find a designer who creates great work and communicates well, you can often get great designs for even less than $ 50.

More great designers to find people per hour

Another site where you can find very talented freelancers is People Per Hour.

It is worth noting that although it is an international site, a large proportion of the freelancers on this site are from the UK. Of course, that does not mean that you cannot work with them if you are outside the UK.

But keep in mind the time zone differences and, in particular, that they won’t offer the kind of low prices that some designers offer at UpWork.

Interestingly, this site also offers simple services at a fixed price, calling them by the hour.

This way, it is not always necessary to go through the process of posting a project and interviewing people. You can buy a service out of the box and have it taken care of right away.

Get your own exclusive pre-made book cover

Author Marketing Club is an inexpensive membership site that provides tips and tools to help freelance authors write, publish, and promote their books.

They offer a large number of exclusive ready-made covers. You can choose one of these coverages, customize it just for you, and then purchase the exclusive rights or get it as a bonus when you become a paid member:

Use the free Canva software to easily design book covers

Canva is free software that makes design easy. It has all kinds of features, but a particularly relevant part of its functionality is the creation of book covers.

And interestingly, instead of requesting payment in advance, their business model is as follows:

• You can use the software for free.
• You can create your cover for free.
• You can choose from over a million images available in the software to help you create your design.
• However, the images are watermarked, so if you want to use an image for your cover, you need to pay the image rights to remove the watermark. So in a way it’s a stock photography site, with some software attached to the front!
• objectiveIf you provide your own photos or stock images, you don’t need to pay to use them, so using the software may not cost you anything.
• That said, there is also an advanced version with more functionality billed monthly.

Cover Creator is a free software to create book covers

Cover Creator is totally free web software for designing book covers. It’s not the most feature-rich software, but it’s a quick and easy way to get started:

Easily design great covers with Book Cover Pro

Book Cover Pro is software that helps you easily and quickly create great-looking covers for your e-books, even if it’s not technical or particularly artistic!

There is no free or demo version of this software on the main site, to try before you buy, but there are plenty of testimonials on the site, so if you decide to take the plunge with this software, it seems like you will be fine. business.

With that said, you can currently download a demo version from CNET and there are some additional reviews there.

Get your own exclusive ready-made cover

Like the Author Marketing Club mentioned above, there are two more sites you can choose from out of the box covers and get the exclusive rights to one you like: Go On Write and the related site Vamos Write.

The prices of the covers are currently $ 45. You examine the covers available and, if you see one that you would like for your book (with the text changed, of course), you place your order and that cover is personalized and becomes exclusively yours .

This is a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to get a cover you like, without the usual back and forth of working with a designer.

The cream of the crop for cover designers

If you have the budget for it and are looking for the best coverage you can get, you may want to check out Creativ Indie Covers.

This service is recommended by top-selling freelance author Joanna Penn, as she uses this service for her own books (which have sold over 300,000 copies).

Although due to the expense, you may need to feel confident about your book sales, and have a significant marketing boost online, before spending a large amount on a design.

Of course, you can start with a cheap cover to test a book and then update the cover once you are making sales. Although a cover can certainly affect how well a book sells, it is not the only variable, so you may not want to make expensive decisions foot-first if the funds are too much for you right now.

Three additional resources …

While 10 is a good round number, 13 is less so! But it would be remiss to exclude the following options also to design your cover:

Book Baby offers a number of services to help authors create and promote their books. Of course I will focus on your e-book cover design service.

Currently, its price per design starts at $ 199 for a fairly basic offering, and goes up to $ 299 for more complex designs with multiple photos, textures, graphics, and unique fonts.

eBook Launch offers formatting and layout services for authors to help make their book look great by the date of publication.

The lowest priced option is for pre-fabricated roofs. As you can see, the price is double (or more) compared to other services, so it is not competitive, although of course you can browse through your options and see if a cover catches your eye.

While the higher priced options are custom designed just for your book.

Book Cover Designer is 100% specialized in book covers for authors. You have the option of pre-made covers and the prices vary quite a bit.

They also offer a custom design service that is very affordable starting at $ 90. However, the basic offering is not as flexible as other custom services. And additions to the basic service (more images, for example) add to the price, so it’s best to make it clear early in the process how much it could end up costing you.