How to Find a Great Book Cover Designer, and the 7 Rules You Need to Know to Work Together (without Driving Anyone Crazy)

Chances are you’re going to want to publish more than one book—and if you’ve put all that effort into finding a good designer the first time, you’ll want to have a good relationship with that designer so that he or she will want to work with you again. Part of this means knowing upfront how much everything will cost, what is and isn't included in the price, when the designer expects to be paid, and how long it will take the designer to finish the work.  

The first step to finding a great cover designer is to get recommendations, and the best way to do that is to hang out in places where other indie authors hang out. Most indie authors are proud to show off their covers—after all, it’s a great way to publicize your books—and are more than happy to tell you who designed them.

One of my favorite indie author hangouts is the ebook experiment group, which I started on Facebook. At the bottom of this post you’ll find links to the websites of different cover designers who have been recommended by indie authors I’ve met there and elsewhere on Facebook.

Twitter chats, like #IndieChat and #MBPA, are another good way to connect with indie authors and to discover book cover designers you might want to work with.

Once you get a recommendation, check out the designer’s website. Most cover designers today have a website, which should include a portfolio of previously published work. You need to see if the designer is really as good as the writer who recommended the designer says, and you also need to see if the designer’s work fits your particular book. Doctor Seuss, after all, might have designed great covers, but that doesn’t mean he would have been the right person to design the cover of a vampire novel, not unless the title of it is One Fang, Two Fangs, Red Fang, Blue Fang.

So what should you look for when you check out a recommended designer’s portfolio?

Read my two previous posts on cover design ("What You Need to Know About Cover Design Before You Indie Publish Your Novel" and "Indie Publishers, What You Need to Know About Book Covers") to get an idea of what makes a great book cover great. In short, you should look for clarity, the right mood, something that fits in with the current bestsellers in your genre, a good hook, simplicity (as in no overwhelmingly distracting colors or other elements), and something that makes the book stand out among competing titles. Some of those requirements—particularly “standing out”—cost more, so you might want to stick with something that’s just professional and standard for the genre until you can afford something better.

Beyond what you should be looking for, you should also learn to recognize the things you need to avoid. The guest blog post I wrote for Indies Unlimited (Cover Basics, Part II) might help you there. It’s an uncharacteristically snarky, but very funny, post on the things I think but don’t say when I see badly designed covers. Hopefully it will give you a laugh or two, as well as an idea of what not to do.  

Okay, so let’s say you’ve gotten some recommendations, checked out several websites, and found a designer whose work you like. The fonts and images are clear and can’t be misconstrued. (I saw one with what appeared to be a phallic symbol on the cover, which later turned out to be a very strange, stylized Red Riding Hood. Unless you’re writing erotic fiction, this is not a good thing.) The mood (dark, humorous, playful, sexy, etc.) fits the mood of your book. The designer has experience designing books in your genre. The covers you found on the designer’s website had a good hook, one that made you want to open the book and start reading. The covers are simple, in that everything in them tells you something about the story you couldn’t get from the title alone, and nothing is redundant or distractingly overwhelming. It’s contemporary, and not hopelessly outdated. And—if you can afford something special—the cover isn't like one you’ve seen a million times before, one that could fit half the books in the same genre. The price also fits your budget. Great! Now what?

Most designers will indicate on their websites how they want to be contacted, so contact the designer in that way. First find out if the designer is open to working on your project, how long it will take, and how much you can expect to pay and when. Be aware that it might take an in-demand designer several months to finish your project, and allow for that time in your publication schedule. Also be aware that the many designers expect to get paid partially, or even fully, upfront. Some charge for edits. Some don’t. It’s best to have everything clear in writing from the start so that there are no misunderstandings.

Before I tell you how to work with a cover designer without driving yourself—or the cover designer—crazy, let me explain why that’s something you really want to do.  

I’m a writer, but I’m also an illustrator. As an illustrator, I have worked with so many difficult clients that it has put me off working for individuals altogether. I love working with magazines and newspapers, but you probably couldn’t convince me to design your book cover. I’ve been burned too many times.

You don’t want to do that, because chances are you’re going to want to publish more than one book—and if you’ve put all that effort into finding a good designer the first time, you’ll want to have a good relationship with that designer so that he or she will want to work with you again. Even if you decide to work with another designer, that second designer might wonder why you switched designers, contact the first designer, and discover you’re not an easy person to work with. You don’t want to be that kind of client. You want to be the kind of client a designer loves working with, so that your designer will not only want to work with you again but will give you good recommendations for other designers if for some reason that designer can’t help you the second time around.  

That takes care of the “why” regarding not driving the designer crazy. Now let’s look at the “how.”

7 Rules for Working with 
a Book Cover Designer

1. Get everything in writing. If you’re getting a custom-made cover, get everything in writing so you know exactly what you’re paying for, how much it will cost, when you have to pay, and when you can expect to get your finished artwork. Most designers charge at least partially upfront. Some include edits in the price, and some charge extra for them. You’ll need some of this information in writing if you choose to buy a premade cover, but there’s less of a hassle involved when you can’t make changes, like you can with a custom-made cover.

2. Be clear with your instructions from the start. I once knew a newspaper manager who could babble on for an hour without anyone understanding what it was he wanted. No one can give you what you want if you can’t say what it is you want. Be clear. Let the designer know a little bit about your book, like its title, genre, intended audience, mood, and basic plot. Do not drive the designer crazy with too many details.

3. Don’t expect Bloomingdale’s at Wal-Mart prices. While it’s important to have a clear vision, it has to fit the designer’s abilities and your budget. You might want a cover that looks exactly like the cover of the latest bestseller, but some of those are painted by illustrators who work a month or more on that one illustration and charge thousands of dollars. Others require hiring a studio, a photographer, a costume designer, models, and more. Like the Rolling Stones song goes, “You can’t always get what you want…”  Adjust your vision to fit the designer you’ve chosen. Don’t try to change the designer to fit the cover you have in your head. That never works out.

4. Ask questions. One of the best things you can do is ask the designer for input. Maybe the designer has great ideas that never would have occurred to you. Or maybe the designer has made certain design choices you don’t understand. Don’t pretend to know things you don’t, and don’t be embarrassed to ask.

5. Respect the designer. Realize the designer is a professional and trust him or her to make the right choices for your book. If the designer isn’t a professional, you shouldn’t hire him or her.

6. Be professional. Be courteous, pay on time, and value the designer’s time, work, and talent. For example, some designers don’t charge for edits, but that doesn’t mean you should push it. There’s no justification for more than one edit, two tops.  It’s possible the designer might come up with a terrific cover concept that doesn’t exactly fit what you have in your book. Maybe the cover has an extreme close-up of a brown eye, and you’ve described your character as having blue eyes. Just how important is the character’s eye color? Does the entire story revolve around it? If so, you should have mentioned it in your brief description of the story. If it isn’t, consider that it’s easier to search your manuscript for blue eyes and replace them with brown eyes than it is for the designer to go back to the drawing board to make those brown eyes blue. You can ask the designer how much trouble it would be to make that change, but only if you’re paying for a custom cover and this is your first edit. I don’t think anything drives me crazier than a client who keeps asking for changes after changes, mostly because that client doesn’t really know what he or she wants or how to communicate it.

7. Give credit where credit is due. Ask the designer how he or she would like to be credited in your book, and make sure you let other indie publishers know what a great job your designer did.

The two most important words to remember are clarity and respect. Ask questions so you have a clear idea of what you can expect, and communicate those expectations clearly. You are a writer, after all, and the Internet is a written medium. There’s no reason why a writer should have a difficult time communicating clearly online. And try to respect that the designer is a professional, one who has studied and worked hard to get to where he or she is in the profession. You wouldn’t tell your doctor what you think it best for your body. You would tell your doctor what’s wrong and ask for his professional opinion. Tell the designer about your book, and ask that designer for his or her professional opinion. Some of the worst designed covers I have ever seen were created by designers who were trying to follow the writer’s detailed instructions. The writer was probably happy with the finished result, but probably not as happy with his or her sales. Treat the designer like a professional, and the designer will see that you too are a professional.

And finally, be flexible. Designers aren’t mind readers. They can’t give you exactly the cover concept you have in your head. But if you’re flexible and clear about what you want, you might get something even better.

* * *

And now, here’s a list of cover designers other writers I know have been happy with. Some charge less, and some more. I’ve only listed the more expensive designers I think are worth the extra money. This is by no means a complete list, but it is a good place to start. If there’s another cover designer you’d recommend, I hope you’ll tell us about him or her and leave a link in the comments below.  

• Dara England has decent premade ebook covers starting as low as $18. These are particularly suited to romance and historical fiction, but you’ll find some YA and paranormal covers in there too. She offers both premade and made to order e-book covers, and her prices are quite affordable: http://mycoverart.wordpress.com/clearance/

• Cheap covers for romance and erotica: http://www.romancenovelcovers.com/ Premade covers are just $45, and there’s a wide selection to choose from.

• I was really impressed by a friend's book cover, and this is the place that did it: http://probookcovers.com/ Right now covers are just $99. These are first-rate covers at a fraction of the cost.

• Great illustrator who does covers: http://www.partzero.com/covers.html (He did the cover for Dust by Arthur Slade)

• Carl Graves (cover designer, reasonable rates) website: http://extendedimagery.blogspot.com/ Client list includes Alexander Sokoloff, Barry Eisler, Erik Lynd, J.A. Konrath, Jack Kilborn, James Swain, L.A. Banks, Lee Goldberg, and Tobias Buckell.

Of course, if you do have the skills and experience to design your own book cover or for some reason you still don’t want to hire a professional, here are some good places to look for images that could look good on your cover and don’t cost a lot:

• http://www.bigstockphoto.com/search/category/abstract/
• http://www.istockphoto.com/
• http://www.stockphotography.com/
• http://www.stockphotos.com/
• http://www.acclaimimages.com/
• http://www.gettyimages.com/

What You Need to Know About Cover Design Before You Indie Publish Your Novel

What are the three best things you can do if you want to learn how to write?

Read, read, and read some more.

The three most important things you can do if you want to learn how to design a book cover are similar: look at lots and lots and lots of book covers. 

But don’t just glance at them like you have until now. Analyze them. Take them apart. Figure out what makes them work—or not work —and why.

But you're a writer, not a cover designer, so why do you need to do this?

If you’re a writer working with a publisher, the truth is you don’t. Most traditionally published writers have no say in what their book's cover will look like. You just have to trust that the publisher's art director or cover designer will make the right choices. They know a lot about design, after all, and their goal is the same as yours: to get readers to buy your book.  

If, however, you’re planning on indie publishing, you need to know a little about how readers look at covers and what kind of covers make readers want to buy books. You have to learn to think like a designer, even if you aren't going to be designing your own cover.

Of course, if you are an indie publisher and you don’t have a design background, you’ll almost certainly be better off hiring a professional designer to create your cover. But how are you going to choose the right designer for you if you don’t know what to look for in that designer’s portfolio?

There are a lot of mistaken assumptions about how book covers are supposed to look, and that has led to thousands of badly designed indie published books.

 It’s time to break down the assumptions so that you can have a better understanding of what will or won’t help you sell your book.

We’re going to be looking at the covers of the several popular fiction series: the Twilight saga, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Hunger Games, the Wimpy Kid books, and Heather Brewer’s Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. These are all books with great covers, covers that have connected with readers and have probably helped these books sell well. (Perhaps in a future post, we’ll look at nonfiction covers too.)

Let’s start with the books from the Twilight saga:

Notice the beautiful use of black, white and red.

 The red pops off the cover. 

Red has several meanings in Western culture. It symbolizes passion, love, life, and of course, blood—all of which comes to play in the Twilight saga. Notice how the falling petal on the New Moon cover looks like a drop of blood. The red apple symbolizes forbidden fruit and the end of innocence. White symbolizes purity and innocence too. Black symbolizes mystery and the night. All of these things are a part of the story too.

There’s one thing that’s noticeably absent in these covers, and that’s anything that screams “vampire.” There’s no mouth with fangs. 

There’s also nothing that screams “romance”: no pretty girl, no embracing or kissing couple, not even a seductive face. All those things that are assumed to go on the covers or YA romance or vampire novels—or romantic YA vampire novels—are absent. These covers break the assumptions, and that makes them stand out.

Great covers usually aren’t obvious. Great covers stand out, because they present something in a surprising way. 

Yes, blood is implied, but it’s not obvious. Keeping things implied means the reader will have to open the book to start reading in order to find out if what’s implied is really there. And that, of course, is your ultimate goal as a writer, to get the reader to open the book and start reading.

A cover is a promise to the reader that the story delivers on. 

Too many cover designers forget this, which leads to far too many covers with fangs, blood, sexy men or women, or couples kissing or embracing. That’s fine for a company like Harlequin Romance. Their readers want all their novels to be the same. They want a predicable formula. Their books are all designed to fulfill the same promise and provide the same value. They are the McDonald’s hamburgers of romance fiction.

But if your novel isn’t published with a company with a reputation for delivering exactly what a specific audience expects, standing out is a good thing. You can’t compete with Harlequin Romance for their readers, so don’t. Instead, get a cover that appeals to a different audience, one that might like to try something . . . different.

The title on the first four Twilight books is small, which doesn’t work quite as well when shrunk down to the size it would appear in Amazon’s search engine (something to consider nowadays if you’re planning to sell your book on Kindle). 

The text type is unique and has fangs in the l and h of Twilight. Again, these are implied, not obvious. There are also girly curves in the w and g, which works well for a YA romance. I highly recommend getting a unique text type, because it will stand out and help define your brand as being different from others.

These are, in short, perfect covers.

So you might be thinking, “If they’re so great, why not just copy what works for these books?”

Unfortunately, too many people have already thought that.

The market is saturated with way too many copycat covers that utilize a red element—like a rose—on a black and white backdrop. The first person who does something stands out, but you can’t stand out by copying that person. It just doesn’t work.  

Now here’s the cover for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

This is the cover I think works best, again because it doesn’t go with the obvious. The book is, after all, called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The obvious thing would be to put a girl with a dragon tattoo on the cover. And that has been done. Here’s another cover for the same book:

In my opinion, this cover is okay but not as great as the one above. Why? Because the illustration is redundant. We already know this book is about a girl with a dragon tattoo. That’s in the title. We don’t need to see it on the cover.

It also defeats one of the greatest joys of reading. When we read, we participate in the creation of the story, because our imagination fills in the blanks. Readers don’t want a cover illustration telling them how to see the character. (And, in fact, this is not the way many have pictured her, as this movie poster shows.)

This is a great movie poster, but showing a picture of the girl works for the movie, because movies are visual experiences. Books—with the exception of illustrated books—are not. Books use words to create a framework for what the reader will see his mind’s eye —but it’s the mind’s eye that will determine what that image will be.

The first cover for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is all about the title. It pretty much lets the title speak for itself, which is great, because it’s a great title.

While the font isn’t unique, it’s a classic, and it’s broken in a unique way that implies the violence in the book. (I also used something similar with the cover for Toren the Teller’s Tale, where I put slashes in Toren’s name to imply that she was a “torn” girl. Some have said it looks like a dragon’s claws have gone through it, which works very well for the story.) I like the way the word “girl” is the only complete one in the title, which implies that the girl has a certain strength. She stands strong while those around her are damaged. There seem to be only two font choices on that cover, and they’re compatible, which is great. One of the biggest mistakes that amateur cover designers make is using too many fonts or fonts that don’t work well together.

 I also love that this cover didn’t go with the obvious color choices of black for mystery and red for violence. The cover, I think, works really well for the intended audience. It says literary and mystery at the same time. It’s another enigma for the reader to unravel. Who is the girl with the dragon tattoo? The reader will have to read the book to find out. 

This cover is brilliant in how it eschews the obvious and lets the title do the work.

Now let’s move onto The Hunger Games, and I think with this one you’ll start to see a surprising pattern:

The first thing that stands out is the golden emblem on the cover. All the covers in this series are emblematic. There are no faces, so you get to imagine what Katniss, Peeta, and the other characters look like. And here’s the trend you can see with these covers: the most successful books these days do not show characters on the cover.

This trend makes it easier for the reader to put him or herself into the story. Without a face, the main character could be anyone, even you.

Of course, the emblem works particularly well here, because it looks like a medal that might be awarded to a soldier. That combined with the strong, boxy, almost militaristic font and the word “hunger” belies the playfulness of the word “games.”  Only one letter doesn’t fit the same blocky style, and it’s the “s” at the end of games. I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but it reminds me of the “s” in Star Wars (although less dated), which could make it a clever reference to a classic sci-fi series.

Intentional or not, there’s something about it that I think says “sci-fi.”

Black is a natural color for a dystopian novel like The Hunger Games, so that works. 

The arrow in the bird’s beak and the stylized targets give a hint as to what’s inside. Once again, the reader will have to open the book to find out if his or her hunch was right. Violence, though, is certainly implied, and the little bits of red add to that impression. The cover makes promises to the reader, and the story delivers on those promises.

These are all serious books for teens and adults. What about novels for younger kids? And what about humorous fiction?

Children’s books are designed for an audience that might not get subtlety. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is a fun, funny, illustrated children’s book series, and the covers make that obvious.

 A book cover has to fit its intended audience’s needs, and children need clarity.

A book cover also has to promise something the intended audience wants. (And of course the book must then deliver on that promise.) 

The typical reader of Diary of a Wimpy Kid doesn’t want mystery, romance, violence, or even something that will make him think. Nope, the typical reader of Diary of a Wimpy Kid just wants to laugh with—and at—a kid who is probably a lot like the reader or like someone the reader knows.

Subtlety also works better for mystery and suspense than it does for comedy, but that's truer still when it comes to comedy for children. Woody Allen is funny, but his movies—particularly his later ones—appeal mostly to a sophisticated audience. Kids aren’t that sophisticated. They find the exploits of Captain Underpants a hoot. The covers of the Wimpy Kid books, with their utter lack of subtlety and sophistication, are perfect for their intended audience.  

There’s a drawing of the main character on the cover. It says right there on the cover that this is “a novel in cartoons,” and the drawing makes it clear what kind of cartoons we’re talking about. These aren’t sophisticated New Yorker cartoons. These are the cartoons a kid draws in his notebook when he’s supposed to be writing down the day’s homework assignment.

It’s an honest self-portrait. He isn’t handsome, cute, or strong. He isn’t happy. He can’t even stand up straight under the weight of his backpack. He is the reader, or at least a kid the reader knows. He doodles on lined notebook paper, maybe dreaming of bigger and better things. He has a diary, but he doesn’t really like it, so he stuck one of his own drawings on it to make it more his own.

One of my favorite parts of this cover is the shiny “tape” that holds the ripped piece of notebook paper down. It feels like you can pick the tape off, like a real kid stuck real tape on it. The word “diary” is written in a font that might be used on a real diary, but the other text is cartoony and looks hand drawn.  The cover tells you exactly what you’re going to get, and the story—the novel in cartoons—delivers exactly that.

Lastly, I’d like to discuss a brilliant cover you might not have seen. 

These are the books in the Vladimir Tod series by Heather Brewer:  

Like the Twilight covers, these covers use black and white to make the single color element on each book pop. However—and this what makes these covers so brilliant—the single color element that pops is a smiley face with ironic fangs. That exact same smiley face with fangs is on the cover of all the books in the series, which raises its status from being a simple design element to a logo.

Why is this a big deal?

Because logos are instantly recognizable. 

When we see a logo we’ve seen before, it brings to mind experiences we’ve had with that brand. In other words, if you like the first book in this series, you’ll like the other books in the series, too, and you’ll instantly be able to recognize them by that fanged smiley face. Even if you haven’t read the books and have only seen one cover, chances are you’re going to know this series is familiar to you the next time you see one of these covers, even if it isn’t the same cover. 

That’s brand recognition, and that is huge. Not only will it work for your books, but it will work for your book promotions, including things like bookmarks and t-shirts. Think of the potential for merchandising! Not only can you sell those things, but those things will help sell your books. 

Of course, the logo has to fit the series, and it this case it does. While Vladimir Tod is a vampire, he’s also a regular teenage boy just trying to survive. The fanged smiley face works perfectly to capture the darkly humorous (or humorously dark) mood of this series.

You might also notice how the title on these covers have almost disappeared. They aren’t as important as those logos, although they are great titles. Here’s a different cover for the first book in the series.

While the title is nice and clear, and it plays with the two meanings of the word "bites," there’s nothing particularly humorous or ironic about the cover's design. This cover is a very good cover, but it misses the point. It doesn't make the promise the book delivers on. Instead it makes a promise that might appeal more to Twilight fans. It aims for a similar audience, but not the exact right audience. The deliciously ironic fanged smiley face, though, more accurately promises what the book delivers. It captures exactly the right audience. Which proves that sometimes a clear title works, and sometimes something else works even better.

Speaking of books that don’t have clear titles on the cover, I thought I’d throw in just one more:

Do you see the title? No? That's because it's not there.

But can you still figure out what the title is? It takes a little bit of thought, but you can work it out. There’s a star and then a girl. So the cover of the book is...?

If you guessed Star Girl, you are correct. 

Star Girl  by Jerry Spinelli is about a girl who’s different, a girl who stands out. Doesn’t it make sense to give it a cover that stands out too? And a cover without a title does just that.

 SO WHAT’S THE BOTTOM LINE?

• Study the covers of books that appeal to your intended audience. What works? What doesn't? Why does it work or not work? What’s been overdone? Is there a look you would consider dated? Is there a classic look? If so, what differentiates one from the other?
• How can your book stand out from the crowd? Do you have a strong visual in the title? If you do, does the cover need to show that visual or would that be redundant? Is your book illustrated? If so, do you think an illustration should be on the cover to show the reader what's inside?
•  What does your book give the reader? How does that align with what your intended audience wants? How can the cover promise to give the reader what the reader wants and what your book delivers?
• How can you make the font stand out in a way that fits your book? And how can you make your fonts work in harmony to appeal to your book's audience and deliver your message?
• How many colors are on the most successful books in your genre? What are those colors? Are they overdone? If so, how can you shake it up to make your book look different?  

Of course, this is only a very brief overview of some elements of book cover design; but if you're an indie author, you don't need to know everything about how to design a cover. You only need to understand why designers make the choices they do. In the end, it's all about the designer using his or her expertise to help you sell more books. In a future blog post, I intend to go into how to choose and work with the right designer for your book. 

What about you? There are so many books with wonderful covers. What are some of your favorites? Try looking at them while asking yourself the questions above. What do you think makes them great and why? Are your favorite covers dated, current, or timeless? What makes them that way?