How to Make a Book Cover | Tips for Indie Authors

Are you a fellow independent (indie) author looking to make your very first book cover? Confused about where to even begin with the whole “cover design” process?

Don’t worry, I got you!

Because creating your first (or, let’s be honest, your second or third or fiftieth) book cover can be kind of nerve-wracking. You want to make it look stunning and perfect in every way… but, how do you go about making it happen?

Let’s take a look—you can view the full “tutorial” video below, or scroll down to read up on some of my top book cover-making tips.

Video: How to Design Your Book Cover

Quick Tips: Designing Your Own Book Covers

Honestly, simpler is better when it comes to book covers. Think about it: you want your book cover to clearly convey what your book is about, so it doesn’t help to clutter it up with tons and tons of images. That’s just too confusing for readers.

So, keep it simple, and try to take things one small step at a time.

First, Pick an Illustration

Majority of books have some type of image or illustration on their covers. Again, you want to keep things simple, so think of a clear image that will showcase the genre of your book best.

Rom-com book covers may have illustrations of lovers holding hands on them; meanwhile, sinister thrillers may have images of knives or other weapons on their covers. As mentioned in the video above, you can always use royalty-free illustrations online, especially on a platform like Canva.

Second, Choose Your Text

Just like you don’t want a lot of images clouding up your cover, you don’t want too much in terms of wording, either.

Stick to adding your book’s title and author name—then leave it at that. Unless you can find a way to add a very short and small blurb somewhere else on the front cover—but, again, simpler is always best.

Of course, if you are designing a wraparound print cover, you can add more text to the backside of the cover image. However, even at that, keeping your book desciption on the back short and to-the-point is a great idea.

When in doubt, just think like a reader… look at your cover as though you are a potential reader of your book, and see if anything on the cover confuses you. If it does, then you’ll want to scrape it off!

Lastly, Double-Check It

The last thing you really want to do with your book cover is upload it with a type in your title, trust me…

So, always double-check your cover many times over many days before you call it finished. Hm… sounds a lot like the advice we writers get when it comes to editing our drafts and manuscripts, too, doesn’t it?

It also doesn’t hurt to compare your cover next to other covers in your book’s genre—does it seem like it would fit on on the shelves next to them? Alternatively, ask a couple of friends to take a look at your cover and give their first impressions of it—can they tell if it’s meant to be a cover for a romantasy book, a sci-fi, historical lit, etc.?

Well, that’s all I have for you all in terms of book cover design tips. If you’d like, you can check out some of my own book covers for more inspiration, since I’m also an indie author who’s made all of my own covers from scratch over the years.

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