Cover Design by Robin Ludwig - Final Cover Art Is Ready for The Predator and The Prey

Things are coming together slowly but surely for the February 2nd release of my first novel, The Predator and The Prey. I received the cover proof for approval for the final design from Robin Ludwig of Robin Ludwig Design. Her website can be found at http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/index.html.

 

Cover by Robin Ludwig Designs

Ms. Ludwig produced a design that was better than what I had envisioned. Of course, I'm not that creative visually so that might not be the best recommendation for her work. Having said that, she was faced with the challenge of producing a cover that conveyed the gritty sinister feel of a classic crime noir novel with a hint the book was a science fiction story as well.

Fog and snow are used regularly in the story to foreshadow an attack on the streets of Capital City by the story's villain. The two moons of Beta Prime appear in the star filled sky, giving a nod to the novel's science fiction component. The sinister appearance of the villain and the woman who seems to be the titular prey communicates the story's potential for violence and crime in the great tradition of crime noir storytelling.

Somehow, Ms. Ludwig managed to capture the feel of both genres. Not an easy task to accomplish in my opinion.

A visit to her website will give you a chance to look at other examples of her work as a cover designer and graphic artist. In addition to book covers, both POD paperback and ebooks, Ms. Ludwig designs a wide range of items for authors ranging from bookmarks and business cards to graphics for your author website.

Even better, her prices are very competitive and for this author, a bargain for what I paid for. She was very patient with me, a novice at this type of cover design (all of my previous 20+ book covers were for non-fiction - a different animal entirely) and steered me to the final design, which was much better than my original vision for the cover.

Making Your Own Cover - The Book Designer's Cover Templates - A Quick Review

Covers sell books. It is that simple. After good editing, a great cover is essential and in the case of marketing, it might be one of your most essential items. The cover has to grab your potential reader's eye in about two seconds. This is even more difficult given how small the images Amazon and other online retailers provide.

One of the easiest ways to spot a self-published book is its cover. Bad covers on self-published books not only hurt sales, but give the legacy publishing crowd food for their arguments against self-publishing and serves as further proof that Indie authors have no business publishing.

CreateSpace and Amazon's KDP both offer cover templates which are better than what many authors come up with left to their own devices. I have used these for some of my books and these covers were "OK" at best. You can tell they are templates and having used them, I can spot with ease covers using these same templates just by browsing Amazon.

The good folks at The Book Designer now offer a solution to the problem of creating your own cover and having it look like an expensive custom designed cover.

The image above shows the design I came up with for my next book. Now, you might not like the looks of the cover and that's fine, but DO NOT hold it against The Book Designer. Any design issues with the cover are because I have very limited talent for this sort of thing.

I was able to calculate and set the width of the spine, enter all of my back cover information and quickly insert the cover image in about 20 minutes. I spent another hour creating different versions by moving text boxes, changing text color and fonts. 

All told, in about 2 hours I read the directions and created 20 different possible versions of my cover. Granted, the time invested did not include writing the back copy or selecting the my photo from my collection.

The best part was I did not lose my temper once, feel the need to threaten my computer or feel my blood pressure increase, all of which are normal when I have to learn how to use new software or a new item on my computer. That's how easy the directions were to use!

You may purchase a license for a single-book, multiple-book or a commercial license, just like with their interior design templates. Purchasing several templates at a time will also allow you to take advantage of a significant discount. Two templates will garner you a 25% discount and three will earn a 35% discount. You can save considerable money by getting your cover and interior templates at the same time.

The cover templates come in a variety of common book trim sizes and designed for use with CreateSpace, IngramSpark and Lightning Source.

This neat tool also allows you to do some neat design tricks such as using a "wrap around image" on the cover. It comes with some 20 loadable custom fonts to allow you to create just the right look with your text.

I will be taking advantage of this great tool to revamp several of my less than desirable covers in the not too distant future!

 

Quick Review of BookCoverPro Cover Design Software

I took advantage of the 4th of July sale by BookCoverPro and purchased the Deluxe version of the company's book cover design software. So far I have successfully created two book covers using the company's templates that come as standard items in the software package.

Any time you obtain a new software package it takes quite some time, at least for me, to learn how to use all of the bells and whistles. Once I decided to try using the templates I had five roughed up covers within an hour. I selected one of the five rough attempts and honed into a nice looking cover even my wife thought looked good.

I did try to make a cover completely from scratch and after spending several hours gave up and went back to the templates for the second cover I created, a redesign of a cover for a book already in print. This is not a condemnation of the software, just a comment on the fact that to create something from scratch will take quite a bit more effort to master the learning curve.

Some authors may object to using templates out of the fear of creating a cookie cutter  book cover. BookCoverPro provides a wide range of backgrounds, the ability to change colors and other items to create a unique cover. Even with the permanent, fixed features of the templates, BookCoverPro allows for the creation of additional text boxes and the introduction of photographs and images from outside the selection made available by BookCoverPro.

The software can be purchased as a download or a CD. A 20+ page manual is available for download and provides basic instructions on the features of the software and is quite helpful. Yes, I read the directions!

For the money I spent this was a great deal. I can create a unique cover in a short period of time for less than half of what I would spend to have one professionally created, and that is on the low end of the cost spectrum for custom covers.

As with any investment in a business, the owner should look carefully at the benefits of the money invested. If you only have one or two books and do not plan to publish multiple books, you might be well served to pay a professional to create a unique cover for you.

If you plan to publish multiple books, even at the full price of $187 for the downloadable version and $202 for the CD version, this software is well worth the price. The basic BookCoverPro Standard version is available for $97 but comes with only one template, as opposed to 49 in the Deluxe version, and additional templates may be purchased for $14 each. For $212 a CD and downloadable package can be obtained. Additional licenses for the Deluxe version may be purchased for $99 each and additional licenses for the Standard package may be purchased for $59.

While I have not tried this feature yet, the software has tools to convert the cover designed for print to an e-book cover.

Perhaps the best feature of the software is every cover created by the software using the templates provided are designed to be used and accepted by the two main print-on-demand companies, CreateSpace and Lightning Source.

BookCoverPro Offering July 4th Sale on Deluxe Version of its Software!

For those who are interested in moving towards creating your own book covers, BookCoverPro is offering a sale for its BookCoverPro Deluxe version (download only) for the price of $99. The sale ends on July 4th.

I have no connection to the company nor do I own or use the software. However, I have been considering purchasing it and using it to create my own book covers.

Book Covers Do Make A Difference For On-line Sales

Aaron Shepard stubbornly claims simple book covers work best for internet sales, particularly on Amazon. I agree with him to a point. Aaron's covers are super simple and he takes a bit of grief for his covers. His books on self-publishing sell well because he is an expert and the content is valuable and worth the money spent by the customer. Aaron is not going to win any awards for cover design.

I do believe simple covers work best with the small size of the cover photos Amazon provides in the product listings.  Complex artwork and design simply does not show up well.

Even with Search Inside, customers will still judge a book by its cover. Detailed product description information, reviews, and tags all play a part in the customer's decision to buy a book. But it seems the cover still plays a role in encouraging the customer to click on the book's product page to examine all of the above items.

I have learned the hard way covers do play a role in this process. My book, Better Basketball Practices, is for individuals who want to plan, organized and conduct more efficient basketball practice sessions. This is actually an important topic for basketball coaches and very few coaches are able to conduct quality practices on a consistent basis. Sales for the book have been poor despite considerable positive feedback via e-mail from the coaches who have purchased the book.

The cover was ultra basic and while I thought the design was fine, The Publishing Maven hated it. In fact, she hated it so much she created a new cover design for me without asking. I simply received an e-mail with two design options attached. My feelings were not hurt in the slightest - male ego can cause you to do funny things - and I promptly uploaded the new cover file with CreateSpace.

The results have led me to believe covers do make a big difference, even for on-line sales. Sales for the month of May for all of my titles are annually either the lowest or second lowest for the year. Sales for this single title this month alone are equal to the total combined sales for this title since October when it was introduced. Anecdotal evidence, yes, but it has gotten my attention. Future releases will require high quality covers and over time and as I can afford it, some of my older titles will get new covers.

And no, Christie does not design and produce covers professionally. She simply created this one cover for me as a favor. Joel Friedlander, the The Book Designer does though.

Cover Design, CreateSpace and crowdSpring

I have several manuscripts that are nearing the completion stage. It will be a couple of months before each is ready to be uploaded in its final form to CreateSpace for publication and sale via Amazon. It is time to start thinking about cover design for each book a well as the specific title.

It is much more important to me for the cover design for these projects to be significantly better than the cover design of most of my books. Many of my books are not intended to be sold to the public at large via Amazon. These books are given away at clinics and presentations and are part of the price of tuition to attend. They are for sale on Amazon simply because a few extra sales here and there never hurts.

Having said that, these next projects need to have excellent cover designs because they are specifically intended to be sold on Amazon. When it comes to visual creativity and design, I have no hint of talent.

Planning ahead is always a positive activity, especially if it involves money. A quick search of the CreateSpace website to re-read the information about the cover design services offered by CreateSpace as well as the prices led me to discover a new service offered by CreateSpace, if you want to call it a new service.

Evidently CreateSpace has reached an agreement of sorts with a company called crowdSPRING. crowdSPRING is a brokering service for creative people, matching people who need creative work done with people who make their living being creative.

crowdSPRING makes the following claims on its website:

• 110 entries per project, on average
• 100% satisfaction guaranteed on every single project
• 96% of buyers would recommend crowdSPRING
• 80,882 designers and writers ready to create for your project
• 97% of customer questions are answered within an hour

crowdSPRING describes the process as simple. The author names a price for a cover design and provides information about the book. Designers who belong to the crowdSPRING network submit sample covers. The author picks the design that best suits the book. 

I like the idea of competition. Paying for one company to provide you with something is not going to produce a lot of choices. Putting the cover design up to bid in an open contest environment will generate a wide selection of choices.

Further investigation of this company is warranted and I plan to look into using their services for at least one of my upcoming books. As I learn more I will be sure to share what I learn with the readers of this blog.

Book Design and Amazon Sales

I really like going to a B&N brick and mortar bookstore. I used to purchase all of my books from B&N. Now, like many readers, I still enjoy visiting a B&N and finding books I would like to read and then go home and purchase the book for less, even with shipping & handling costs, from Amazon. Granted, the books I buy now are almost always used, but still, I save huge amounts of money.

There is no doubt the cover impacts my decision when I can physically examine a book. Depending on the type of book, fiction or non-fiction, the interior design can impact my purchase decision as well. Non-fiction books meant to be used as reference manuals need to have a very user friendly design or I will not purchase the book. Photo books of topics I am interested in need to have a well thought out method of displaying the photos and the content accompanying the photos. I am not too picky about fiction when it comes to interior design, but the print does have to be large enough for me to read with ease.

Do I make the same choices when I look at books on Amazon without first vetting the book at a physical bookstore? I am not sure.  I know I rely heavily on the product information about the books content and I always read several of the customer reviews if any are available. But does the cover still have an impact on my decision to purchase or not? What about the interior design?

As I have become more knowledgeable about book production, I have started paying more attention as a consumer. I do look at the cover image and if the option is available, I use the search inside feature on Amazon to check out the interior design, especially if the book is a reference manual or photo book.

Aaron Shepard argues simple covers are the best and his are certainly simple. But if Mr. Shepard were not one of the foremost authorities on self-publishing, using Lightning Source for POD service and marketing on Amazon, would his books sell at the rate they do?

I agree simple is often good. But some covers shout self-published and the same can be said for the interior design of the book. One of my early efforts certainly fits that description. My two best selling books have professionally produced covers and interiors. I wonder if that has anything to do with the sales totals of those books?

As more and more books are self-published and sold on Amazon and as more people turn to Amazon to purchase books, the reading public will become more savvy about the books available on-line for purchase. Self-publishing authors will have to make sure their books are well designed and produced. For many of us, this may mean hiring professionals to do the work for us. I don't have a creative bone in my body when it comes to design or artistic flair.

UPDATE: As luck would have it, I found this instructive and helpful interview with Joel Friedlander about cover design for the self-publisher.