Even with an entry cost as low as $39 at CreateSpace, some authors may struggle to get their first book self-published due to financial considerations. This is particularly true if the author hires an editor to give the book an all important edit. Other authors may have the desire to create both the cover and the interior of their books.
As with everything else in self-publishing, there always seems to be one more hill to climb in the learning process. In an effort to shorten the learning curve for other authors, I would like to suggest some software to learn how to use so time is not wasted in determining what software to attempt to master.
If you only want to learn one, I suggest learning Adobe InDesign. I spent two days at a training seminar and plan to repeat the course. There is a lot to learn and I need to go through the basic course again before I know enough to feel comfortable poking around and really learn how to use InDesign. I am determined to master this software as it can be used to create covers and the interior files for POD books. It is a professional grade design program and can import items from other Adobe programs such as Photoshop.
Word can be used to create interior files and covers but it will take a lot of creative effort and care to produce files that look professional. If you feel up to this or have already mastered Word, I suggest obtaining a copy of Aaron Shepard's Perfect Pages and read it cover to cover. Aaron creates the files for his books using Word for Mac and shares his technical know how and experiences with creating LSI files in Perfect Pages.
The Publishing Maven, Christie Pinheiro, uses BookCoverPro to create the covers for her books. She assures me the software is relatively easy to learn and creates professional looking covers.
If any of the readers of this blog have other software to suggest, please post a comment to share with the other visitors.
I like BookCoverPro because it was easy to learn. Of course, Adobe InDesign is the Cadillac of book cover design software. Kudos for learning that program.
ReplyDeleteIt took me about 2-3 hours to learn how to use BookCover Pro, and even that was too much. I simply don't have enough hours in the day.