THE Group for Authors! discussion

Fellow author friends.
I'm super curious how you do it!

When it comes to writing or outlining your book, do you prefer to have the cover sorted out before you finish up writing, or do you wait until everything is all wrapped up before sorting the cover?

I'd love to know!
Personally, I think having the cover sorted motivates me from having the outline ready, to actually writing and finishing the book. But that's just me.

So, how do you do it?

I've always worked with professional cover designers, all of whom want to read a finished manuscript first. Not necessarily the final ms, though.

Maggie wrote: "I've always worked with professional cover designers, all of whom want to read a finished manuscript first. Not necessarily the final ms, though."

Interesting. I started self-publishing in 2013, and in those 9 years all of my books (17 novels, one poetry collection, 4 shorter works of fiction) have had covers by professional designers. Not one of them asked to read the book. I told them what the book was about, what I was looking for in a cover, they asked questions, and went to work.

Some of the covers were by artists who created brand new paintings for me, two of which inspired an additional chapter in the respective books. Most were a combination of photos and images that the designer layered, shaped, filtered, rearranged, etc., etc., with all the artistry I'm entirely incapable of.

And I've gotten some frankly brilliant covers (in my never-humble opinion) without having to wait however long it might take the designer to read the book before getting started designing.

But obviously, this is a system that works well for you. I hope you are having great success with your books.

Eric

I use cover design professionals because the time to write is more my style. They are more gifted and have experience. They ask me about my novel info, pick four covers from other authors, and give a brief synopsis of the story. Very simple. The end result gives me two samples to pick. If I don't like them, we start over. I have not been disappointed. Go professional.

Karl wrote: "I use cover design professionals because the time to write is more my style. They are more gifted and have experience. They ask me about my novel info, pick four covers from other authors, and give..."

nah, more fun to do it myself tbh.

L.P. wrote: "Karl wrote: "I use cover design professionals because the time to write is more my style. They are more gifted and have experience. They ask me about my novel info, pick four covers from other auth..."

For what it's worth, I think that's great. You're lucky to have two types of artistic aptitude...images and words.

Eric

I had four novels published by a traditional house and all four covers were a far cry from what I visualized in my mind. That's not to say I didn't like them. I did like a couple of them, but not all four. One had an image of the protagonist with blond hair! Yikes, I never said anywhere in the book what color hair she had but in my mind she definitely was NOT a blond. When I decided to try self-publishing, I hired a professional graphic artist, showed her what I had in mind by giving her a couple of photographs I had taken. She was able to turn my vision into reality, and I really REALLY like the covers she has created (two to date). With the second book she showed me several ideas she had, I chose one, and we tweaked it from there until together we came up with a cover that made me happy -- really happy. It's one of the things I like best about indie publishing, having that control.

I don't deal with the cover until I've finalized the MS. One reason is that I'm a tweaker. I write and re-write until I think "I'll never let go before I die." Which would be unglamorous. I always know where I start and I always know how it ends. In between it's always shifting. Make the cover your pat on the back for finishing.

Oh, and I don't tell my designer my cover ideas until he's read the book (all three so far) and he's given me his concepts. After that we work together on the final cover.

Other authors and readers have told me they love my covers.

Like P.G., I didn't deal with the cover art until I was done with the story and well into the editing process. But I had my ideas for the cover, which I initially conveyed to the artists as a written description.
I was working with a hybrid publisher on this, my first published book, and while I found them very flexible and supportive, the artwork submitted based on my descriptions was not to my liking. I tried to provide photos and later my own sketches, but not much better. I then basically drew and submitted it to them myself, which the professional artists cleaned-up, added detail, so the final result, a black-and-white pencil line drawing, was a collaboration.
I'm currently working on an SF trilogy series for which I know I will need truly creative professional artist for, regardless the publisher.

And let me add to Art's post that you should ALWAYS see what the cover looks like in thumbnail because that's how it's going to look (at first) on Amazon and other bookseller sites.

My cover designer came up with a spectacular cover (among many) for my first book. But when I reduced it, it became a complete washout.

It's always nice to think of your book on a brick and mortar shelf, but that's no longer the way most books are seen.

Here is one challenge I face as an indie author. Just because I like a cover design doesn't mean that anyone else will, or that it will attract the attention of the right audience. What is the best way of testing a cover design with the public before committing to it?

Any way to post it here (this group) for a peer review early? Just a thought.

Art wrote: "Any way to post it here (this group) for a peer review early? Just a thought."

Not sure you can do that, but you'll find that that approach will offer pretty random feedback. What I do, is I reach out to TRUSTED family members and close friends who are conversant with book covers.

Then I tally their votes, and they often concur with my feelings. In the end, I always trust myself for the final say. So far, I get high marks for my covers from everyone including other authors.

As a designer and author myself, I always create the cover outline first, it motivates me. But till the time you do not know the total number of final pages of your inner book, you cannot design the cover for print.

I designed over 200 covers when I used to run my publishing company for createspace authors which is now KDP. I always needed to know the final number of pages in the book, because that is required to determine the spine width of the book.

When you are designing covers you always design for print first -hardcover, then paperback, and then derive the ebook cover from those. If you ever wish to go for print books you do not have to hire another designer to create the print covers separately all over again.

So it is good practice to first finish the inner book formatting and then create the cover.

I recently launched my children's books series "The Jungle Heroes Series" www.thejungleheroes.com

As usual to my habit I created the cover first with a general outline of my characters but now when I am creating the inner pages, I realized that the characters need to be shown a bit grown up, which I did for the inner book.

For the first five books which are the origin stories, I am supposed to keep the same theme. So I am kind of stuck with that cover theme, even though the characters are looking a bit grown up and different from the cover.

It is a tough choice but always get your inner book finished first otherwise you may have to make changes to your cover numerous times.

You can see my covers here - the same theme for all -











and here are what the grown-up characters look like, which I will be using from the sixth book onwards -

Just my opinion, but while I like the style and colors (perfect for children's books, which I don't write), some of the covers are almost identical which I would think would confuse readers and possibly lose you sales.

I'd make each cover a bit more discernible from the previous book(s).

BTW, I NEVER have my covers designed until the writing is complete.

P.G. wrote: "Just my opinion, but while I like the style and colors (perfect for children's books, which I don't write), some of the covers are almost identical which I would think would confuse readers and pos..."

Thanks, Man. I was thinking the same.

See have to again redo the covers. :( Double work.

I agree with P.G. Or you could make the Book 1, Book 2 etc stand out considerably. The covers are great!

P.G. wrote: "Just my opinion, but while I like the style and colors (perfect for children's books, which I don't write), some of the covers are almost identical which I would think would confuse readers and pos..."

Looking better? Took the time to even add the 6th ebook to the store.

Anna wrote: "I agree with P.G. Or you could make Book 1, Book 2 etc stand out considerably. The covers are great!"

Thanks, Anna. I tried to make them better unique versions, as posted above.

Sunny,
I love these images but I still think you need more differentiation between covers. My novels (except one) have a similarity but you can instantly tell they are different books in the series. You want that in a bookstore (do they still exist?) as well as online, particularly when the cover is no more than a thumbnail.

It might be a simple as making sure the background colors are completely different, even maintaining some of the detail.

Again, just my opinion.

P.G. wrote: "Sunny,
I love these images but I still think you need more differentiation between covers. My novels (except one) have a similarity but you can instantly tell they are different books in the series..."

P.G. they are a set of origin books. So I would like them to have a similar theme. Now from the 7th book onwards, I will change the color theme.