Eden Crowne | Author of Occult Thrillers, Urban Fantasy and YA Fiction
  • Home
  • Books
    • Voodoo Bounty Hunting 1
    • Voodoo Bounty Hunting 2
    • Voodoo Bounty Hunting 3
    • Voodoo Bounty Hunter 4
    • Voodoo: High Jinx: First Two!
    • Dust To Dust Series >
      • Fangs For Your Memories
      • Witch You Were Here
      • Ghost of a Chance
      • Prime Vampires
    • Avenging Angel Series >
      • Fall From Grace
      • Perilous Grace
      • Deadly Grace
    • Fear Club Series >
      • Cruel and Unusual Magic
      • The Masquerade
      • The Summoning
    • Plagued
    • Knight Shift
  • Free Stuff
  • Extras
    • Fear Club Extras >
      • Cruel and Unusual Magic
      • The Masquerade Extras
      • The Summoning Extras
    • Dust To Dust Extras
  • Contact
  • Blog
    • Don't Sweat Your Cover I
    • Don't Sweat Your Cover 2
    • Fear Club 2 New Cover Reveal
    • New 'EXTRA' pages
    • Fear Club is Getting a Prequel
    • Fear Club 2 is out now!
    • Knight Shift Debuts

How Not To Sweat Your Book Cover Part 2: Custom and Premade

12/2/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Eden CrowneA Premade Cover from Storywrappers for my novel, Cruel and Unusual Magic.

In Part 1, we talked about resources for creating your own covers DIY style. Well, let’s say you want something gorgeous with multiple layers and complex color effects and a special font and there is no way you can make it yourself. Not with all the You Tube tutorials in the world! That means either a Premade or Custom Cover. 

  • I don’t want to throw stones but you get what you pay for. Any premade under $100 is probably not going to blow you or your potential readers away. Budget between $100-$300 for a decent premade. Custom can easily run up to $500 and beyond. But these are just ball park figures. If these amounts are just not in your budget, re-read the last blog. You can do it yourself with time and effort, large amounts of wine or coffee depending your preferences and probably a few tears. 
  • ​
  • Both Premade and Custom designers give you copies of the covers that you can manipulate in JPEG form. If you don’t know what that means, this is the image form you need to upload onto most websites. As a JPEG, you can place it in banners and promotional material that you create for your website or campaigns or whatever.  



​Premade 

I experimented with Premade Covers from Story Wrappers https://storywrappers.com
for two of my most recent occult thrillers: Cruel and Unusual Magic (the photo above) and Fear club 2: The Summoning.  I felt like I was at the point where I was willing to pay for a product I could not create on my own. 
 
For the basic price of a Premade Cover you get your author name, book title and generally subtitle over the image you’ve chosen 
 
A little tweaking with positioning is accepted. Beyond that, you must pay extra for changes. Hair color, different clothing design, etc. will add to the price. Don’t think the designer will bend over backward making change after change. This is premade. 
 
Choosing Premade means you have a limited number of designs and may have to build a little flexibility into your story to accommodate the cover you choose. I found a cover I liked for Fear Club 2: The Summoning. I tweaked my main character’s – Soul Lost Lexi Carpenter -- appearance slightly to sync with the image. I put in a line about Lexie dying her hair white blond. This worked because she is in Europe on the run from a gang of Soul Eaters and in disguise. I got the cover and it all worked out. 
 
Eden Crowne
The Premade cover is from Storywrappers for supernatural thriller, Fear Club 2: The Summoning. This visual is in a mirror effect for an event. This is the advantage of having Jpegs, you can resue them for promotions.
Custom Covers

Custom Covers give you the chance to work creatively with the designer. This can be fun or terrifying depending on your abilities. If you have zero inspiration and zero design skills, working with a designer lets you hand over some essential info from your book and see what they come up with but you still need to give them some ideas about what you would like. 
 

I've only done one custom cover so far and this was actually for my first book. Prices have gone up, of course. I told the  designer what the book was about, the setting etc. She came up with several mock-ups. The one with the pagoda is an example. When I said I wanted to focus more on a single face and reduce the background, I finally decided on this. 

Eden Crowne
An example of the cover in early stages when I was brainstorming ideas with the artist.
Eden Crowne
After my suggestions and her work, this is the final cover I decided on.

There are so many great designers on the Net. You will have to do your homework. See what works for your book and price range. It’s going to take some time. Remember you are designing this cover to attract readers who will pay money for your book.  All of us choose a book by its cover. Don’t rush it.
 
Type ‘custom book covers’ into your search engine.  Most premade design studios of course make custom covers as well so you will see overlap. You can also refine the search terms exactly like Premade:  custom covers fantasy; custom covers mystery; etc. 
 
If you are wallowing in a black hole of creative despair, look for designers with a catalog of covers. Check through their backlist of designs for inspiration. ​

Here are a few totally random examples from a typical search in no special order. These are just to let you have a look at what I’m talking about.

I would love suggestions from readers for designers they have used and examples of your covers! We can feature them  in a blog post. 

 
The Cover Collection: 
http://www.thecovercollection.com/premade-ebook-kindle-covers/portfolio
Premade EBook Cover Shop
https://www.premadeebookcovershop.com
SelfPub Book Covers.com
https://selfpubbookcovers.com
Kingwood Creations
https://www.kingwoodcreations.com/premade-book-covers/
Paper and Sage
https://www.paperandsage.com
0 Comments
    Picture

    Eden Crowne

       Hi, I'm Eden and the author of ten occult thrillers for adults and young adults.  I'm an American from California but have lived abroad most of my life working as a journalist -- though under another name.
       Being an Indie Author is not easy. You have to transform yourself into a one-person creative team: writing, promoting, designing, plotting, planning, and trying to claw your way into some downloads.
       I don't claim to be an expert but I have put  time in the writing trenches and maybe I can smooth the path for others.
       Oh, and Tokyo Disney Parks. Yeah. There's going to be some Disney thrown in at Halloween because I am all about magic, including anything on Oct. 31.


    Archives

    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly