by Malena Lott

I’m a sucker for a great cover. As a creative director for years, I worked with graphic designers to create award-winning ads, brochures, billboards and more. Now as an author, it’s come in handy to have understanding of color, design and marketing.

Just because you are self-pubbing a book doesn’t mean your cover should look like it. But what does the “right” photo, font, composition and style mean?

First, a lot of self-pubbed books use the fonts that come standard on the PC. Instead, check out a font library to express the right message with your title. Typically it’s best to stick with only two fonts: one for the title and the other for your name and tagline. Yes, it takes time (hours!) but it’s worth it to keep revising until the right font comes along.

The right image and colors means it conveys the appropriate message about the book. Light, dark, mysterious, funny, etc. It could also convey setting like my books below. I use istockphoto.com almost exclusively for purchasing photos. Don’t steal photos from the Internet. They are copyrighted, even if you don’t see it. If you’re e-pubbing, you only need to purchase the lo-res image (72 or 150 dpi) so you’ll save money that way. If you think you’ll get it printed in the future, go ahead and buy the large image.

I use In Design to design the 6×9 covers, and sometimes Photoshop to put several images together (such as Fixer Upper). If I need Photoshop, I employ (ask kindly) my husband to finish the design as he did for Fixer Upper. Otherwise, you might find a single photo or illustration that accomplishes what you want, such as I did with Life’s A Beach and Sleigh Ride (see below). For my Buzz Books client, the title of the book lent itself to the mare illustration. But of the hundreds of horse photos, I had

to select the best one- something that showed power and leadership. There were two cover options I liked better because of the title font, but when you are designing for someone else, they get final say. She selected this font because it’s the one she uses in her corporate identity. It’s okay, just not my pick.

Using a professional design program gives you the ability to change the sizes of every element on the page as well as the kerning and leaders of the words and letters themselves. Often you can tell that someone has just hit “return” and it makes for awkward alignment on the page.

The cool thing about cover art is though you are working with only a few elements, there are so many ways you can express your story on the cover and playing around with type placement and different images can give off entirely different vibes about your book. Hiring a designer is worth it because people really do judge a book by its cover, for good or ill. Good luck to you!

If you’re with a publishing house, you get little (to no) say in how your cover looks, though you will probably have filled out a worksheet that will help the designer in terms of characteristics, setting, and key events in the book to assist. In both of my first two novels with publishers, I got ZERO input after the design came out. I’m not whining, I’m just saying that when I voiced a concern or question, it didn’t result in changing much. I think perhaps on my second novel my name was made a bit larger. Authors should go into a contract knowing the publisher is in charge of the look and feel of the art. In the case of Dating da Vinci, though I LOVED the art, I was concerned readers would get the wrong impression that it was completely a feel-good chick lit book, when in fact it had a lot of grief in it. I also wasn’t sure about the boy-man in the background or the Tuscan-style architecture (it’s in Austin, Texas). If I had been the creative director on the project, I would have made “dating” and “da vinci” the same font. Typically, titles have one font for easier readability. I realize da vinci jumps out at you, but, again, not bad, just not my call.

What do you think? What are some covers out there today that you love?