A crucial element of a book – the cover

As I’ve said in previous posts, I’m in the midst of editing my second novel, so naturally soon I’ll be looking at designing my own front cover. So I’ve been looking at book covers I like to get ideas about what I should do and what works, and naturally looking at book covers that really DO NOT work.

This website basically has every book cover by self-published writers which are, as the name of the site suggests, lousy. It’s such a shame that people do neglect their front cover. It’s an advertisement to what’s inside, whether they like it or not. I’ve picked some from this site, which are far from the worst, just for you to see.

http://lousybookcovers.tumblr.com/archive

Having said this, self-published writers can design their own front cover. But the trick is not to rush through it. I’m pretty happy with my first and so I’ll give it another go for my second. It did take several attempts and work through, and both major and minor edits to get the finished book cover that I wanted.

This collection is what not to do.

But they’re not all that bad….

Nominate any book covers that you know of by self-published writers. If possible ones that they’ve done themselves, but if not it doesn’t matter. I hope that I won’t be proven wrong that self-published writers can – and do – have a decent book cover.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: book art work, book cover design, book covers, design, indie, lousy book covers, self-published