Weekly Writers: Custom Book Covers

And what are "premades"?

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Premade Versus Custom Covers

Independent authors usually commission a cover specifically for their book. Hiring a professional costs, but the results can be worth it.

Look at the cover designer’s portfolio to assess the variety of their work, what moods and genres they can create covers in, and how much the imagery grabs you. And some designers are surprisingly affordable, such as GetCovers.

But if you are starting out, or it’s a minor release, or you only ever plan to do a couple of books, it can be an option (and a lot cheaper) to buy a premade cover. This is where someone’s come up with a design, imagery and placeholder text. You buy the premade and they change the text to be your book’s title, your author name, your tagline and so on. Then the book cover is removed from sale so no one else can buy it. (Of course, that doesn’t mean component images from stock photography and graphic sites won’t be seen on other books – see my digression on Stock Repetition later on.)

If you want to try premades, choose a site with high-quality covers, which has something fitting the spirit of your work. Premades are usually not a good option for a series, where you want consistency. If you do consider a premade cover but think the book might become a series, it is worth asking the designer if they would be willing to work on future books in the series, to the same template, in order to create a series brand.

Some possibilities (not recommendations, just examples of what is available):