[Maybe I should leave this as possibly the shortest blog post ever, but that's not stunningly helpful!]
I have a number of writer friends. Some of them are traditionally published, some are indie-published. Even those who are 'doing it all themself' are rarely actually doing that, and rightly so. They've hired editors and cover designers and quite probably a number of other people in the process of getting their book out there. As an indie, you have to shoulder a lot of stuff that traditional publishers do for you, but always get an editor. And unless you're a graphic designer or do book covers for a living, leave it to the professionals!
Why?
Well, we've all done it... either scrolling through books on Amazon or scanning books on the tables at a bricks and mortar bookshop. What makes you stop at one particular book over another? I would bet that it's a combination of the cover and the title. What makes you skip past? Quite probably the cover, then maybe the title.
I know a writer who ignores this advice and does their own covers, believing that it's the actual writing that's important. And while I agree that I would far rather read a decent book with a shonky cover than read a shonky book with an excellent cover, I probably wouldn't know about the former because I wouldn't even pick it up.
It may well be that if you read a bit of the book (either through the 'see inside' feature on Amazon or actually picking the book up and looking through it if you're in a bookshop), you'd find it was great. The key question is: would you actually get that far, or would you skip past it?
I would skip past. Why? Maybe because I'm shallow, and do judge a book by its cover, but mostly my brain thinks, "If they didn't bother to spend a bit of money on the cover, I'm guessing that they didn't pay for an editor either, nor do they really believe in this book."
My brain is already thinking the book won't be worth reading, and maybe that's unfair, but there are a billion books available, so I have to choose. And, life is too short to read extracts of books that haven't instantly grabbed my attention.
So, where do you start with finding a cover designer? If you do a Google search, a gazillion results will come up. How do you even go about moving from a giant list like that, to actually getting a cover?
Good question! That's exactly what I'm facing at the moment. I'll share my tips and tricks soon.
In the meantime, does anyone have any advice to share?
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