Written By Shelly Anne Claire
Word Count 3702
The following blog posts’ purpose is to share my experiences with becoming an Australian author outside of writing the actual book. This is relevant to first-time authors and is everything I wish I knew before publishing. This post is to shed light on information I was forced to research and learn about on my own, which was quite difficult. Its’ purpose is to provide readers of this post, up and coming authors included, with beginner information for them to look further into. The information in this post is specific to my own personal journey and not all steps and tasks will be relevant or required of every author. Remember, everyone’s journey is different, and this is what worked for me.
Disclaimer – All of the information provided in this blog post is a retelling of my own personal experiences. This information is relevant to Australian Self-published Authors. I am by no means professional or knowledgeable enough to know absolutely everything, but I do know what worked for me. The purpose of this blog post is to hopefully help other new authors self-publish by sharing my own journey. The opinions stated and mentioned in this blog post are by no means meant to sway you in any one direction and are simply my feelings. Everyone will have a different journey and thoughts, the information in these posts is to be informative and not necessary guidance.
All contents in the blog post are accurate at the time of posting.
In the beginning there was…an idea and a vibe.
Towards the end, there was an idea and a vibe that became a feeling. The feeling became expensive soon after.
Finding A Star Within A Starry Sky
We all know the saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its’ cover’, and while that’s true when it comes to people, it’s not always true when it comes to books.
As readers, we know what we like, whether it be genres, tropes, authors, or commonly used themes. I liked Vampire Academy, so I read Bloodlines. I liked Victoria Aveyard, and Brigid Kemmerer. All of whom have different series filled with a range of tropes, themes, and genres. Not to mention their writing styles and authors’ voice. Essentially, when we like one particular thing, we tend to follow that invisible string when in search of our latest read. That sometimes entails picking a book with a cover we aren’t always fond of, but growing to love for the story it holds within its pages.
There have been times that I haven’t picked up a book purely because the covers weren’t my taste at the time. It pains me to say this, but Elise Kova’s Vortex Chronicles are a struggle. I have read every single one of her books, and absolutely adore her as an author, but the covers of that series have kept me from starting it.
Here’s to future me growing a pair and reading the series anyway.
When it comes the book cover, the same principles apply. If the cover attracts our attention, we’re going to pick it up to read the blurb and from there we can decide whether it’s our cup of tea, or daily dose of hardcore, back-breaking, chili seasoned cocktail. (The ones who get it, get it and the ones who don’t still get it.) Sometimes though, we’ve given an iffy book cover a chance and it’s turned out to be worth it! Other times, not so much and we’re stuck with it on our shelf of shame.
This is where being an experienced picky reader benefits us as perfectionist authors.
A Star Without A Sky
Let’s imagine the following scenario for the sake of this chapter. You’ve planned and plotted your book, spent X amount of time writing it, and now after all the fiddly things you are now ready for a cover.
Disclaimer – While there is no set rules or order of things when it comes to writing a publishing a book, I do recommend having a book that is ready to be published before choosing a cover. This saves you time and your artist time in the future while avoiding the necessary fiddly changes of remeasuring your cover to fit the size of your book. I speak from experience.
When you get to the cover design stage, you have some questions to ask yourself.
What type of genre is the book?
What’s the story about?
What age group is it targeted at?
Is it a series?
What themes are present in the book?
What tropes are used?
Those are just a small handful of the questions you should ask yourself before reaching out to an artist, or if you’re doing it yourself. You will need to be able to explain to them your vision, and your concept in an artist’s language – i.e. a way they will not only understand but comprehend a similar if not identical design in their mind to the idea you’ve presented to them.
Next, think back to all the books you picked up and their covers. What attracted you to picking them up? Did you see the cover first or had you heard about the blurb and wanted to have a further inspection? What was it about the cover, its colours and design that drew your eye?
A lot of characteristics about a book are in the cover. If you look deep enough, all the hidden meanings and messages are in the design layouts. Do you want the cover to reflect the overall feel of the book, or do you want a hidden meaning that readers have to search for? Do you want an object, a person, or just the title and author’s name? What colours have you decided on?
Before you can take another step, as eager as you are, you need to be able to answer these questions confidently. Now don’t get me wrong, you can change your mind – it happens! And something that I did hundreds of times. Hell, I even republished my first book, A VAULT OF NINE LIVES, with a completely different cover design with a brand-new concept. At this point in the creative game, it doesn’t cost you a single thing to write down all your ideas for a cover, or sketch out a map of your ideas. You don’t have to be good at art, you just have to know how to put pen to paper!
Another question to ponder is, if the book is a part of a series, what do you want to do for the other books?
For example, when I was redesigning my book A VAULT OF NINE LIVES for the third time, I was reminded of the first original cover and the reason I changed it in the first place. The original cover was the half faces of my two main characters, and in a neon, light symbolising their magic abilities, there was a skull outlining their faces. This fits the book because 1. It showed the readers a physical representation of what the characters looked like 2. The colours of the neon light were the same colours as their magic, and 3. The skulls represented something far darker in the story (death), and like a wisp of smoke it hovered over them.
But then came the problem of the cover for book two. (At this time, it was a duology) I knew that in order to have the books visibly match and be able to tell it was the same series, I would have to keep the same idea – faces of characters and neon magic skull. Now, there was nothing wrong with this, except for me there was.
I wasn’t happy with it. How can I put out a book that doesn’t have 100% of my support, considering I chose to go down the self-publishing route to have control of these things? Especially considering I would be facing enough critics already; I didn’t need to add myself to the list.
My main concerns were which characters I was going to pick next? As much as I loved my characters, and still do, the story wasn’t about them. Not really. Especially when book two changes everything. It felt insulting to my main love interests to dethrone them from the very book that was going to either bring them together or brutally tear them apart (it’s the Scorpio in me I’m sorry).
With that, I made the decision of what I knew would ultimately be the right call and changed the cover.
Now at this point, my manuscript was already with the editor. Meaning, my book was finished and was down to the last leg of the race and was getting polished off and ready to go. I knew what didn’t work for my cover, and with a clearer mind and prescription glasses, I was ready to go again.
And goddess above was I glad I did! The new cover was so much better. It fit the book and the overall story as a whole, and the hidden cover of the hardback allowed for even more easter eggs to be implemented. Specifically, the individual colours of the foiling on all three books.
But the question is, how did I get to that part? Easy. Below is a summarised list of what I did in order to get my final cover. But don’t be fooled, this process took months.
- I was able to answer the questions of what I wanted and didn’t want.
- I experimented with different designs and concepts.
- I looked at other books for inspiration.
- I read what readers liked (and what I liked)
- Gave myself a pep talk and reminded myself that this was my book, and I wrote it for me, and I will have it designed for me.
- I decide whether I wanted a person on the cover, a character, or a separate design of objects and patterns.
- I thought about the other books in the series and what I could possibly do for them to make I all match (this was the most exciting part)
- And finally, I took a leap of faith and just went for it.
The only failure you will have is not trying at all. Be fearless. Being a self-published author has enough fear as it is, don’t let yourself be the one thing that stops you.
The next section will help you when it comes to choosing the best time to pick a cover. Scroll down for more helpful blabbering.
A Newborn Sky Ready To Burn
There is no specific rule that says you have to have a written and ready to publish book before you can even think about getting a cover. However, that’s usually the way things are done, both in Traditional publishing and self-publishing.
Remembering the things, we’ve just learnt from the above section, a book cover can really make or break your book. There are a lot of people, myself included, that will pick up a book with a cover that is interesting or appeals to us, and from there we’ll read the blurb and decide if it’s for us. Another example to mention is when a book blows up on social media and in the book community because it has a pretty cover and people have to have it! This is seen a lot with special edition books from book boxes such as Owlcrate, FairyLoot, and Illumicrate. As much as I hate to say it, even the Bookish Box too (problematic tendencies aside).
There are authors out there that design a book cover first as a way to inspire themselves and keep them from throwing away their drafts. Others do it as a way to kill time and work without actually working. (You know when you have a thousand things to do that you don’t want to, so instead you do something completely different as a way to convince yourself that you have actually been working this whole time? Yeah, there’s more people like us out there and we’re all creatives.)
Since there is no rule, you can technically get a cover whenever you want. However, I do have some recommendations and friendly advice that might help you. I know it helped me.
Unless you have a very clear, very graphic, and very specific cover visual, I would recommend waiting until your book is finished. Why? Whether you are going for your character on the front, or an object, landscape, or something else, at any stage your book can change. Especially if you are getting in professionally edited. As your editor can and will cut and change things that might affect the story as a whole and therefore will reflect on your cover because at the end of the day, the cover needs to reflect the book somehow, or even the genre it’s written in.
You can absolutely plan cover ideas while you’re writing, but I strongly suggest not sticking with one until you are finished and without a shadow of a doubt, happy with the cover. Like I said before, this is YOUR book, write it for you, and design it for you. But also remember that if this is something you want to make into a profitable career, you are going to need to compromise sometimes in order to sell the book. This sometimes means choosing a cover that wasn’t your first pick.
Again, that’s still okay because you chose it and didn’t have a publishing team behind you calling all the shots on your behalf.
Overall, I waited until my book was at the last stage before I even booked an artist and paid my deposit. It was a few months in advance, and so I had months upon months of shuffling through ideas in my head. I remember when I first reached out to her, I had a clear idea. It wasn’t until we got talking that I found it slowly shifting. When my booking time finally came up, it had changed again. This is normal and totally okay. I was very happy with the end product.
An idea you have for one book can be used for another! Any ideas you come up with or even previous covers you wanted might not fit the book you’re currently working on, but like all drafts and random scenes – keep them because you never know when it’s going to come in handy. I still have the very, very, very first copy of my original chapter one for A VAULT OF NINE LIVES, and what it was then to what it is now are two entirely different genres.
Most importantly, give yourself enough time to receive a book cover. (I discuss this more in depth in the next section). If it’s January and you plan to release your book in February and are hiring someone to make and design your cover, you might not have enough time. If you’re doing it yourself, keep this in mind as well.
In the next section of this blog post I will go over the process of hiring a cover artist.
The Star And The Burning Sky
You’ve now decided that you either.
- Don’t have the time or resources to design the cover yourself,
- Have no idea where to start!
- Or are like me and don’t have a single artistic ability in both of your skeletal hands to even come up with an imaginative piece (it’s okay because at least we’re writers…right? Queue imposter syndrome…ah damn.)
Whatever your reasoning may be, you’ve made the decision to hire someone else to design and create your book cover. Perfect! The next steps are pretty easy. For me, it was mostly spending a few weeks trying to pick someone I liked enough to get in contact with and go from there.
If you know what you want, no matter how detailed (though the more details sometimes the better) you are now able to research artists.
Things to keep in mind while researching.
- Your budget
- What is the maximum amount you are able to spend without hurting you financially? (One thing I did was always assume I wasn’t going to make a single sale. It helped.)
- What is your design style?
- Picking an artist, especially a freelance once, means that if the idea you have for a commission doesn’t fit their particular art style, then they can and probably will turn you down. (Don’t be disheartened, it means something better is out there waiting for you.)
- Where the artist is
- Are they local to your city? Country? Planet? Universe?
- Do you want someone from your own country, or do you want to pick someone overseas? Or do you not care?
- Keep in mind if you do go international there is a wonderful thing called ✨Currency Exchange✨
- Timeframe
- Some artists don’t have commissions open until months later. Especially the ones highly sought after that often book a year in advance.
- Give yourself enough time to book in advance.
- I booked mine in May for an October delivery and for a November release date (I was angst the whole time let me tell you)
- Contracts
- Most artists will and should provide you with a contract. Friendly advice does not take one without a contract. This is for your safety and theirs. Think of this as a fruity PayPal scenario. If something was to happen, with a contract you are both protected.
- If you have signed one (like I did) make sure to read it thoroughly before signing and giving it back to them. Do not sign it unless you understand every single thing. Ask questions and if they give off red flags, save your money and walk the other way.
- Deposits
- A lot of artists will usually take 50% upfront at the time of signing the contract, and the last 50% either at the start of the project or upon delivery. Sometimes a couple days after delivery.
- Credit and Copyright
- This applies more to commission artwork but I’m going to mention it here anyway because I experienced this with my artist.
- In the contract I signed with my artist, I agreed to have their business name printed in the book crediting them to designing the cover. A lot will probably ask the same.
- This is okay because you see it with some traditionally published books as well (or if you’re Charlie Bowater, they just know)
- Copyright is a different story. While you agree to give them credit to the designing of the cover – you are still the owner of the cover. This is something to research further into and discuss with your potential artists before signing so you have a clear understanding and no nasty surprises.
Keeping all of these things in mind will help you when it comes to picking your artist. You will find, and this can be the same when it comes to commissioning bookish art, that a lot of the artists you follow or find often have their commissions closed. (I’m sorry I can’t stop staring at the gif of the dog it’s making me laugh. I bet if it wasn’t 12am it wouldn’t be funny.)
Anyway.
A lot of artists that I wanted to potentially get in contact with had their commissions closed and so I never contacted them. Why? Well often when its closed, it probably won’t open for months and even then, it could be another few months before I would be booked in. Plus, I didn’t know if having their commissions closed meant they weren’t going to reply to email enquiries because they were so busy working.
Don’t just contact one artist. Contact a few, give yourself options. That way you won’t be obsessed over one business and get disheartened if they reject you and then you’re left to scramble and find someone else in time. Not all of them reply to you the following day. I’ve had emails come in two weeks later, and some a couple hours later. It all depends on the artist, their schedule and their time zone.
Keeping in mind all of these different things – and I know it’s a lot to take in – will help you when it comes to picking an artist and securing your spot. But remember, you’re still learning, and every artist is different. Be kind and patient with both you and them.
But don’t forget you’re a bad bitch, just a polite one.
And the final question I’ll be answering in this horrifically long blog post – where to et a cover from – summary!
There is an endless list of resources and places you can receive covers from. A few examples are below!
- Shein
It was funnier in my head.
- Independent artist
- Freelance illustrator (for more complex designs)
- POD services (amazon KPD for example provides a cover creator)
- Most printing companies (if you aren’t going the way of a POD service) offer illustrators and cover specialist (I highly recommend researching and seeing a portfolio before agreeing…trust me)
- Free websites such as Canva, that allow you to make your own.
- Place it
- And tons more!
Where you go to get your cover depends on a couple of things. Who is designing it – you or someone else? How complex the cover is – is it made from stock images or requires an entire illustrator to start from scratch. And your budget – not everyone can afford to pay an artist what they deserve and that’s okay. Its why free sites exist.
If you’re going to hire someone, you have options such as.
- Illustrator
- Freelance artist
- Book cover designer
If you want to try yourself (even if you don’t stick with it) there are free sites such as:
- Canva
- Place it
- Adobe
Keep in mind some of these places and their counterparts do have subscription fees to access them or have one off purchase to buy your final design.
If you are using Amazon KPD or Ingram Spark, they have a cover designer available.
If you are going the way of using a Printing company, they often have illustrators or a design team for a separate price you can access.
There are so many options for you, and it really is unlimited!
You have taken in a lot of information reading all this (if you did read it all, no hate if you didn’t, I can’t believe I typed this much smh.) and this blog post either helped clear things up for you or confused you even more.
I know the feeling.
But either way there are some important notes and key pieces of information in this post you should remember. And if you can read this post, it means you have access to continue coming back to this post for more reminders or further help.
I am not the only blogging self-published author out there and I encourage you to reach out and research other authors in your field and see what they did! As someone who is naturally anti-social and anxious, I don’t often dive into the book/author community, but for those of you who are annoyingly beautiful social butterflies, that is the best place for you to be.
I hope this at least helped you, if even a little, in getting you started. A lot about self-publishing is doing all the work yourself and I know how stressed and overwhelmed I was when it came to publishing my first book. A lot of your knowledge and skills come from experience and connections.
A year ago, I didn’t have any of this information, and now I have enough to write an entire blog post about it. I’d say I’m doing wellish.
Find the star. Lose the star. Fill the sky. Burn the sky. The darkest of skies
will always shine, so long as you give it a light.
Until next month, thank you for reading.
Shelly Anne Claire
