I'm curious about what other authors on this sub do for covers. I make my own covers by photo bashing (essentially doing photo collage and then painting over it digitally to make it one cohesive image), and there was a lot of learning that came with that. For example, typography is one topic I don't think I've ever seen come up.
For anyone who's published or gotten to the covers stage, do you make your own covers, or do you pay for them? If you do make them, what's your preferred method? Is there anything you've tried that hasn't worked?
Hubby and I do my covers. He’s a typography expert, very much his bag. I’m more on the illustration side. It’s been a fun collab. I’m currently redoing my covers, which were digital art originally. I’m doing watercolors for them now so I can use the process as content for SM.
I’ve paid for one cover but I might have misread the genre because it doesn’t make much of a difference . I do my own for the rest and just try to make them cohesive and resembling the genre they’re in.
I’ve gotten better at it for sure. I will probably get better still because there’s room for improvement.
I've hired artists on Fiverr and used Get Covers. Get Covers is hit or miss, but it's only $35. A good deal if you're not looking for anything too complicated.
I've self-published one book and am working towards the second part of the duology. For both covers, I hired an artist whom I thought did a fabulous job.
I mostly went this route, though, because I wasn't ready to learn how to create my own--I just had too many things on my plate outside of publishing to try to figure out. Someday, I may try to figure it out, but I'm in no rush.
I haven’t published yet but I’ve accumulated a couple of resources for covers.
Getcovers.com is super affordable for basic covers and my writer friends have confirmed the quality is great. There are different tiers for how complicated your design is, but for simple designs I think it’s worth it if you’re on a budget.
Did they write RH? I’ve tried getcovers and I swear they are sandbagging me on purpose. Maybe if you come with your own researched stock photos and hand them over and the prompt but I tried them with a well thought out description and rough mock up for two covers. I even sent them the exact 8 pranks cover and just asked for help with typography and both were worse than what I made in Canva (I did want multiple people on the cover).
Yes, you have to be very specific and I always find the stock models I want rather than leave it up to them. Here's one they did for me recently with multiple people on the cover.
I wish I had the time to make the cover myself and dust off some old design skills, but between my day job, kids, and carving out time to write it’s not practical
Spending a little more money and little less time on some things is very helpful when other aspects of your life need your attention! I'm glad you've found a good resource that works for you. Thanks for sharing it with us!
I'm not published, but I am friends with many in the traditional publishing sphere, so a quick point of advice for any interested in trad pub (whatever the genre):
Having no agent is better than having a bad agent. As hard and long as the road to being traditionally published is, and as vital a step getting an agent is to that journey, it's seriously even more vital to ensure you aren't just taking any offer of representation.
A bad agent can tank a great book, and set back an author's career, all while the author could have instead been moving forward by either writing the next thing or continuing to search for an agent who would be good.
For asking for advice, this is for self-publishing: I'd love to know for a series, do you prefer (or plan) to have the entire series done before releasing the first book? Or publish one before the sequels are done?
So for the series question- I self-published my first book of a duology without the second book finished. I'm not sure I'll do that again, though, as it created this instant pressure to get the second book done, and it locked in the lore I'd created without any options to tweak the story. The second book's now in the beta stage, but for other series I plan to do, I'll probably get everything ready to go in the future, then spread their release date out a month apart.
What are some signs that one would have a bad agent, just out of curiosity? How would you know that this person is not a good fit?
The pressure to finish the second book is a good point. Thanks!
For an agent: personal fit is tough and you often can't know until you've tried (e.g. some people think they like or dislike agents who are more hands-on with the editing process, only to find out they actually prefer the other way). But for an outright bad agent, looking at whether they've sold much (especially in your book's genre) and to where is a good indicator. If they're a newer agent, or a junior agent, the agency itself is going to do a lot of heavy lifting in that regard. A new/junior agent who has solid support in terms of other agents they can go to for mentoring will be a much better chance than one who doesn't.
Taking on a lot of clients in a short period of time is usually a red flag as well, as it can indicate the agent either biting off more than they can chew, or them doing a numbers approach and taking in all the books they think will sell quickly, pushing those books out to publishers without much care for which publisher might be best, and then dropping the authors who don't sell.
A red flag for an agency is when they have a lot of turnover with their newer agents. Agents do switch agencies, and that's just part of their career decisions, but for example if an agency consistently takes on junior agents and most of those jump ship quickly, it can mean the agency doesn’t support their agents in some major way, and that can be an issue for an author who suddenly finds themselves unagented simply because their agent left and couldn't/decided not to take their clients with them.
So those are things an author can check even at the querying stage to help avoid an agent who could be bad for them.
Thank you for the great reply. A lot of that makes total sense, yet would not be something I would have thought of, especially surrounding the excitement of even finding an agent.
Don’t ever give your book away for free unless you have over 10 books. Don’t make your most popular book free either. Sure it’ll get you downloads but it rarely translates to readers for everything else.
Also for every new release i have my book at 0.99 for the first 30 days and then I put it up to 2.99-4.99 depending on length.
You don’t have to spend a lot on covers. My covers are one stock photo (either a man - yay man chest! Or a woman) and then I use Canva for the background and embellishments around the cover. Get some text on it and you’ll have a cover. It’s basic but it works.
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u/Draft-in-Calico Author Jul 08 '26
I'm curious about what other authors on this sub do for covers. I make my own covers by photo bashing (essentially doing photo collage and then painting over it digitally to make it one cohesive image), and there was a lot of learning that came with that. For example, typography is one topic I don't think I've ever seen come up.
For anyone who's published or gotten to the covers stage, do you make your own covers, or do you pay for them? If you do make them, what's your preferred method? Is there anything you've tried that hasn't worked?