Gemini Rising

Self Publishing Mini Series #3 - Securing the Cover

Once you have the story and the editing has been done, you want a cover. The cover should reflect the story in some way. I am not a graphic arts designer, but I have had the fortune to work with my small press cover artists to design a cover for my stories. One of the things they have me do is fill out a “Cover Art Form.”

A Cover Art Form is one that you can design yourself, to give you an idea what you might want on a cover.

A Basic Cover Art Form might include the following: A bio on your hero and heroine with a physical description and an excerpt of an important scene in the novel. The Cover Art Form might also include other elements such as the setting and objects that have an important meaning to the story.

While I have purchased most of my covers from before, I did want a new cover for “Christmas in Bayeux” so I reached out to my formatter who also does covers and she put me in touch with the previous cover’s creator to work on a new cover. Now, you can also do an internet search for graphic artists and people who create covers, but I’m very comfortable working with those formatters and cover artists who are now freelance from my old publishers.



The cost for the new cover was $50.00. Costs for a cover will vary from $50.00 to up to $150.00 or even more. There are a lot of factors in play. Do you need an ebook cover? Audio book cover? Print book cover? What is the dpi needed for the cover? Does the cover artist need to buy the photos for the cover? How much “photoshoping” or layering do you need in the cover?

For my new cover with “Christmas in Bayeux” I went to Dreamstime, a place where you can buy photos, images, stock photos, and royalty free photos. If you need to buy a photo, you can pay royalties for it and then you can use the photo. The royalties are typically not that expense and I believe I paid about $20.00. I bought 3 different possible photos for the cover and sent them to the cover artist to design a cover.

In that regard, I’m getting exactly what I want for the cover. I filled out my version of a cover art form, went to dreamstime, and picked the photos I wanted the cover artist to work with. They came back with 3 designs, and I picked the best one I thought would fit the story. “Christmas in Bayeux” would be an ebook and a print book, so the cover had to be a certain dpi.

I’ll share some of the other cover versions that were done for the story.





Here’s a helpful checklist when working on your cover:

Cover Art Form?
Select photos from Dreamstime or another Photo seller?
Select a cover artist and agree to a price for the cover?
Tell the cover artist the intent of the cover – do you need just an ebook cover? An Audio book cover? A print cover? One for all 3?

Creating a cover that fits your story might take between 1-3 weeks to get the one you want, but it’s worth it because a cover is a big reason why a buyer will buy a book so making sure you have one that is reflective of the story you wrote is very important.

Part 4 – ISBNs – Why do I need one?