You executed this fine balance perfectly. You did not shame the self-published, self-designed books; instead you provided actionable information and support, while also not diminishing the value of good design and professional designers. 👏
Aw thanks Jen! I’m heartened to hear that. I genuinely love finding these books in the wild and I want to respect the effort and sheer willpower it takes to write and publish a book even if it’s poorly designed.
The longer I do this, the less interested I am in crapping on bad design—the context of something and its “why” are always more interesting to me.
One consistency that I've noticed with self-published covers is the lack of cohesion between the front and back covers and spine (way too many people neglect the spine- to your point).
(Having created my own self-published cover, I had my back up a little bit to read the analysis after seeing the other day that you were going to tackle this topic- but, damn- you did such a great job). Even if someone can't or won't hire a designer, there are so many tips in here that you've listed that are achievable and can be executed by most people. Loved this!
I’m a spine snob (because that stuff is HARD) so that is the first thing I look at to indicate craftsmanship. Yeah for the colophon on the spine… first thing I look at. Also, how books from the same publisher line up their colophon.. like Belt Publishing… genius the way they pay attention to that detail… or two dollar radio … another one… PHR is all over the map. 😀😀😀😀
We get a lot of self published authors trying to sell us their book and it's hard to say that just the writing alone isn't going to sell a book, it also depends on design and there's not enough thought around that. Great read!
Thank you for this very useful guide! Even though graphic design may appear to have been automated by something like Canva, having a good design eye is still a rare thing and something that takes a real designer’s touch.
THANK YOU. I do a lot of cover art, and it steams me when people print their fiction books in matte finish. I rage that matte is only for nonfiction and they blow me off. So there's my gorgeous art with the darks all gone gray under the stinkin' matte finish ...
I actually don’t know if I agree for general fiction—I think it’s a matter of taste—but I do think you’re right about fantasy fiction and stuff with a high level of illustration! But POD is never gonna get the colors completely right no matter what.
My preference overall is an uncoated stock but you can’t get that with POD (yet)
Oh, this is all gold! Some of it I knew, some of it I didn't -- the logo on the spine one caught me off guard because DUH yes, as a reader I expect a logo there and yet not once have I ever thought to put my own on my books' spines! Thanks for a great overview, Nathaniel!
I’m not a book designer, I just read a lot of (physical) books in my life. The shiny cover, stark white paper, narrow interior margin, missing logo on the book spine, funky back cover design, they all scream at me every time I hold a self-published book in my hands. It’s crazy how our subconscious can spot this stuff immediately even if we have no clue about book design.
It’s worth mentioning. That page of printing info on the next to last page really bothered me on my first book. But all things considered indie presses have come a long way. I’m at a point I can appreciate the trade offs for help with worldwide distribution.
Good info here, but who is hiding that they self-published? True, the overall presentation may be slightly lacking compared to a traditionally published book, but people go indie to find content they can't sieve from the gutters of the blah factory.
(pasting my comment here in case others want to join the discussion)
Great point! Something I thought about but ultimately decided not to touch on in this one.
I think there’s convention, and then there’s good design, and they aren’t always the same thing but they often are. Both are at play here.
But to answer your question—I think a fair number of folks are trying to hide they self-publish, especially by making up a “publishing company” to put on the spine. I’m a little iffy on the ethics of that.
But I think there’s a world in which independent stuff isn’t afraid of announcing itself as such, while still looking great.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the thoughtful comments!
Great question. I’m not 100% sure! For me personally, I would either create a company or put something there that doesn’t shy away from the fact you’re self-publishing—I don’t think we need to be ashamed of this—while still signifying effort, organization, and care.
As a reader and a nerd who looks up publishing companies, I get a little miffed when I realize what looked like a “real” publisher was just for one book by one person. But that could be my own set of biases—maybe they have plans to publish more and they’re not necessarily tricking me.
If and when I put something out I will probably put the logo from my website on the spine.
That’s a good idea. I get what you say about the publishing company that makes it look like it was traditionally published… At the same time, lots of famous writers did that historically. Don’t you think that the current publishing ecosystem makes it look worse than it actually is?
For example: I think that (some) University Press books often have a “vibe” that is quite different than the Big 5 publishers but they still have professional design
True, though professional design can still be stultified design and a university press isn't immune by any means.
In terms of a fake publisher, in the US, at least, forming an imprint or registering a DBA name is quick and easy and the resulting company is real.
I hope I'm not conveying a disdain for design—I'm 100% with you in pursuit of quality and I restacked your post because I think it's good and necessary. I can't deny the indie and self publishing scene is rife with slimy, sleazy tactics. I merely wanted to comment that the design sacrifices or shortcomings of the indie scene don't necessarily reflect an inferiority in the writing. There are plenty of beautifully designed books with dull, mealy pith.
An excellent, well thought out, helpful, and respectfully worded article!
Also, I'm extremely pleased to be able to say I've managed to avoid nearly every bit of it with my books 😃. However, I think having worked in a library gives me a little bit of an advantage. I worked around books for years and saw a LOT of book covers. That really helped a lot when it came time to make my own. Lol, with my last book though, I literally sat with a pile of (mostly) trad published books next to me that were within my genre(s) to compare with as I designed its interior.
Glad you passed muster 😉 steeping yourself in books, and thinking about how they work DEFINITELY helps. I’m only able to compile this list because of straight up time and experience and making a lot of these mistakes myself early on.
Yeah, I don't think there's a single person who's ever done cover design in any capacity that hasn't made some or all of these mistakes or at least similar ones. Making 'mistakes' in art and design is actually part of the fun. You can learn and discover so much from them and, best of all, sometimes they even work 😂.
I don't plan to self publish until I can afford it with earnings I get from here...so that may be a long time. When I do, I plan to go POD. My question to you is, how much money do I need to have someone (like yourself), design my book's cover and layout? Rough and dirty estimates based on, say, 100 copies. I'm just curious and want to have an idea of how much I have to earn.
Like so many questions about book design, the answer depends! On the designer, the complexity of the cover, and more.
The good news is that with POD, the number of copies doesn’t matter. The print cost will be subtracted from the retail price and quantity won’t change that. Any copies you order for yourself will be at the print cost (which is impacted by color and paper type and number of pages).
But I would say that you should set aside anywhere between $500-1500 for cover design. I know that’s a wide range, but it depends on if you do paperback or hardcover and what the designer might charge according to what you say your budget is. Custom illustration will be a different ballpark.
Interior is a different beast. I’ve seen designers and companies offer $3, $4, $5 per page for simple layouts. If there’s a lot of images or tricky boxes, it’ll be more. For really simple layouts, there’s a solid program called Vellum that’ll run you about $250. I’ll still be able to tell you used it, but 99% of the population won’t 😉
This sure gave me flashbacks to when I led the design of the graduation book of my class 😅
We probably made every mistake you listed including a cover picture with waaay too low resolution 🤣🤣🤣 good thing we made all the students and teachers pre-purchase so it didn’t impact sales hahaha
Also, I’m wondering if you have any recommendations for print-on-demand services with better paper quality?
Hehe! No worries. I hope I don’t vilify bad design here—god knows I’ve done my fair share of it.
No matter what, POD is always going to be a series of trade offs. IngramSpark and KDP are comparable, but Ingram lets you do a hardcover with a jacket whereas KDP doesn’t but has cheaper print costs.
Lulu and Blurb appear to have better quality, or at least more production choices, but the per unit cost is higher. For Blurb, MUCH higher (they specialize in photo books).
And then again there are some POD-adjacent, short-run digital presses that have better quality, but don’t give you anywhere close to the same distribution tools as Ingram or Amazon.
Not at all, I loved every second of reading your piece! I think it’s awesome that you’re giving access to this information and sharing all the small details that make book covers look so professional.
Often, I can tell that my designs are bad or at least a bit off but I don’t know what to change so this is so helpful!
Thanks so much for these insights about self publishing!! If you were to publish a book, which route would you go—try to get traditionally published?
It’s taken years to figure out how to articulate why something doesn’t look quite “right.”
That’s a terrific question! I dunno. Lol. The credibiiity of traditional publishing is appealing. But the control and potential profit of self-publishing is also appealing. I’d save on book design costs, obviously, but I have a tendency to kick the can down the road when the deadlines are set by my boss (aka me) haha.
Yeah that part of traditional publishing sure is appealing. I've heard many people say to go with a traditional publisher for your first book to get credibility and then switch to self-publishing for future books for the profits. Might try that although it's tough to get a book deal.
In any case, a book about book cover design would be soo cool! (hint)
I love how you call out the signals and then provide suggestions for changing/improving. Yay that sticking out (in a bad way) is not an unavoidable outcome!
You executed this fine balance perfectly. You did not shame the self-published, self-designed books; instead you provided actionable information and support, while also not diminishing the value of good design and professional designers. 👏
Aw thanks Jen! I’m heartened to hear that. I genuinely love finding these books in the wild and I want to respect the effort and sheer willpower it takes to write and publish a book even if it’s poorly designed.
The longer I do this, the less interested I am in crapping on bad design—the context of something and its “why” are always more interesting to me.
You hit every single nail on the head.
One consistency that I've noticed with self-published covers is the lack of cohesion between the front and back covers and spine (way too many people neglect the spine- to your point).
(Having created my own self-published cover, I had my back up a little bit to read the analysis after seeing the other day that you were going to tackle this topic- but, damn- you did such a great job). Even if someone can't or won't hire a designer, there are so many tips in here that you've listed that are achievable and can be executed by most people. Loved this!
Thank you Steve! You’re so right—the spine is so often neglected.
My hope is that this will be helpful and not make anybody feel TOO bad 😉
Haha there shouldn't be any hard feelings - you approached it with support and a lot of tact👍
I’m a spine snob (because that stuff is HARD) so that is the first thing I look at to indicate craftsmanship. Yeah for the colophon on the spine… first thing I look at. Also, how books from the same publisher line up their colophon.. like Belt Publishing… genius the way they pay attention to that detail… or two dollar radio … another one… PHR is all over the map. 😀😀😀😀
I love Belt and Two Dollar Radio! I think there’s a direct correlation in your examples between size of publisher and consistency.
It doesn’t bother me so much unless the books are meant to go together somehow.
We may be two of a TINY population that even thinks to look at that, though 😁
We get a lot of self published authors trying to sell us their book and it's hard to say that just the writing alone isn't going to sell a book, it also depends on design and there's not enough thought around that. Great read!
Thanks Samantha!
You’re so right—it has to look like it BELONGS on the shelf at a bookstore.
Thank you for this very useful guide! Even though graphic design may appear to have been automated by something like Canva, having a good design eye is still a rare thing and something that takes a real designer’s touch.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Ramya! I’m glad it was useful 🙂
This is absolutely helpful. Thank you, and I will be reading more!
Thank you!! I’m so glad it was helpful 😊
THANK YOU. I do a lot of cover art, and it steams me when people print their fiction books in matte finish. I rage that matte is only for nonfiction and they blow me off. So there's my gorgeous art with the darks all gone gray under the stinkin' matte finish ...
I actually don’t know if I agree for general fiction—I think it’s a matter of taste—but I do think you’re right about fantasy fiction and stuff with a high level of illustration! But POD is never gonna get the colors completely right no matter what.
My preference overall is an uncoated stock but you can’t get that with POD (yet)
Oh, this is all gold! Some of it I knew, some of it I didn't -- the logo on the spine one caught me off guard because DUH yes, as a reader I expect a logo there and yet not once have I ever thought to put my own on my books' spines! Thanks for a great overview, Nathaniel!
It happens! I do think this one is not necessarily a bad thing, just convention. If everything else is up to snuff I think this one is less of a tell
I’m not a book designer, I just read a lot of (physical) books in my life. The shiny cover, stark white paper, narrow interior margin, missing logo on the book spine, funky back cover design, they all scream at me every time I hold a self-published book in my hands. It’s crazy how our subconscious can spot this stuff immediately even if we have no clue about book design.
Yes! So often I could just tell. I wanted to better understand WHY I could tell so I wrote this 🙂
I know, it’s great to see my instinctive response translated into professional book design terminology.
Very helpful since I am undertaking a self-published book using Pressbooks. Anyone else used it?
I haven’t! I’ll have to investigate 🙂
I feel so called out! 🤣 I started designing indie book covers last year and sure enough, I over-spaced a script letter font!
Thankfully with the next book series, I changed my ways. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
Haha! If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been guilty of a fair few of these myself. Time, experience, and exacting art directors are good teachers.
Thanks for reading! I hope it was helpful.
I’m relieved I intuitively avoided most of these! Can’t help the binding I’m afraid. 🤷
Very true! I hesitated to include that, because it’s kind of a compound signal and not necessarily a problem in its own right
It’s worth mentioning. That page of printing info on the next to last page really bothered me on my first book. But all things considered indie presses have come a long way. I’m at a point I can appreciate the trade offs for help with worldwide distribution.
Good info here, but who is hiding that they self-published? True, the overall presentation may be slightly lacking compared to a traditionally published book, but people go indie to find content they can't sieve from the gutters of the blah factory.
(pasting my comment here in case others want to join the discussion)
Great point! Something I thought about but ultimately decided not to touch on in this one.
I think there’s convention, and then there’s good design, and they aren’t always the same thing but they often are. Both are at play here.
But to answer your question—I think a fair number of folks are trying to hide they self-publish, especially by making up a “publishing company” to put on the spine. I’m a little iffy on the ethics of that.
But I think there’s a world in which independent stuff isn’t afraid of announcing itself as such, while still looking great.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the thoughtful comments!
By making up a publishing company do you mean the practice of creating a publishing company just to publish one’s own book? I’m just curious.
Essentially, yeah! You can create a real company, but sometimes people just make a logo to put on there in order to appear more legitimate.
Oh, I didn’t know that! What do you suggest instead?
Even if it’s currently a sign of self-publishing, maybe the answer is that we need to do away with NEEDING a spine colophon. I dunno.
Great question. I’m not 100% sure! For me personally, I would either create a company or put something there that doesn’t shy away from the fact you’re self-publishing—I don’t think we need to be ashamed of this—while still signifying effort, organization, and care.
As a reader and a nerd who looks up publishing companies, I get a little miffed when I realize what looked like a “real” publisher was just for one book by one person. But that could be my own set of biases—maybe they have plans to publish more and they’re not necessarily tricking me.
If and when I put something out I will probably put the logo from my website on the spine.
That’s a good idea. I get what you say about the publishing company that makes it look like it was traditionally published… At the same time, lots of famous writers did that historically. Don’t you think that the current publishing ecosystem makes it look worse than it actually is?
For example: I think that (some) University Press books often have a “vibe” that is quite different than the Big 5 publishers but they still have professional design
True, though professional design can still be stultified design and a university press isn't immune by any means.
In terms of a fake publisher, in the US, at least, forming an imprint or registering a DBA name is quick and easy and the resulting company is real.
I hope I'm not conveying a disdain for design—I'm 100% with you in pursuit of quality and I restacked your post because I think it's good and necessary. I can't deny the indie and self publishing scene is rife with slimy, sleazy tactics. I merely wanted to comment that the design sacrifices or shortcomings of the indie scene don't necessarily reflect an inferiority in the writing. There are plenty of beautifully designed books with dull, mealy pith.
All true and more great points. I didn’t take it as disdain, but I’m happy to hear the elaboration regardless.
I guess the lesson is beware of crap whether it’s polished or not 😉
We’re shallow creatures. My hope for this post is that it helps those with fewer resources still have a chance at being read!
An excellent, well thought out, helpful, and respectfully worded article!
Also, I'm extremely pleased to be able to say I've managed to avoid nearly every bit of it with my books 😃. However, I think having worked in a library gives me a little bit of an advantage. I worked around books for years and saw a LOT of book covers. That really helped a lot when it came time to make my own. Lol, with my last book though, I literally sat with a pile of (mostly) trad published books next to me that were within my genre(s) to compare with as I designed its interior.
Thank you Laura! It’s so affirming to hear that.
Glad you passed muster 😉 steeping yourself in books, and thinking about how they work DEFINITELY helps. I’m only able to compile this list because of straight up time and experience and making a lot of these mistakes myself early on.
Yeah, I don't think there's a single person who's ever done cover design in any capacity that hasn't made some or all of these mistakes or at least similar ones. Making 'mistakes' in art and design is actually part of the fun. You can learn and discover so much from them and, best of all, sometimes they even work 😂.
Know the rules to break the rules!
Exactly! Probably the only true rule in art.
I don't plan to self publish until I can afford it with earnings I get from here...so that may be a long time. When I do, I plan to go POD. My question to you is, how much money do I need to have someone (like yourself), design my book's cover and layout? Rough and dirty estimates based on, say, 100 copies. I'm just curious and want to have an idea of how much I have to earn.
Like so many questions about book design, the answer depends! On the designer, the complexity of the cover, and more.
The good news is that with POD, the number of copies doesn’t matter. The print cost will be subtracted from the retail price and quantity won’t change that. Any copies you order for yourself will be at the print cost (which is impacted by color and paper type and number of pages).
But I would say that you should set aside anywhere between $500-1500 for cover design. I know that’s a wide range, but it depends on if you do paperback or hardcover and what the designer might charge according to what you say your budget is. Custom illustration will be a different ballpark.
Interior is a different beast. I’ve seen designers and companies offer $3, $4, $5 per page for simple layouts. If there’s a lot of images or tricky boxes, it’ll be more. For really simple layouts, there’s a solid program called Vellum that’ll run you about $250. I’ll still be able to tell you used it, but 99% of the population won’t 😉
This sure gave me flashbacks to when I led the design of the graduation book of my class 😅
We probably made every mistake you listed including a cover picture with waaay too low resolution 🤣🤣🤣 good thing we made all the students and teachers pre-purchase so it didn’t impact sales hahaha
Also, I’m wondering if you have any recommendations for print-on-demand services with better paper quality?
Hehe! No worries. I hope I don’t vilify bad design here—god knows I’ve done my fair share of it.
No matter what, POD is always going to be a series of trade offs. IngramSpark and KDP are comparable, but Ingram lets you do a hardcover with a jacket whereas KDP doesn’t but has cheaper print costs.
Lulu and Blurb appear to have better quality, or at least more production choices, but the per unit cost is higher. For Blurb, MUCH higher (they specialize in photo books).
And then again there are some POD-adjacent, short-run digital presses that have better quality, but don’t give you anywhere close to the same distribution tools as Ingram or Amazon.
Not at all, I loved every second of reading your piece! I think it’s awesome that you’re giving access to this information and sharing all the small details that make book covers look so professional.
Often, I can tell that my designs are bad or at least a bit off but I don’t know what to change so this is so helpful!
Thanks so much for these insights about self publishing!! If you were to publish a book, which route would you go—try to get traditionally published?
It’s taken years to figure out how to articulate why something doesn’t look quite “right.”
That’s a terrific question! I dunno. Lol. The credibiiity of traditional publishing is appealing. But the control and potential profit of self-publishing is also appealing. I’d save on book design costs, obviously, but I have a tendency to kick the can down the road when the deadlines are set by my boss (aka me) haha.
Yeah that part of traditional publishing sure is appealing. I've heard many people say to go with a traditional publisher for your first book to get credibility and then switch to self-publishing for future books for the profits. Might try that although it's tough to get a book deal.
In any case, a book about book cover design would be soo cool! (hint)
Well there are already some out there but don’t worry, I’m scheming and daydreaming 😉
Love to hear it!
I love how you call out the signals and then provide suggestions for changing/improving. Yay that sticking out (in a bad way) is not an unavoidable outcome!
Thank you Renee! I really hope that folks will find this helpful.