Optimizing Your Kindle Cover

After you’ve chosen your topic and book title, it’s time to consider your Kindle cover. Some Kindle authors even choose to have their cover created, or create it themselves, before the book is even written.

It can actually be really motivating to have your cover sitting there, ready as you’re writing. It makes the work appear finished in your mind - or at least makes it inevitable that it will be finished. You’ll be a lot more likely to follow through with Kindle publishing. Believe me, you will sometimes need this extra motivation when you’re in the early stages and success is just a dream.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to create great covers for Kindle books. It can be especially difficult to create one that looks professional and will capture the eye of your potential readers. Many people try to create their own covers and don’t really have an eye for design.

Hiring Someone to Create Your Kindle Covers

That’s why many Kindle authors choose to hire others to create their covers for them. There are people these days that solely focus on creating Kindle covers for clients and they’ve gotten very good at it—they know how to optimize your cover for success. Many of them are very reasonably priced, too.

When you outsource the design of your cover, you do have to consider who holds the rights to the graphics used for the cover. It’s probably best for you to purchase the rights from a stock photo site and then pass those photos on to your graphic designer to be used. This protects you and ensures you hold the correct licenses to use the photo for your cover.

There are many graphic designers on Fiverr.com who will do your cover for you. Many of them do a great job, but you should pay attention to their ratings before you hire them. It’s not that $5 is so much to lose, it’s that you don’t want to lose your momentum.

$5 for a cover is definitely not too pricey and it’s something everyone can afford. But, especially as you become more successful, you may want to use more specialized and renowned cover artists. This can cost hundreds of dollars but can be worth it, especially since you can sometimes see an instant boost in sales by changing your cover to something better.

In fact, there’s a tip right there. If everything seems in place with your Kindle book but you’re not making sales, try changing the cover—it just might help. Some people have seen dramatic increases in sales with a simple cover change.

Designing Your Kindle Covers Yourself

What if you still want to create your covers yourself? It’s easier than you might think, but you’ll still need to practice. Some graphic designers sell Kindle book cover templates that you can use with something like Photoshop or Gimp (the free, harder to use open-source version of something like Photoshop). This makes it easier on you and is kind of a halfway point between hiring someone to do your cover and doing it yourself.

There are also certain tools out there, such as KDRenegade or E-cover Designer software that makes it really easy to design even if you don’t have design skills. Specialized software allows you to design from scratch or includes cover templates (sometimes for an upgraded price) that you can use as a starting point. The covers end up looking really nice, and don’t cost you hundreds of dollars per cover.

It’s worth mentioning that Kindle and CreateSpace have cover designers included in their publisher interfaces these days, and that might be something you want to try out. Just note that these are not as flexible or as full-featured as some of the other options. Still, they are totally free so it might be worth trying out.

What It Means To Have a Good Cover

So, what does it mean to have a good cover? There is no simple definition. I will recommend that you really brand your author name or pen name on your cover.