How I created my cover design when I didn’t have a clue what it should look like

How do authors design their covers? What process do they go through to get to that final image? Most of the authors I’ve spoken to all know exactly what they want and only refine it later when it comes time to design a cover. I could not say the same. As my debut urban fantasy novel, The Deep Space Between, is about two weeks away from being published, I thought I’d share with you how I designed my front cover from absolutely nothing.

Note: I had a designer lined up for this process. This article will not share how to go about that. It is purely to tell you how I created a cover when I was clueless about what I wanted it to look like.

Step one: Research

To figure out what I wanted it to look like, I needed to do two versions of research: genre-specific and covers in general.

The first is genre-specific research or nailing down what is typical for the specific genre in which I write: urban fantasy + mystery. This included: font types, colors and images used, composition, and any other relevant information. For this, I googled and read blog posts, articles, and anything else I could get my hands on to see what I needed to know. This is what I found:

• Serif font for fantasy, sans serif font for mystery
• A figure on the cover (for both)
• Photo illustrated images
• Greens, blues & purples for fantasy; reds, oranges & yellows for mystery

While the non-US covers looked awesome (I liked some of the German versions of books I reviewed), I had to stick with the US market and their likes/dislikes, since I am US-based. Once I understood what was expected in a cover, I moved on to part two and kept an eye out for any I liked that fit the criteria.

Before discussing it, though, I wanted to address two things. First, you can absolutely do whatever you want with your cover. I am in no way telling you to follow the standard cover type for your genre. However, readers do judge a book by its cover, especially for debut authors. If your book cover doesn’t fit with the genres they like to read, they may well put it back or scroll on by to the cover that does look like the genre they wanted to read.

While I struggled with the figure on the cover — I didn’t really want to go there — for that reason, I felt like I had no choice. I wanted to ensure my book found its way into the hands of people looking for urban fantasy and I just didn’t want to risk playing around too much with the design. Again, this is the choice I made for my book and not one I’m saying you should make as well.

Now that I’ve tackled that, let’s get back to how I created my cover. Next, I did cover-specific research. Ideally, you should look at 100+ covers, in all genres, to see what fonts you liked, where the words were, where the author’s name is vs the title, the composition and images used, etc., so that you can nail down your choice. This will give you a breadth of options, but will also tell you what you don’t want.

I chose to stick solely with my main genre categories to make my life simpler. Remember, I had not a clue of what the cover should look like. Using the Amazon Kindle categories, I looked at urban fantasy, new adult, and fantasy mystery to get a feel for what was out there. I found quite a few covers I liked and many I didn’t. From those I liked, I finalized my list of cover choices and put together a board to share with my fan community. The goal was to see what they liked and why.

Here’s my board:

I received a lot of feedback. My fans really liked #5 and #6. The colors popped and the images were clear. Some felt the top seller images were dated and didn’t fit with the book synopsis. However, they are well-known urban fantasy series, which is why I included them. Some of my fans liked the minimalist cover for #7, which is why I included it. I ended up not going with that style.

I agreed with my fans, for the most part. I liked #5 for the colors and also for the hidden image in the crystal ball (you can just see the hands pressing against it). I also liked the purple circle/flare around the figure in #6, which fit well with what happens to my protagonist in the book.

And then I found a completely different series and ended up using that as my base instead (sorry fans!). I liked this series cover set because: 1) they featured a figure, which I needed; 2) they had a signature item (her red coat) that I planned to emulate; and, 3) the style fit the genre I was writing in.

I had my potential novel cover model. Now what?

Step two: Create a mood board

Mood boards feel like one of those “I’m a creative and totally put together person” kind of things to me. I’ve always admired people who do them but never felt I could do it justice. But I had no choice. So, I headed over to Canva, the free version, and searched their templates for mood boards, and found a style that worked for me.

Once I found a design, I searched for images and colors that fit with the content of my book. This part is key — the images you include should be core to the book, its themes, or its plot so that the cover concept mirrors one or all of those items.

My initial board:

The woods featured a lot in the book, so I knew I wanted woods on the cover somehow. Books also are a big part of the series and the debut novel, so of course, a book had to be there. The colors I chose were based on the colors I was drawn to from the start. To be fair, green is my favorite color, followed closely by purple, so they weren’t a stretch.

My initial board, while fun, didn’t have enough spaces for all the things that were important in my book, so I increased it to a bigger board. I added a few more images; figured out a few hex codes for the colors and finalized it. (Note: The lilacs image is not in the mood board I submitted to my designer; it replaces something that features in the book that I didn’t want to spoil for my fans.)

I created a key for my designer as to what was important and why (the squares with text next to the images). It also helped me to determine what concepts and images were important enough in my book that they required a square on my board. Basically, it narrowed down the field.

However, if you’re like me and think mood boards are too hard or not your thing, don’t worry. You can always do the key exercise: gather the images that are the most important to your story and cover. This way, you have a starting point for your designer and a better idea of what it should look like.

Step three: Mock-up your cover

I wanted to give my designer all of the necessary tools possible. As the images of books and woods were important to me and the content of the book, and a figure was required for the book, what I did next was to take my chosen concept cover and mock-up my variation of it.

Cringe time. I couldn’t find — even though I looked at a lot of images — an image of a girl holding a book in the clothing and style I wanted, so I drew my own. And I suck at drawing, by the way. So… don’t judge me here. Or do. I guess it doesn’t matter.

After I did all that work, of course, people on Twitter sent me all sorts of images that would’ve worked better than what I drew, but eh, it worked out in the end. Here is my mock:

It was feeling more and more like I knew what my cover would be. I felt good, not about my drawing (never that), but about the direction of my cover. I had an idea of what I wanted the book to look like…

Or so I thought.

Step four: Create a cover brief and meet with the designer

I’d done my homework, I created a mood board and I had a mock design. It was time to meet with the designer. However, there was one more step to complete before that call: a cover brief.

The cover brief is to give your designer a strong idea of who you are, your aesthetic, what your book’s about, and who it should appeal to so that you’re both on the same page. And then, you’ll use that as the basis for your conversation, refining any thoughts your designer has about your idea. My cover brief captured:

1. My name, book name, informal author bio (100 characters), informal book description, and a photo.
2. Book Genre + Audience demographic
3. 5 covers I liked & why I liked them (based off my research)
4. My book mock-up

My designer and I spent 30 minutes discussing the book and the concepts. While on the phone with him, he created what the image could look like. It was the starter image, not the finalized cover, but he wanted to capture the aesthetic while it was fresh in his mind. We also played around with fonts and I told him what I liked and didn’t like.

I have to say, I was initially really worried by the placeholder design. It did not represent the feel of my book. At all. It was just that, a placeholder design to ensure the basic structure of the cover was captured. My designer went away and worked on three variations of my cover design.

Before moving to the next step, however, I do want to cover a few tips on meeting with your designer.

First, choose your words carefully. Make sure the terms you use are clear and defined.

Instead of: I want a simple cover.
Say: I want a cover with minimal images, geometric font, with clean lines.

If you do use words like ‘simple’, tell your designer what simple looks like to you. Provide them with images of a simple design. Or images of what you mean by simple images, clean lines, or geometric font.

Language matters here, more than you can ever guess. What I think looks simple is not the same as what my husband thinks look simple, so make sure you are on the same page as your designer.

Second, don’t be afraid to let the designer take the information you provided and create their own images. Give them free rein and see what they come up with. They are, after all, the artist here. My third cover design was a fan favorite and didn’t look like my mock-up at all, besides three key concepts: the figure, the book, and the woods. As long as you give them the base information, they can and will come up with an amazing design.

Step five: Picking your base design

My three book cover initial designs arrived. I liked them all, some more than others.

One design was based on my initial thought of an illustrated figure on the cover. One was based on photo-illustrated images and looked like my mock-up. And one was based on the information I provided but was the designer’s idea. It was exciting to get one step closer to publication. And a little bit scary.

Once you get your designs from your designer, I recommend you do two things. First, for each image, write down:

1. What you liked.
2. What you didn’t like and how you would change it.
3. Do the images fit with how you see your book?
4. What’s your first pick as of RIGHT NOW?

I was torn. I liked versions two and three, but couldn’t decide if I only liked version 2 because it fit with my initial thought for the book or if I liked it because it fit my vision of the book the best. I was not a fan of cover 1, but only because it was a very early draft of an illustrated image — it felt unfinished and I couldn’t visualize it in a way that finished it.

Had I left it there, I would’ve had a nice design, but I wouldn’t have asked for specific changes that other people viewing the designs noticed. And that is why the next step is also really important.

Once you note your initial impressions, share your covers with your friends, family, and author fans (and then later with social media). The key is to get them to tell you what they like and don’t like. Some may just fill out the checkboxes; hopefully a few will get more detailed.

And so, off to the fan community, and social media, I went. I created a survey using Google Forms and sent it to my core fans. The questions I asked for each design were:

• Overall opinion on a scale of 1 to 10
• What do you like about this cover? [text answer]
• What would you change on this cover? [text answer]

And then, on the last page of the survey, I presented all three designs and asked:

• Which cover is your favorite?
• Anything else you’d like to add?

If you do plan on sharing the Google Form survey with social media and the general public, I do recommend you add a question to your survey that is required to be answered — an email address for the respondent. This will allow you to capture the email addresses of people potentially interested in your book that you can use to market to them. I did not do this as I only gave my fans access to the form.

The initial designs:

The results from the survey were interesting. Many people liked cover 1 because there was space around the girl’s head and you could see her eyes. Many people liked cover 2, but didn’t like the title style and really didn’t like that you couldn’t see her eyes. And many people liked cover 3 but felt it was more YA than any of the others.

Because so many people liked Cover #1 because the girl’s eyes showed, the designer quickly altered the image in Cover 2 and I presented yet another survey featuring a run-off between the different versions of Cover 2, plus cover 3.

New and improved cover 2 won overall, although it looked close for a while.

I now had my winner. A cover I could be really happy with and I was excited by. I went back to my designer and gave him the changes I wanted to be made. These notes were based on my ideas as well as those presented by my fans. I also did as much as possible to show him the changes I wanted, since sometimes translations get lost in word text when you’re talking about an image.

In the end, I am extremely happy with my cover design and it gets different reactions from the few readers I’ve shown it to that haven’t seen it yet. And I have a common facet that each cover will now have — a book — that mirrors the book cover model I really liked.

To sum up

Designing a book cover doesn’t need to be difficult. In fact, many of you probably know exactly what you want it to look like. If you don’t, or if you want to double-check that you’re moving in the right direction, then feel free to follow the steps I took to get there.

1. Research, research, research
2. Create a Mood Board
3. Cover Mock-Up
4. Cover Brief & Designer Conversation
5. Pick Your Base Design & Refine it

You could choose to skip any of these steps and still come out with a beautiful cover. However, I wouldn’t skip the research phase or the cover mock-up, because it gives you a clear sense of what you like and what you don’t like. This makes the design process so much easier for you and your designer.

And now…(drumroll please)

The cover reveal: