poll

My writing isn’t a business. The stories are gifts from my Muse that I pass on to you, the reader. This means there is no guarantee I will ever recoup any of the expenses I incur to edit, format, or provide a cover for my stories. I estimate hiring professionals for all aspects of publishing the seven works I plan to release would cost me between $7,000 and $9,000. That’s a lot of money to invest with no expectation of a return on that investment. Now, I won’t skip or penny pinch editing; that is a cost I must pay (and it’s worth it). Formatting is both a technical and a tedious effort, but I’m certain I can do that on my own. That leaves the expense of cover design. This is not something I can do without help. I am not a visual person. I’m in awe of those who can match fonts, understand proportions, and create stunning visual compositions. I can do none of those things. Lucky for me, Derek Murphy has the skills necessary to design effective, beautiful covers. Even luckier for me, he founded DIY Book Covers. He combined technical know-how with artistic sensibility to produce over one hundred book cover design templates. These templates are available at very reasonable price, and a one-time purchase gives you lifetime access to all current and future templates. The DIY Book Cover templates are:

Editable in Word;
Expertly designed for both font and layout;
WAY cheaper than paying for individual cover designs.

This weekend, I took some time to get to know my DIY Book Covers. I was nervous, but I needn’t have been! In a very short time, I was able to craft multiple versions of a cover. The templates are easy to use, and the Cheat Sheet guided me through the steps to get started. I chose a template for my surreal short story, followed Derek’s Font List to determine the font to use, downloaded and installed the font and, voila! I was a cover designer! It really was that easy and way more fun than I expected. I spent hours sifting through images on my favorite stock photo site, 123rf.com. Replacing the image Derek chose in the template with comps from 123rf was simple: right-click the image, and pick “Change Image” from the menu. Friends, if I can do this – and I can’t even figure out how to match shoes to my outfits – YOU can do this, too!

Here is DIY Book Covers, Template #17 (the one I chose):

In the poll, you can see a few of the options I tried during my play date with DIY Book Covers. The images I used are all comps. Comps contain a watermark and are of slightly lower resolution than the purchased images will be. The images in the poll are from the designer view of Word, and so you can see the grid lines. Bearing all of that in mind, I’d like your help choosing which of the covers I use for my surreal short story, MIXED MEDIA. Please take the poll. You can click the thumbnails to see larger versions of any book cover. If you have suggestions or feedback, leave a comment and let me know. Thanks for helping!

xoxo,

-aniko