They say ‘never make your own book cover art’ and they (whoever ‘they’ are) are almost certainly correct. Nevertheless, I did make mine, and it was for the following reasons:

1. It’s MUCH cheaper
2. It’s an interesting intellectual challenge
3. I wanted to learn how to use Photoshop
4. I had a clear idea of what I wanted my book covers to look like
5. I thought I could do a better job than some covers I’ve seen
6. It’s fun

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A book needs a cover. A cover should have a title, the name of the author and some sort of image that relates to the content of the book. How hard can that be? Turns out it’s REALLY hard. There are lots of mistakes to be made, and I’ve made most of them in the few covers I’ve designed for my books. And then there’s the book’s internal design. I’d thought that was all about inserting page numbers. WRONG! There’s a lot more to it than that. Continue reading →