Book covers sell books. But how do you find the best cover designer? And how do you make sure the cover is right for the book? An illustrated example.
Book covers matter
So you’re thinking of publishing your own book? First, take a look at my step-by-step guide on this website.
One thing is certain. You need a great book cover.
People browsing on Amazon, or glancing at lots of books in a bookshop or a website, will – literally – judge a book by its cover. You need the best book cover you can possibly get.
The trouble is, designing your own book cover may not achieve professional results. And how do you find the designer who will create the book covers you need to sell your cherished stories?
Book covers: my first attempt
Back in 2013, about the same time I started this blog, I published my first e-book, The Two Rooms, using my pseudonym Robert Pimm (at the time I was still working as a British ambassador, and the Foreign Office got antsy about me publishing under my own name). The link above goes to the latest version, with the latest cover, where it has become chronologically the 2nd story in the series.
My goal in publishing The Two Rooms was to learn how to use Amazon’s self-publishing service before publishing a novel. As set out in the step-by-step guide, I found it fairly straightforward. For the cover, I used Amazon’s own “Cover Creator”. This worked OK. The result was this:
There is nothing wrong with this cover. I took the photo myself – it was supposed to represent the “welcome amenities” in a hotel room. Amazon’s “Cover Creator” makes it easy to create covers of this type.
The Two Rooms was the first in my series of “Hotel Stories”, about hotel manager extraordinaire Ms N and her beautiful but naive accomplice, Tatiana. Most of the stories are about men in hotels behaving badly, and how Ms N and Tatiana punish them for their bad behaviour. They contain a good deal of sex and violence – mostly implied rather than explicit. The Two Rooms is a good example. So I tried to hint at some of the romantic, or sexual elements – a key, chocolates and flowers – on the cover. The book sold well.
Book covers: sticking to the formula
I later published more “Hotel Stories“. Once I had written a few, I decided to gather them together in a single volume called “Hotel Stories – The Complete Collection”. For the cover, I used the same formula I had used for the individual stories, but with different colours. The result was this:
Hiring a professional
After a year, I decided that making my books look more professional might help them to sell better. This was a good decision. I went to the website “Fiverr“, a “freelance services marketplace” and hired someone to design me a cover for the “Hotel Stories”.
The designer asked me several questions about the sort of thing I wanted. To symbolise a hotel, he suggested the kind of old-fashioned bell that used to stand on reception desks. I thought this was not a bad idea. The result, which was inexpensive, looked like this:
Book covers: splashing out
In 2018, I published my first novel, the Berlin thriller Blood Summit. By now, Amazon offered a paperback service as well as the original e-books, and I decided Blood Summit should be a paperback.
This was a huge deal, and I decided to splash out on a full-price book cover designer. I was delighted with the result, and the book sold well, both as an e-book and as a paperback. In fact it sold so well that I thought “book covers by this designer are worth the money” and decided to publish what had become Seven Hotel Stories as a paperback, too. I asked the designer to come up with some suggestions, thinking that it would be good if the covers for the two books had elements of common design, even if they were different genres.
The designer again asked me for ideas. He came up with several sketches I didn’t like. Eventually, rather than focus on the sex in the “Hotel Stories”, we decided to major on the violence, and humour. The end result:
The paperback of “Seven Hotel Stories” sold fairly well both as a paperback and an e-book. For consistency, I asked the designer to design covers in the same pattern, but in different colours, for the individual “Hotel Stories”.
Putting new book covers on all my books
For four years, both Seven Hotel Stories and the individual Hotel Stories had the book cover with the suitcase. I love the stories, and I liked the covers. But some readers said it was too gruesome. For a while, I did nothing.
In 2021, I retired as British Ambassador to Austria. The same year, I signed a contract with US Publisher Immortal Works to publish my Istanbul thriller Palladium. This was enormously exciting. It also meant that Immortal Works, rather than me, designed the cover. Hooray! They engaged a young California-based designer called Rebecca Barney.
One of the oddities of being published by a publisher is that you, as author, have limited (or no) influence over the book cover. Immortal Works told me sternly that I must accept whatever they came up with. In fact, I thought the design by Rebecca was brilliant. It looked like this:
Because I had retired, Palladium was the first of my books to be published under my real name, Leigh Turner. I thought: what if it’s a hit? Readers might look for other books by Leigh Turner. I should republish my existing books under my real name, with new book covers.
Beautiful new book covers for all my books
Republishing all my books turned out to be a big job. Amazon insists that if you republish a book with a new title, or a new author, you must publish it as a completely new book. This has the disadvantage that you lose all the reviews you have built up for the original versions. But I persevered, with new book covers for Blood Summit, Eternal Life and Seven Hotel Stories.
Because Rebecca Barney had done such a good job on Palladium, I asked her to design the new book covers. Rebecca asked to read the books, and didn’t ask me for ideas for what the cover should look like. This was a good decision. The new cover for Seven Hotel Stories was this:
Rebecca’s idea is to depict the glamour, the discretion and the mystery of Ms N, in her trademark black pearls. You will observe lift doors closing. This is a reference to the story The Swedish Woman, where the story revolves, in part, around a man found dead in an elevator.
I was delighted with all the new book covers, which look great both as e-books and as paperbacks. I was particularly pleased that all the covers had the same “look”, having been designed by the same designer.
Unfortunately, after six months, Immortal Works decided to change the cover on Palladium. I like the new cover, too. But it means the books all look different again. Perhaps that’s no bad thing. My German-language non-fiction book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Diplomacy, also has a different cover design.
What to do next
If you are trying to publish your own book and have been wondering about book covers, I hope this story is helpful. Do let me know your experience in the comments below. I hope people will enjoy Seven Hotel Stories for years to come. If I ever get to 14 stories, I shall publish a second volume.
And don’t forget my linked post on how to publish your own book. Have fun – and if you read and review any of my books, that will be a lovely bonus. Thanks!
