Nick & Tamian, thank you for adding your thoughts to this conversation. Having advice from two graphic designers who are active in the profession is fantastic, thank you.

Just wanted to weigh in here and agree with Tamian, she is pretty much spot on in her assessment of just how important the cover is, and gave great suggestions on how to get started doing it yourself as well as good advice on both image and font use.

My only suggestion beyond what she has stated would be to get something up for us to look at in the Cover Design Help Desk Diane mentioned. There are few of us over there happy to give out advice and critique on whatever you have.

Hello Norbert,

With all the self published books out on the market today, it's more important than ever to have a compelling cover design. Whether you are a self published author, or a New York Times best selling author, your book cover art should grab your reader and tell them, in an instant, "Take me home! I am just what you need!"

If you can't afford a cover designer, you might want to do a little research into similar books in your genre to see what the pros have put out there and try to mimic it (while still being unique of course.) Each genre has some standard elements that are there for very good reason. People looking for Romance books expect to see romance on the cover. If you stray too far from what's expected, you may miss your audience.

Look for an image or images that tell a bit of the story, but don't try to include every concept or your cover will get busy and distracting.

Words of caution: You'll want to make sure that you purchase the rights to use any images or fonts that you decide to incorporate. The safest bet for images is to use a stock photo site like shutterstock.com or bigstock.com. Be sure to read the license before you purchase to make sure you are not violating any copyright laws by the way you intend to use it.

There are lots of free fonts available on the web, but again, check the license, because some are only free for personal use. And I would advise that you use caution. It's easy to get taken in by some delicious funky font. (I'm a delish font lover myself. Guilty!) However, the funkier the font is, the harder they are to read. And be sure to choose fonts that are easy to read when they are shrunk down to thumbnail size.

If there's anything I can help with, feel free to contact me.

Kind regards,
Tamian
Professional Cover Designer
www.BeyondDesignInternational.com
designer@tamianwood.com
See cover sample Trailer at http://youtu.be/UcigbHKr3ds

Good day. I have two groups where you can find help one is called, 'Cover Design Help Desk' [CDHD] and the other is 'Foboko: Empowering Your Creativity' [FEYC].

CDHD has several discussions and a graphic designer willing to talk to you. Check out the group discussion titled 'graphic designer' and you will find Nick. Post a summary of your book and ask for help.

Then review the other discussion topics while there. They'll give you some ideas to build on, on your own. Self-empowerment! Good Luck.

Diane Carter
Digital Director
Paradise Publishers

in my opinion, i believe the cover should have a clody background from which appears the man coming out and walking home with a full stride.