A Tale of 6 Book Covers - Why I'll Never Accept Another Free Self-Publishing Service...
...as it pertains to the appearance of my book.
In 2014, I published my debut novel. I’ve sold 94 copies.
I am actively avoiding the “poor me”. I feel absolutely abysmal about that number.
Self pity aside, there are some funny things about this book, mostly to do with the cover.
I think it took me about 3 years to write. Writing about tiny people living in the wall was a dream. I watched a cartoon called The Littles as a child and became obsessed with the idea of tiny people. My imagination has run rampant over the years with this idea.
The Book Cover Saga
I don’t know if it was while I was still writing or shortly after I finished, but I knew I’d need images for my cover.
I went through the trouble to make a diorama of the tiny people’s living room in a shoebox. It looked pretty cool, but didn’t translate very well into photographs for book covers.
I used an old phone for a TV, a pocket watch for a wall clock, and a nightlight as a lamp. I made a leather couch and stuffed it with maxi pads. It’s what I had on hand! I papered the walls with wrapping paper as stated in the book.
It’s the couch that’s off. I could make a better one now.
The first iteration of the cover was this:
A conglomeration of stock photos and my own photos. It was just bad. Nothing flowed together. In my defense it was 2013. I’ve had an entire decade of knowledge and experience since I published this book.
No, not to make a better book cover, but to know I need to hire someone to create one for me!
This cover was super amateur and just wasn’t going to work if I wanted to be taken seriously as an author.
Version 2 went something like this:
I couldn’t let go of the couch, oh, but how I needed to! It makes even less sense in this context. I don’t remember how long I let that ride before I went with its final version prior to the revamp which was this:
Not the worst cover I’ve ever seen, but certainly not doing me any favors. I did reach out to a designer on Fiverr several years ago and try to have a cover designed.
My experience was not a good one. While the work was cheap at 5 bucks which is what Fiverr was all about at the time, it was unusable. It didn’t relate to the story or my book at all. I never used the cover. This is it:
I guess I was planning to republish under my pen name, but when the new cover didn’t work out, it just stayed put.
Obviously, I needed help, but at this point, I was done trying. This book has languished in obscurity ever since.
The Freebie Story
Receiving a free cover revamp for my book seemed like the kick in the rear I needed to begin updating my catalog.
I know this is a hard one. There’s not many stock photos out there depicting tiny people. Trust me, I’ve looked.
I wanted to make this as simple as possible for the designer. I provided multiple cover examples and stated what I liked and what I didn’t like. I also gave them a couple scenes from the book for ideas as well.
My favorite concept was an image of a tiny man with a cup of coffee leaning against a giant (to him) mug with an enormous hand stirring it. They went with this one.
When the first version came back, it didn’t have the hand. It didn’t compel me to read.
So, I requested the hand.
I realized there were a couple of tweaks I’d like to see, but that I could do these myself since I also noticed they included a PSD source file.
This was good because then I didn’t have to bother the middleman with more communication than he was already doing between myself and the designer.
They added the hand.
I loved it, and they delivered my final files. No source file, so I asked the middleman for it.
They only provide the source file for their upper tiers and I got the cheapest cover.
They could give me a flattened source file with an editable text layer.
Because I’m no stranger to Photoshop, I know it’s actually an extra step to flatten an image.
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t help me at all because it wasn’t the text I wanted to edit.
I wanted to change the little guy’s hair to red. The whole family in the book has auburn hair. I wanted to change the fingernails to a pink color so the big hand stands out more. Finally, I wanted to remove the smoke layer from in front of the text.
The middleman advised that I keep the smoke because it was “a nice touch”…because apparently this is now his book cover…or something. 🙄
This cemented the problems with accepting such a freebie:
The first issue was with the way I felt after my initial request to add the hand. I felt kinda crumby about asking because I knew this was the “cheap gig”, and because I wasn’t floored by the initial design. I try to be an easy customer generally.
There’s a middleman, and immediately your communication is limited and filtered by and through this person. They are having to spend their valuable time on your behalf.
When the issue of the source file being more expensive came up, I would normally just upgrade, and I can’t in this situation. Beggars can’t be choosers.
In trying to keep things simple for the middleman and designer, I got stuck without a source file and thereby a book cover I’m not 100% happy with.
I have no recourse because the middleman is the customer and he got his video so he’s satisfied.
I feel negatively about the whole shebang.
At this point, I have a better book cover than before, but is it my dream book cover?
No.
My dream book cover would cost me about $200 and that’s a steal. I just don’t have the discretionary funds.
So, better than before is better than it was. I will make the most of the new cover.
I plan to reformat, tweak my keywords, craft a new description, and do a soft relaunch. We’ll see if the new cover can work some magic.
A Word to Designers
With this particular gig, the more expensive tier included the source file.
Source files are a bad upsell.
Why?
If that’s your only upsell, then you have two tiers that are the exact same except you’re withholding a file that you have to create anyway.
A source file isn’t an extra step. That file gets created regardless, and they either trash it or put it on file for an unknown amount of time before they purge it.
So, if you get the basic tier, you don’t get the file.
If you want to be a snob about the source file, just don’t offer the cheap tier. The $200 cover place doesn’t have a cheap tier. Fun fact though, the company that did my cover and my dream cover place are both owned by the same parent company.
If you don’t have any good ideas for an upsell, don’t have an upsell. Have one price at which you’re willing to part with your precious source file…that you had to create anyway!
Don’t Buy This Book…Yet
I’m actually going to unpublish it, so you can’t, but it may still be active on Amazon. This book still needs to be reformatted, so your reading experience may be lacking.
I’m not here to sell you books, but I may let you know when new ones or updates to old ones are available.
If you have found joy, inspiration, or value in my words, I humbly invite you to consider supporting my craft by buying me a coffee. Your gesture, however small, fuels my passion and enables me to continue weaving stories and sharing knowledge. Together, let's embark on this creative journey, one cup of coffee at a time. Thank you for your kindness and support.
I loved Population Miniscule! go for it again!
Interesting to read about the process. I actually love the Fiverr book cover for something even though it’s not right for your book. I both self publish and work with small publishers and in both cases have had mixed experiences with cover design. I am not at all good with visual design myself (really never learned photoshop basics) and prefer to source it out but of course there’s cost.
So a lot of what you’ve said resonates although personally I tend to just leave a lot up to the designer and accept what comes. For better or worse.
I will say I have minimal input to the design team at Schiffer for my newest book, The Artist’s Mind and I LOVED what they came up with. It’s an interesting part of the business for sure.