Design Process

Your manuscript deserves only the best possible cover. As such, DAZED Designs has an extensive design process to give your book the best shot at success. A well-designed book cover will greatly increase your chances of reaching your target market, thus achieving your desired sales results.

Generally, most readers will only spend a very short amount of time (a few seconds, at most) glancing at your book. Whether it’s in a conventional bookstore or on an online platform such as Amazon, your cover is what grabs people’s attention. It is the first thing readers judge. Therefore, you need to convince them to purchase your book as quickly and effectively as possible via a unique, yet appropriate cover design. Attracting readers by generating excitement for YOUR book should be the main objective of any professional book cover.

Key Cover Design Principles

Unlike the blurb, the main purpose of a professional book cover isn’t to tell readers what your book is about. Rather, the art of cover design entices readers to read the blurb and then the book.

An important notion concerning book cover art is that non-fiction covers (such as cookbooks, academic texts, and self-help books) should appeal to your target market’s logical brain. In contrast, fiction covers (such as romance, fantasy, or contemporary fiction) should appeal to their emotional brain. Furthermore, in the case of fiction books, genre conventions should be used to effectively communicate to readers exactly what genre the story fits. While unique art is useful to help your book stand out, if you try to create a cover that is completely outside the genre conventions, readers won’t be able to make effective choices. This can lead to negative feedback and reviews, which no author wants.

Book Cover Design Process

At DAZED Designs, our book cover design process encompasses four main stages:

1. INITIAL CONSULTATION

Ask yourself, what emotion do I want the reader to experience when they see my book for the first time?

Initially, Tash from DAZED consult with you to develop a detailed understanding of your book’s genre/theme before launching into the cover design process. This is usually where you show us your blurb and tell us details about your story to help us understand the overall feeling of your manuscript. We have a specific form for you to fill in once initial; contact is made.

Next, we advise you about image selection for your art, while purchasing as many high-resolution, royalty-free photos/illustrations as necessary to achieve the desired outcome.

Finally, we can assist you with either copywriting or editing your blurb, author bio, titles, and overall polishing of the external appearance of your manuscript.

DAZED Designs prefers to perform this process via a direct messaging service, video call, audio/phone call, or personal appointment. Sharing your details is part of the initial consultation, and a preferred contact method will be discussed in detail.

2. DESIGN

Following the intensive initial consultation, we will make a custom mock-up of your book cover. We carefully consider the font style used for the cover (book title, author name, and subtitle if relevant). For example, script-style fonts best suit romance and women’s fiction genres, while solid block typefaces tend to suit contemporary mystery/thrillers or crime novels. Decorative and blackline fonts are better suited to Fantasy & Paranormal books. All stock images, fonts, or artwork we use are high-resolution and have commercial copyright clearance. Extended licenses can be purchased for an additional cost.

We purchase our images from various sources. However, we primarily use the Shutterstock image library, Deposit Photos image library, Envato Elements, YayImages image library, NeoStock image library, and a range of 3D art resources, brushes, and reference photography from various sources.

Please contact us if you require a full list of resources utilized in your cover art.

3. REVISION

Effective design is always a result of collaboration. In response to your feedback on the initial mock-up, we will rework your design to help it meet your requirements better (if needed). We provide several revisions of your selected design to ensure you’re happy with the final result.

4. APPROVAL

Once you’ve authorized the final result, we’ll deliver the book cover design to you as a high-resolution JPG and, if a wrap is purchased, a fully printable PDF. You will also receive a PNG of the title font, the series name (if applicable), and the author’s name. Along with these files, you will receive a JPG of the artwork. These can be used for advertisements and digital publication if it doesn’t contradict both DAZED Designs and the stock libraries’ Terms and Conditions. The finished cover design can be adapted for all eBook and print book formats at the author’s request. The standard supplied will be 1600 x 2560px to meet Amazon’s requirements.

You will also receive a custom FB group banner JPG, a Cover Reveal JPG, and a 3D Graphic PNG to match your new book cover.

Normally, we share files via DropBox. However, if required we can also transfer using email.

Common Commercial Products DAZED designs utilize in their design process

https://www.shutterstock.com/

https://www.neo-stock.com/

https://depositphotos.com/home.html

https://yayimages.com/

https://elements.envato.com/

https://creativemarket.com/

https://creativefabrica.com/

https://www.artstation.com/

https://www.shutterstock.com/license

https://www.neo-stock.com/licensing