Fantastic Covers and How to Make Them: So, You Want to Write series, #2

By Theresa Sneed

How to create the perfect cover with little out of pocket cost.

 

Author Theresa Sneed walks you through how to create the perfect cover, including a bonus chapter on how to format your novel. Follow her as she shows you how she created the cover of this book as well as some of her other covers. This is a must have book for beginning authors who want to take charge of their work. You wrote an awesome novel, now, create a fantastic cover!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theresa Sneed
• Release date: Mar 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9798224846269

Theresa Sneed

Author Theresa Sneed graduated cum laude with a BA in education, and though she loves teaching, she is currently taking a break from it to pursue a writing career. Her books are unique; each story will take you to places you have never imagined before. She writes across four genres—mystery and suspense, fantasy, historical fiction/time travel, and realistic paranormal. All of Theresa’s books have elements of sweet romance, and while none of her books have profanity or sexually explicit scenes, each book is intriguing and white-knuckle intense—the kind you can’t put down. The No Angel series is the story about a guardian angel with an attitude, and the ever present, but misunderstood spirit world. There are four published books in the series with many more to come. Book one is called Angel with an Attitude, book two – Earthbound Angel, book three – Destiny’s Angel, and book four – Earth Angel. The Sons of Elderberry series has one book out called Elias of Elderberry. Book two is called The Wood Fairies of Estraelia. Harry-Potterish—with wizards, fairies, elves, pixies, yōkai shapeshifters, and dragons, this epic story has it all! Theresa anticipates another three to five books to finish that series. Escape is the story of a 15 year old girl abducted by a corrupt sheriff in the 1970’s. He keeps her captive in his cellar for five years until she escapes with his truck and his young daughter. Escape is book one in a three book series. Book two, Missing is Theresa’s current WIP, (work in progress.) Salem Witch Haunt was intended to be a stand-alone book, until the shocking ending made it apparent that her characters were not finished telling their story. As the ninth great granddaughter of one of the women hanged as a witch in Salem, Theresa has a vested interest in this epic time-travel. Thoroughly researched, all interactions with real people from that era are based on primary sources—the trial scene with Susannah Martin is taken from Reverend Samuel Parris’s transcript verbatim. All Theresa’s books are available in print edition. Visit her website at http://www.theresasneed.com. She loves hearing from her readers and may be contacted through her website or through her email at mailto:[e-mail]. Follow me on twitter! https://twitter.com/TheresaSneed Friend me on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/TheresaMSneed/ Favorite me at Smashwords!

Book preview

Fantastic Covers

And How to Make Them

So, You Want to Write series

Book 2

THERESA SNEED

One

Yes, Judge a Book by Its Cover

What makes a fantastic cover? For me, it must be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It must draw me in and capture my attention. While it does seem fickle to judge a book by its cover, we all do. So, the first thing one must do when creating a fantastic cover—is to study other book covers.

You can do this in one of two ways—go to bookstores and peruse your genre’s book shelves and/or go to amazon.com best seller books. On the left hand side of amazon best sellers there is a list of book genres. Pick the one that most closely matches your genre and study the first ten to twenty (or more) book covers and then the last ten to twenty book covers in the top 100. Researching the top selling books in your genre can give you an idea of what works and what doesn’t work.

Your book cover should represent the essence of your awesome story—or the incredible content of your book, if nonfiction. The reader’s interest should be piqued, not only by the images on your cover, but also by the title.

I remember seeing a book recently whose title grabbed me right away, but the cover art work was so out of sync with the title, that I immediately judged the writing to be as juvenile as the art. Seems small minded doesn’t it? But as much as I love reading, I have to choose the books I read carefully. There’s nothing worse than investing time in a book just to find out it really wasn’t worth my time.

Now, before you judge me as a book snob, let me tell you that not liking a book has little to nothing to do with not admiring the author for the tremendous effort they put into creating their book. Nor does it have anything to do with how wonderful I’m sure they are—it just means that if I feel that guarded about picking up poorly designed books with unattractive covers, there probably are hundreds just like me. And you really want a potential reader to get past your cover and into your great work.

Two

What You Can Do, Might Surprise You

Creating a fantastic cover is something you can easily pay someone else to do, or you can do it yourself. I taught myself how to make covers. I use a free program called GIMP which you can download from the internet. Then I set about learning how to use the program by watching YouTube videos on specific topics.

Before you dive into GIMP and begin creating your fantastic cover, the first thing you have to do is have a book written—or at least partially written.

I’m a bit nontraditional in writing a manuscript. Most authors will wait until their novel is finished and then begin to format it, or they will pay someone else to format it. I format my books as I write. I taught myself how to and then kept copious notes which I later turned into a book called, So, You Want to Write, A Guide to Writing Your First Book.

I usually write at least two chapters before I