Mistake #4 (Re: Covers)

SO MANY COSTLY MISTAKES. 

Let me count the ways:

1.  I aimed for a gorgeous work of art rather than a genre-specific cover. My first cover artists were brilliant artists but not familiar with my genre, so their ideas didn’t fit with other science-fiction novels. 

2.  The artists were also successful independents but with less drive for a debut self-published author and little accountability. Bye bye, hefty deposits.

3.  My early design briefs didn’t focus on the key emotion of the book. Potential fiction readers aren’t looking for information but an experience. 

4.  My first published cover has a border, which rarely lines up correctly through KDP and IngramSpark.

Covers are a writer’s first marketing tool—and I use the word “marketing” carefully, knowing how the drive-to-sell can compromise integrity. But why invest years in writing your book, only to have people not crack it open because your cover puts them off? 

**I will now deal only with cover services with 100% money-back guarantees.