I had my first experience with self-publishing with my book The Dala Horse in July of 2015. I've learned so much and am still learning, which is the reason for this blog post.
ICYMI, I have experience with traditional publishing. Some years ago I published several non-fiction books for kids. You might find my name on a spine somewhere in your local elementary school library. I enjoyed the work, but itched to kick over the traces of that very structured niche. I had lots of ideas for fiction projects for readers of all ages.
Fast forward a few years: by the time I was ready to get back into writing full-time, technology had revolutionized the publishing industry. Self-publishing had lost its stigma. Authors could publish their work at will with the simple push of a button, for little or no cost. This was the perfect setup for me. I'm moderately tech savvy. I envisioned a scenario where all my unfinished manuscripts could be up and ready for sale online in no time flat (assuming I actually finished them first, of course).
Needless to say, this was wildly optimistic. I did manage to get one book (The Dala Horse) published in 2015. I had a pretty steep learning curve, which I've discussed in previous posts. But I got 'er done.
One of the many things I didn't anticipate is the topic of this post (and at long last we have arrived at the topic!). While researching my book, I found an image I was dying to incorporate into the cover of The Dala Horse. It was an adorable painting of a little wooden dala horse. I felt it perfectly captured the rustic charm of the toy as well as the tone of the book and the personality of my 10-year-old main character. I was determined to use it somehow. I purchased the artwork from the artist on Etsy and secured her permission to use its likeness. There was only one problem: I have zero artistic skills. I have some tech skills, but as far as composition and design, forget it.
Now here's where I made one of many mistakes: I told myself the art was so adorable, it would stand on its own. Why do I need to spend the money on a cover designer? I have a computer. I have some tech skills. So I just dropped the image into a Word doc or a Paint doc, I forget which, threw some font at it for the title and author name, and let 'er rip.
I can hear your groans and see your heads shaking all the way from the Carolinas.
I turned a blind eye to this glaring rookie mistake for the first six months The Dala Horse was out there. When you've just self-published your first book, that achievement tends to overshadow other little imperfections that gradually but inevitably present themselves as time passes, like mildew stains through a cheap coat of paint. I marketed my buns off, at least as far off as DIY marketing will take you - more on that in a future blog post. As you can probably guess, sales were dismal. Reviews were positive (thanks, everyone!), for the handful of people who managed to find the book. But sales could be counted on one set of fingers and toes.
In the meantime, information junkie that I am, I continued to devour endless articles on self-publishing (among other things). Many of them remonstrated with new authors against doing their own covers. One, in particular, really hit home with me with the phrase 'cover crush'. I definitely had a crush on my cover. It was time for a proper cover, one that did the story justice.
I felt very sad about this as I really, really loved the dala horse artwork by Ellen Haasen. But after reading an article about researching what sells in your genre, and the components of a compelling cover, I decided it was time to 'murder my darling' and retire my little dala horse in favor of something more polished.
I was all set to hire it out, pay the money, and work hard on marketing to at least earn the cost of the cover back. Until. I found a page on Joanna Penn's marvelously helpful website about book covers. And tucked away on that page was a link to Derek Murphy's website. Mr. Murphy has designed many attractive book covers. He has also published several free videos that take you through the DIY cover design process step by step. He has even developed a free cover design program for those of us who cannot afford to purchase their own copy of Photoshop.
As I mentioned twice already, I have some tech skills and am pretty coachable, so I thought I would give this DIY thing one more go before I paid good cash money for someone else to do the cover. In my mind, all I was lacking was a robust photo editing program. I had done my research on the competition's covers in my genre. Thanks to Mr. Murphy and others, I learned about colors and fonts and composition and all that stuff. I knew where to get good stock photos with the proper licenses and permissions. I felt I was ready to give it a go. I spent about a day, all told, watching Mr. Murphy's videos, including all his bloopers and goofs mixed in with the quality content.
(BTW Some might consider these mistakes charming. Others may wonder, why not take the time to edit all that stuff out? Who am I to judge?)
I spent another day playing with his photo editor. I say playing. It was actually pretty hard work. It took me probably half a day to track down some images that I felt were right for the story that might potentially be available to me. It took me another
half day editing said images, erasing backgrounds, and playing with all the cool filters. But I finally got the hang of it, had a couple of new covers drafted, and was feeling cautiously optimistic about being able to create a cover that was, if not the best cover in my genre, def not the worst (not by a long shot - apparently I'm not alone in my DIY bullheadedness). So the next morning I get up, rarin' to go, envisioning a new cover for my book by the end of the day, and . . . couldn't get the photo editor program to open my saved files. The same files that will only work in that specific editor. I could open new files and start over to my heart's content. But re-open an existing file? Sorry, no can do. There went three full days of my time, time I should've spent on my current three book series. Was I mad? You betcha.
It was at this point (finally!) I decided to stop goofing around and just hire the dang thing out. Back to Penn's site, clicked on several of her recommendations, and decided to try one called ebooklaunch. In less than half the time I wasted with the Murphy product, I had a great-looking cover, using images I didn't have to worry about violating privacy, licensing or other copyrights. The staff was great. They were prompt and helpful and friendly, and I am thrilled with the outcome.
If I had a fancy computer and owned a copy of Photoshop or something similarly robust, as well as an account at Shutterstock or other similar photo resources, and wanted to devote the time, I could probably come up with some covers on my own that are about equal to many you see on Amazon. But I just don't want to do that at this point in my writing life. I'm already spending enough time on social media and marketing and blogging. The cover is too valuable a piece of my marketing puzzle to leave to chance.
Even though I wasted about six months of valuable marketing time on a sad little DIY cover, all is not lost. This experience does leave me feeling a little more knowledgeable design-wise. Although his photo editor needs work, Mr. Murphy's advice at his website regarding the components of an effective book cover design is sound. It allowed me to streamline the process with ebooklaunch by giving them specific input on the colors, background, setting, and other components of the cover based on other covers in my genre and the various story elements I wanted to portray. Prior to deciding to use ebooklaunch, I had set up a private Pinterest board and stashed all images there, both of images I either wanted to use or was inspired by, as well as images of other covers I admired either in tone or genre or some other intangibles. I feel like this small step was useful in the getting-to-know-you process with the cover designer and contributed to the quick and satisfactory result.
It's too soon to know who I will use to design my next book cover. As I mentioned, it's a three book series. It's in a different genre, so I need to do some more research on that genre to get a feel for what appeals. I've already set up a private Pinterest board for this project and have started accumulating images. I have no hesitation using ebooklaunch again. One thing I know for sure: I would no more design the cover myself than I would give myself a tattoo. That's something best left to the professionals.
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