For some time now I've been wondering whether new - professional - covers would make my books more appealing, more interesting, less 'amateur'.
Articles and blog posts, tweets and Facebook comments, seemed to all be mentioning making sure that a designer was hired to do the cover art. It was essential. Definitely.
I wasn't so sure.
I had designed my own covers, and they were fine. Weren't they? They looked all right. Didn't they? I thought so. And so I left them as they were, the basic Lulu backdrops and royalty and copyright free photos splashed on top. Lovely. That would do.
But then I became involved in anthologies, and when I saw what a professional designer could do, I started to feel rather envious. My books, when compared to these new ones, looked a bit, well, homemade. They looked a lot homemade, if I'm honest.
I bemoaned my inability to do anything remotely 'arty' and that I couldn't afford a cover designer. I mostly complained to my husband who, in a stroke of genius (or he had reached his limit on my moaning), said that I should at least find out some prices for a designer. At least do that. Because I hadn't.
I just assumed that it would be too much.
Word of mouth is a wonderful thing. Word of mouth led me to Paul Beeley of Create Imaginations. Word of mouth meant that I found a designer I could afford and who has done the most incredible job of reinvigorating my poor old book covers.
Paul has managed to take a few words of description and mold them into creepy covers that are just right for my stories. All it took were a few emails back and forth to work out what was needed, and there were the covers, done and fun!
He also works to a fixed price, which gives the writer peace of mind. It also means that if you need to budget, it's easy to do. Contact Paul to get a quote - I promise you'll be impressed with what he comes up with!
Do you like the new covers? Let me know what you think!
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