I think I’ve talked about this before, but among indie authors it’s a truism that covers are both sacred and a MacGuffin. Do it right, and they’ll ensure sales. But better not do it yourself, because you might screw up.
That might be a little unfair, but not far off the mark. The vast majority of writers I’ve seen, even professionals earning a solid income, recommend hiring someone to do your covers with a consistency I find rather irksome for two reasons.
One, I like having the most control I can exert over everything in my business until I understand it well enough to know whether or not it’s to my benefit to continue or outsource.
Two, I dislike being told not to do something on the basis of ‘you’ll probably just screw it up anyway’. I’m spiteful like that.
So every time I see writers pile on the ‘get a professional, don’t try it yourself’ train, I get a little more spiteful still.
I do my own covers. I made that choice because I couldn’t afford either the lead-time or the cost of having someone else do them, and because of that element of control. The spite came later, and came hard, because if I’m going to not do something, it’s going to be on my own terms, not just because it’s hard. Other reasons came later still, which retrospectively reassured me of the decision.
To be clear, it’s not that I haven’t screwed up my covers. I have! I didn’t know what I was doing! Screwing up is inevitable. But I tried, and I learned, and because I was willing to try I also made myself capable of learning. Luckily for me, WGM came out with a new course on making covers recently, which as far as I was concerned couldn’t have come at a better time — except for, maybe, if it had come earlier.
So I now know how to actually make the covers I’ve been making. And I’ll continue to learn how to do covers, better and more efficiently, as long as I do them myself.
They’re really not that difficult. Full-on, for something new, the way new skills always are — but eminently doable.
Which is why I’m very pleased to now show off the rebranded covers for Broadsides. The fourth book, which will be coming shortly (exact weekend pending, but before the end of the year), will be the first book branded in this style right from the very beginning, and honestly I couldn’t feel better about it.
Having a series brand means that I have a formula to follow. It means that I actually don’t need to do as much work, nor spend as much time or money, trying to fluff about the way I was before. It’s a relief, and I’m looking forward to having that burden off my plate.
So without further ago, here are the new covers for books 1-3 of Broadsides. By the time the fourth book arrives, books 1-3 will have been updated, both digital and softcopy, in all their branded glory.
Aurichalcum Publishing 
I love these covers! A very appealing concept, and all the color schemes are great. The different fonts work together nicely.
Also, I saw this post right when I was thinking about the same topic. I’m the furthest thing from the graphic designer, but I do love playing around with images. The process is interesting. Achieving results makes me happy. I don’t mind watching tutorials and trying to get something right again and again until it works. I like learning new things, when they interest me. As an avid reader who sometimes spends hours browsing Amazon just to add to my TBR, I have a good idea of what the cover trends are, what works, what doesn’t. Creating covers can be hard, but it’s not rocket science. By making covers myself, I can make sure that the feel of the cover and the book are exactly the same, that a small detail I want to be there won’t get lost in translation, that the color scheme 100% suits the mood. Why should I hire a professional when I can instead acquire a useful skill that I enjoy learning?
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Exactly this! I don’t read as much as I used to because I’ve been betrayed often enough by series I’ve loved to be wary of picking up anything new, so I don’t tend to browse and needed quite a bit more help to figure it out. But I was surprised and pleased by how formulaic it turned out to be.
I’ve only gotten a 101 induction into the process, but with enough of a foundation I’m looking forward to figuring out as I go along, and it’s fun just to fool around with pretty images. I appreciate a lot that making them myself means I can make quick changes as needed instead of having to fumble around with a contract and another person’s schedule.
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That’s a great point about changes! And also: say you’ve planned a trilogy, you’ve written a trilogy, and then you realize there are two more books asking to happen. If you initially ordered three covers, you have to hunt down that designer again, and if you busy you have to find a new one, show them the existing covers, make sure they make more covers in the same style. Maybe you get lucky and it all goes smoothly, or maybe there’ll be a lot of time-consuming back and forth. But if you’re doing the covers yourself, all you have to do is make more covers.
Alternatively: maybe you initially planned a four-book series, and you decided to take care of the covers in advance. But then as you write, you discover that the same story can work well as a trilogy. For me, I know it would be sort of hard to let go of that cover I paid for. Whereas letting go of the result of my own work, well… hey, that work taught me something even if I don’t end up using it as intended. There’s probably a lot I can reuse about it. I’m not really letting go of it: it’s not wasted money, it’s gained skills.
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Exactly this! I needed some additional help figuring it out because I don’t read as much as I used to (betrayed by authors too often), but I was surprised and pleased by how formulaic it is. It’s fun to play around with pretty images, so I’m looking forward to developing that skill. It’s especially reassuring to know that if changes need to happen, I don’t have to rely on someone else’s schedule.
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