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Cover Design Best Practices

This best practices post is a component of the PIP Program which is being developed with the intention of combating any mainstream stigma associated with self, or independent, publishing that exists in the market place.

We have created this post to gather input on criteria associated with this topic and its place within the PIP certification process.

We would like to encourage you to contribute your opinion, advice, and expertise on this subject, as a way to help the independent publishing community establish a qualitative process of evalutation for the PIP Program.

If you are interested in contributing to other topics associated with independent publishing, please visit the PIP index and do not hesitate to participate by contributing to those topics that are of interest to you:http://www.spannet.org/page/pip-input-criteria

To learn more and to read, or critique, the current PIP statement of purpose, visit: http://www.spannet.org/group/PIPcertification/forum/topics/pip-stat...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dave Bricker on July 29, 2011 at 2:43pm

Returning to this thread, I'm all for doing things yourself; that's what indy publishing is about. But the "best practice" is really to hire a competent book designer. All the rest of the advice offered here, including my own, should really fall under "second-best practices." We risk getting into a "if you need a root canal and you can't afford a dentist…" discussion that will inevitably produce a lot more failures than successes. I've seen a handful of successful, amateur covers and as a graphic design professor, I've seen duds come from some talented people. It's true a cover's role in marketing a book may range from all-important to trivial depending on its purpose and its means of distribution, etc. but we indy publishers are constantly fighting a stigma created by thousands of poorly crafted books that hit the shelves for every really good one our industry produces. If our benchmark is to be excellence, if even for its own sake), the best advice we can offer a writer is to focus on the craft of writing. That's a hard enough task to accomplish without expecting people to become typesetters and artists.

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on July 29, 2011 at 7:37pm