Self-Publishing Misconceptions: Self-Published Books Have Poor Covers?
I was browsing Reddit for topic ideas. Since I’ve been on a publishing kick over recent weeks, I went to the writing forums. Here’s an interesting set of misconceptions about self-publishing:
In the next few articles, I’ll address some of these misconceptions and give you in real simple terms how you can self-publish without falling into any of these mistakes.
Self-Publishing Misconceptions
Here’s a brief list of the misconceptions from above:
- Self-published books have poor covers or no covers
- They contain no editing or poor editing
- Price competition – self-published books should be cheap
- Self-published books should have no reviews and self-published authors pay for fake reviews
- I don’t know the last point? Sneaky self-published authors masquerade as a publishing company or something?
Those are a list of the misconceptions. Let’s talk about them and then talk about how to solve each one individually.
Self-Published Books Have Poor Covers
Self-published books having poor covers were a problem about ten years ago.
Now, amongst high quality self-publishers, there’s very little difference between cover qualities. Some of them are so good you won’t be able to tell the difference, and some are better than a traditional publishing house cover art department.
There are a few interesting things when it comes to publishing companies and cover art:
1. Where do you think traditional publishing companies get their artwork from?
If the answer is, “They commission it from an artist,” then you have to understand that there’s no reason a self-published author can’t do the same. The bigger earners do.
2. Look at the cover art of the best sellers… what do you see?
In the Kindle Top 100 list for Amazon UK, which I looked at thirty seconds ago, every single cover in every genre had exactly the same characteristics:
- The same font as everything else in its genre
- A stock photo which evokes the mood of the piece
- The font doesn’t clash with the image
There are obviously more stylistic quirks… but nothing about those things is unachievable by a writer doing it themselves. You need:
- Photoshop (You can probably do this with free software if you want, but I don’t)
- A nice stock image (Deposit photos do photos for a massive $1 each)
- About one hour to put the two together maximum
If you build a template for the genre you write in, you’ll have a built-in continuity amongst your books and it’ll take you ten minutes to create a new cover.
3. Traditional Publishing Companies Don’t Care About Your Cover
If you release a book with Amazon or wherever, sometimes it’ll tank. You’ll then change your cover and it’ll sky-rocket. That’s because the image fits your genre better.
Now, a traditional publishing company won’t ever do this, because you’re one of a thousand authors they deal with and if you flop, you flop. “Bye bye, keep the £4000 advance, you earned it.”
A Theme Runs Through All Of These Self-Publishing Misconceptions
There’s a weird theme that runs through all of these misconceptions. That theme is that a publishing company is some amazing entity that guarantees super-professionalism.
Have you ever met a graduate working in the publishing industry?
Self-publishing is as professional as you make it. If you want to be a slob, write terrible words and slap a terrible Microsoft Paint cover on it, then you can do. On the other hand, I know a guy who spends $800 per cover and has everything made from scratch. He self-publishes and yet spends more on a cover than a traditional publisher. His results are better too.
The same is true with editing, publishing, type-setting and the like. I’ve bought books by massive authors that are full of mistakes. I’ve bought traditionally published books with pages missing. This happens.
Self-publishing can be expensive as you make it. The guy I mentioned above with the custom art? He spends six figures a year marketing his books. Outside of J.K. Rowling, Stephen King and other big names, how many authors get $100,000+ spent on marketing their work?
Cover art is not expensive. It can cost as little as ten minutes and a few dollars for a stock photo. This is obviously assuming you know your way around Photoshop, but that’s not rocket science. You can learn from a couple of YouTube videos in an afternoon if you search “How to make a book cover.”
Final Thoughts
If you’re put off by self-publishing because you’re terrified you’re going to have an uncompetitive, terrible book cover, then don’t be. Creating a book cover is easy and even if it isn’t, you can outsource it to a decent cover artist for less than a hundred dollars.
The best test for whether an argument is true or not is to see for yourself. Go to the Amazon best sellers and see if you can tell which ones are self-published and which ones aren’t by the cover alone. You probably won’t be able to.
To create a good cover, all you have to do is mimic the good covers that are around. Look at how the best-selling titles are covered, and see if there’s anything you think is impossible about the artwork. Chances are there isn’t anything impossible at all.