Design the cover yourself !  I did and and it didn’t cost me a penny outside of my monthly subscription to Claude and ChatGBT.

Great tips! Especially the thumbnail test in context of other Amazon thumbs. It's so easy to do too!

11:45 "They're just getting pissed." That was and is definitely me with my cover 😅."

Thanks for featuring Video Authority, Chandler! Great video & appreciate all of your help with my book!

Do  you have a similar video on fiction covers?

If you’re ready to turn your story into a published book, apply to work with our team here: http://selfpublishing.com/work-with-us

This is so ture. great advice

Great advice!

All of the examples are non-fiction books. All of them have the most simplistic of book-cover designs. The principles apply to any book cover, however, examples and discussions of book covers by GENRE would be equally, or more, helpful.

Fonts make or break a cover for me. I judge a cover’s professionalism by the title font before anything else. Anyone else have a font pet peeve? 😅

My Reedsy experience: The first designer I hired was explicitly told not to use AI, then turned right around and did it for a concept-example proof.

I could tell it was AI based on how the woman was drawn in the image. It was supposed to be a World War II-era woman pilot. I’d given him historical photos of the women pilots of the era who wore slacks, plain shoes, and white blouses.

His AI drew a woman wearing high heels, clam-digger slacks, a leather jacket, and an officer’s cap. Yeah, right. Try flying an aircraft in high heels. That woman looked more like some bachelor-party stripper.

When the artist confessed that it was AI, he tried to persuade me to use AI because “all the other authors are doing it.”

I tried to fire the guy through Reedsy because of the AI use. Then they told me that I had to “pay him something” for him having made some effort. Even though I didn’t have to pay his full price, that really pissed me off because he had been told not to use AI and then used it.

Even the next designer that I hired through Reedsy used a basic scenic from AI. I didn’t find out until after the gig was up and I discovered it myself.

Also, that second designer had my image ideas,notes, historical photographs to work from, etc, for months— and I mean like seven months— but he didn’t begin to work on it until the week it was due. I had a lot of complaints. He just created one rush fix after another. In the end, it was more like what I wanted, but that AI scenic always nagged at me. I paid him in full, then found out a few months later that the scenic was AI-generated.

When the time came, I didn’t use the second designer’s book-cover design. I didn’t use Reedsy again either.

I hired a company that specializes in book-cover design.

What about fiction book cover with a photorealistic image of the main hero? Does that work or not? Or does it depend on the details of the cover?

What was most helpful for y'all in watching this breakdown? Happy to answer any questions here in the comments!

If you're a big name author, putting your name in big fonts at the top of the book helps identify your book to the bookstore browsing public. Tom Clancy comes to mind. But he's the exception. (",)

This is very helpful, I would like advice however on finding an agent when I am a total newbie to this writing life.

Good video, and glad you mentioned Reedsy. Just a word of caution from personal experience - I hired a designer through there and ended up in a dispute over undisclosed AI use in the artwork. Couldn't prove it beyond doubt, but the signs were there, and Reedsy's dispute process just took the designer's word for it and closed the case. Lost about $2,500 in the end. Doing your own cover (like another commenter said) has its downsides too, but at least you know exactly what you're getting. Just say be careful out there and ask a lot of questions before committing serious money through these platforms.

I'm a nobody now... My book cover doesn't even have my name on it... certainly not over half of the image.. I'm not interested in being a best-selling author but a well-respected writer... I'm posting this here in a place that can be easily found before my book becomes popular... 😅   everything's a gamble 😅 if you're interested in my book.. it's not hard to find now that you've encountered me here...

The cover examples you give are non-fiction and they don't need pictures - just words. So, not much design going on there. And when you  say the potential buyer must be able to read the book title, you begin writing in a ' style' that's barely legible. You need help with your video design. Start again.

Every psychological thriller book cover looks the same, which means they've become generic. The same cool blue overall tone, with bright yellow lettering, preferably a thinner script, slanted. It's beyond boring. Most fiction book covers look like the designer just threw some graphics onto it. I get the "thumbnail" aspect, but when everyone follows the same trends, nobody stands out.

These book covers you’ve shown are all awful