Above, on the right, you see the cover of my latest novel, "Livvy and Enchanted Woodland." I'm super pleased with how it turned out. Here's how my book covers are created.
Since I'm not rolling in the dough, I only hire a graphic designer to do the final rendering of my covers after I select images and create a mockup of what I want. He polishes it up and creates a high resolution image for my book covers - both eBook and paperback - that I can upload to the platforms where readers can buy my books.
The hardest part is finding the images that represent the story. It took me days of searching to find pictures of the perfect red-haired young woman and a background that would suggest the enchanted woodland. (See pictures above.) I put them together in an online design website called Canva, then emailed my rough mockup to James at GoOnWrite. He has created the finished designs of all my book covers. This one came out rather well. You can see the Shutterstock image I found of the woman on the left, my mockup in the center and the finished cover on the right.
The ebook is available here.
Designing the cover of "The Going Back Portal
It took me a while to find an appropriate image of a young woman who would represent Forest Water (Amadahy) in "The Going Back Portal." (Image on the left.) I used the watermarked picture to create a cover mockup with an image of a clock in the background, deciding to flip the picture so the woman is on the right. I submitted this very primitive mockup (center) to the graphic designer I work with. I also sent him images of feathers and asked him to incorporate them. On the right, you see the finished cover.
Designing the cover for "A Daffodil for Angie"
I'm really proud of the cover for "A Daffodil for Angie." I found a great picture of a teenage girl with sunglasses (on the left.) In my mockup, (center,) I slid the girl's face off to one side and added a picture of helicopters in Viet Nam to the lens of her sunglasses. The graphic designer did a good job of adding it so that it looks like it's reflecting the war. I also sent him images of daffodils, one of which he inserted into the title. He also added a peace sign to the title. Perfect!
Designing the cover for "The Time Telephone"
When I did the mockup for "The Time Telephone" I printed out the pictures of the girl, the clock and the telephone, the title and author name, and taped them together. (Image of the teenage girl on the left.) In the mockup, center, you can see paperclips at the top and bottom, holding the mockup together. Then I took a photo of the paper mockup and emailed that to James. He suggested a "cleaner" looking clock and voila! You can see the finished product on the right is quite good.