I’m so excited to be able to share the final cover design for Laura the Explorer, created by the awesome Australian designer Hazel Lam, and also to announce that Laura the Explorer will be published in January 2019!
Here is the final front cover:
And the full jacket design for the print books:
A bit about the design process
Firstly, I’d just like to say that Hazel was an absolutely amazing designer to work with! It’s pretty daunting making the decision to go indie and having to source and engage your own cover designer – there is a huge variety of services and freelancers out there who offer cover designs for indie authors, and knowing how to pick the right one can be a challenge!
It’s a huge commitment to back yourself (both financially and mentally!) and engage a cover designer, and the abundance of bad cover designs out there can make for some scary nightmares. Seeing my final book cover, I’m so glad I chose Hazel and that she was able to fit me in with her schedule.
So, how did the design process work?
As I wrote in my last blog post, I found Hazel via The Australian Book Designers Association. Once engaged, I sent through a range of materials about my book, including the synopsis, genre, comparison titles/authors in the market, as well as the Pinterest board I had created for book covers I like. The challenging part for me here was to give Hazel enough information without trying to direct the design – I made sure to avoid asking for any motifs or symbols on the cover, as I wanted to give her complete creative freedom. (The only thing I did mention was that I particularly liked watermelon-type colours – and I’m delighted that the design we chose is exactly that!)
From there, Hazel went away and put together a range of concepts. When she sent through the options I was blown away at how amazing they all were, and after getting a few extra opinions from my support crew, we all decided that the above cover was our favourite.
After that, Hazel did a couple of tweaks to the font for me, and put together the full jacket/back cover design as well. And that was it! It was such an easy design process, which I believe is testament to what a great designer Hazel is – she pretty much nailed the design right from the start, so there were hardly any changes needed.
If there are any take-aways from this story for other authors looking to engage cover designers, my two best pieces of advice are this:
- Engage the RIGHT designer for you! Yes, this means doing extensive research and following your gut instinct on designers and design companies. Yes, this might mean spending more money than you were hoping to spend. Make sure you like the designer’s style/ other covers they have designed before you engage them. This is ground zero for book cover design, and is the one thing that will determine how good your final cover is.
- Trust your designer! If you’ve followed point 1, then you should be confident that your chosen designer has loads of experience in book cover design for books in your genre, and that you like their previous designs. This means they understand your target market and know how best to market your book. Trust their experience and don’t be a helicopter author trying to control the details.