After many years as an attorney, entrepreneur, husband and father, Daniel Joslin launched Atypical Publishing to meet the need of authors who need and want to be in control of their book. Mr. Joslin oversees the publishing, legal and author relations for Atypical Publishing. Teaming with Rich Ramalho, an internet marketing expert who manages the marketing of all published books, Mr. Joslin has created Atypical Publishing, a self publishing company dedicated to serving the needs of the most often overlooked person in the publishing world today -- the author!
On behalf of our entire Atypical Publishing team, I invite you to enroll today with our Atypical Newsletter. In each issue you will learn more than just how to publish your book. We are committed to providing you with an informative newsletter which will address the concerns of our readers. Each issue is designed to enlighten as well as correct any misconceptions you may have about publishing your book and the self publishing industry as a whole. We encourage you to read each issue of the Atypical Newsletter fully and let us know what you think. Let us know of an issue that is important to you. Our website is an interactive site and we encourage all comments and queries.
Over the past several months, more than just a few have communicated this quandary to me. I have written extensively on this site about the importance of book covers in the overall marketing of your book. If you haven’t read this discussion, please review here.
Remember, that your book cover must grab the reader’s attention quickly and hold it. It must be relevant to the content of the book. The cover must, in truth, stand out from all the noise that is your competition. So how do you accomplish this task? You seek the assistance of a cover design artist to convey your vision, your content, and your subject to the reader visually through the graphic art chosen, the font style and size and of course the copy for the back covers.
But what if you are facing an economic crunch? The costs for professional cover design artists can range from $400 to $2000. Plus there is no guarantee that the design produced will be what we are seeking, which can mean more costs for modifications down the road.
Your tome is written, edited and proofread and ready for publication. But due to the current economic crisis, your book development funds are in limited supply. Tough economic decisions must be made. Do you go with a cheap alternative cover that doesn’t grab the reader’s attention? The answer is an unequivocal no!
You do not want to waste your hard work, time and money invested in this project by settling on a second-rate cover. So what is your alternative?
I recently came across a piece of software that may be an answer for you. The software is called BookCoverPro and is specifically built for book cover design. BookCoverPro is designed to be a more user-friendly program than Adobe Photoshop. The last point is a real plus in BookCoverPro’s favor. If you are like me, graphic design on Photoshop can be nothing short of a nightmare. But BookCoverPro’s easy-to-grasp design makes creating your book cover a snap.
BookCoverPro also offers a free trial period to “test” the software to see if it works for you. The trial version is fully functional and you can create a book cover during the trial period.
Another advantage that BookCoverPro offers is the generation of your barcode. So you don’t have to worry about trying to create your own barcode (using your ISBN number).
The program costs $97 for the standard edition and $187 for the deluxe version which can be downloaded instantly. Following installation you can be creating your own unique book cover within minutes. The software does come with numerous templates to help you get started in creating your own book cover.
Pursuant to the Atypical Publishing mission of empowering authors, I purchased this software myself and recently tried to design my own book cover. First let me confess that I am a publisher and make no pretense about possessing the talents of a graphic artist. But designing my cover with BookCoverPro, to my pleasant surprise, was a fairly simple task. I downloaded a photo from iStock Photos, chose a template and then added my title, author and copy for the back cover. I added the ISBN number in the appropriate box and the bar code appeared on the back cover. The total time invested was about 2 hours and the resulting cover met my needs.
Is BookCoverPro a perfect solution to your cover design needs? In truth, I believe there is no substitute for a top cover design artist such as the one we use here at Atypical Publishing. But I also recognize that for many struggling authors paying for changes can become prohibitively expensive.
It is in this light that I offer BookCoverPro to our readers and authors as a “quality” alternative to hiring a cover design artist. I do believe that an author can create a first rate cover using BookCoverPro. I must caution all authors who embark on the journey of creating their own book covers to read the article on our website concerning the critical elements of book covers before venturing on their own.
If you apply all that you have learned on our site regarding the elements of a good book cover, and then use BookCoverPro, I believe your cover will be the equal of most covers on the market today.