Designing the Perfect Cover with Books Covered’s Stuart Bache
Stuart Bache has some tips for designing the perfect cover. As a professional cover artist, he helps traditional and indie authors around the world create covers that are visually appetizing, clearly represent the book’s genre and message, and market themselves well to potential readers. Stuart has been in the field for over a decade and has worked with Mark Dawson, Stephen King, and other big-name authors. He has a number of online resources, including his Books Covered design service and a mini-course on Self Publishing Formula. His book, The Author’s Guide to Cover Design, is also available below.
From Amazon.com:
With well over a decade of experience in both traditional and independent publishing, Stuart Bache started his career as a Junior Designer for Hodder & Stoughton, worked as Senior Designer for Puffin Books and HarperCollins, and was Art Director of Oneworld Publications. He has worked across every major genre for a whole host of publishers and authors, including Mark Dawson, Stephen King, John le Carré, S. K. Tremayne and the Tolkien Estate. Stuart is now the Art Director and founder of Books Covered, where he continues to create market-leading book covers for authors, agents and publishers.
Whether you’re traditionally published or indie, writing a good book is only the first step in becoming a successful author. The days of just turning a manuscript into your editor and walking away are gone. If you want to succeed in today’s publishing world, you need to understand every aspect of the business – editing, formatting, marketing, contracts. It all starts with a good book, then the real work begins.
Join international bestselling author J.D. Barker and indie powerhouses, J. Thorn and Zach Bohannon, as they gain unique insight and valuable advice from the most prolific and accomplished authors in the business.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How Books Covered was formed
- Why more indie authors are caring about their covers
- How to formulate research into a design
- The importance of strategically marketing your cover
- How to compromise with a cover designer
Links:
J. D. Barker – http://jdbarker.com/
J. Thorn – https://theauthorlife.com/
Stuart Bache – https://stuartbache.co.uk
Books Covered – https://www.bookscovered.co.uk
Cover Design for Authors Course – https://selfpublishingformula.com/design
The Author’s Guide to Cover Design by Stuart Bache – https://mybook.to/coverdesign
Music by Nicorus – https://cctrax.com/nicorus/dust-to-dust-ep
Voice Over by Rick Ganley – http://www.nhpr.com and recorded at Mill Pond Studio – http://www.millpondstudio.com
Contact – https://writersinkpodcast.com/dev/contact/
“Muggable” quote by Harley Christensen – https://www.mischievousmalamute.com/
*Full disclosure: Some of the links are affiliate links.
Christopher Wills
3 years ago
I enjoyed the interview today. Stuart’s got a great CV and looking at the links to himself and ‘Books Covered’ he has designed some excellent covers.
I highly recommend his SPF Book Cover Design course; I completed it a couple of years ago and it takes away the mystery of cover design and gives one the knowledge to talk intelligently to a cover designer.
Further than that, it enables anyone with the ability to use a decent graphic software package, an interest in design and a bit of commitment, to create their own great covers. This could make the course a great investment.
I love interviews that show us mortals that anyone can be successful. Keep them coming.
J. Thorn
3 years ago
Stuart’s work is excellent. Thanks for listening!
S.A. Schneider
3 years ago
I haven’t gone through the book cover course yet because I’m so far from graphically inclined, I doubt it would help enough to allow me to do my own successful covers. BUT – if it can get me some insight into the process and what to look for, that will help me immeasurably in communicating with my cover designer and should lead to better covers.
I’ll check it out.
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[…] Horror and apocalyptic writer J. Thorn has a lot of personal experience on messing up his cover design and then learning the importance of investing in it. You can learn more about his personal experiences on his website, or in his Writers, Ink podcast with Stuart Bache. […]
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[…] Horror and apocalyptic writer J. Thorn has a lot of personal experience on messing up his cover design and then learning the importance of investing in it. You can learn more about his personal experiences on his website, or in his Writers, Ink podcast with Stuart Bache. […]
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[…] Horror and apocalyptic writer J. Thorn has a lot of personal experience on messing up his cover design and then learning the importance of investing in it. You can learn more about his personal experiences on his website, or in his Writers, Ink podcast with Stuart Bache. […]