You need a cover, but you don’t have the budget for a custom design.
Premade book covers are finished designs you can buy and have customized with your title and author name.
They often cost less than custom covers and can be ready sooner, because the designer has already done most of the work.
Premade book covers
The nice thing about a premade is that you can see what you’re buying. You aren’t trying to explain the picture in your head and hoping the designer comes back with something close. You find a cover that already works, get your text added, and leave the design mostly alone.
That last part matters.
If you love the cover except for the character, the background and the fonts, you don’t actually love the cover. You’re asking for a different one. Keep looking, or ask about custom design instead.
Premades make sense when you find something that fits your genre without needing a ton of changes. They make less sense when you’re determined to show a particular scene with every detail exactly right (which probably shouldn’t be your goal anyway).
Put your title on a cover. Then make it your own.
Six free Word cover templates and seven short video lessons on genre, images and fonts, so you’re not starting from a blank page.
Premade book covers design
Start with the books your readers are already buying. Look at the covers together. What kind of pictures do they use? How much space does the title take up? Does the whole thing feel dark and threatening, or light and fun?
Now browse premades with those books in mind.
A beautiful cover for the wrong genre is still the wrong cover. Say you write cozy mysteries: a cover that makes the book look like a violent thriller is promising readers something you aren’t going to give them. Getting the genre right matters MORE than matching the color of your protagonist’s hair.
Trying to fit every important character and setting onto the front usually makes the design worse; a single strong image with appropriate text can do the job without illustrating the whole damn book (and readers haven’t read it yet, so all those clever references won’t mean anything to them).
The three simple cover layouts are useful for judging a premade, too. Look for a clear image and enough room for the text. Complicated doesn’t mean professional.
And don’t ignore the typography. A great picture with crap text is a bad cover. Compare the lettering with books in your genre, or use this guide to book cover fonts by genre to figure out what’s wrong.
What can you change?
Usually, the title and author name. Beyond that, ask.
Some premades allow very little customization. Don’t buy one assuming the designer will replace the model or rebuild the scene for the same price. The reason you’re saving money is that the design already exists.
Give the designer your actual title before you commit. A cover with a short sample title may look very different with your long one. The words are part of the layout, not something you can squeeze into whatever space is left.
Also check whether the design is sold once or can be purchased by other authors. Some sellers remove a cover after someone buys it. Don’t assume every shop works that way.
Where to buy premade covers
Ebook Launch has a premade collection you can browse by genre. The Cover Collection also offers premades across different genres, and Paper & Sage has premade designs that can be customized with your text.
Look through the actual covers. A shop can have plenty of good designs and still have nothing suitable for your book.
Don’t buy something just because it’s cheap, then spend the next week trying to convince yourself it fits. If you need to explain why the cover makes sense, readers probably aren’t going to get it.
Before you pay
Send the designer the cover you want and your book details, then get clear answers to these questions:
- Can the design accommodate your full title and author name?
- What changes are included? Ask about anything you want changed before ordering.
- Will the cover be removed from sale after you buy it?
- When will your finished cover be ready?
- What exactly are you getting for the quoted price?
Your next cover doesn’t have to start with a blank page.
My DIY Book Design bundle has 150 editable Word cover templates (80 fiction, 70 nonfiction), the formatting downloads and five courses. It’s $197; through this link it’s $39. The cheapest time to fix a cover is before you pay to promote the book.
If it isn’t useful, email support within 30 days for a full refund.
When your customized cover comes back, look at the whole design again. Your name shouldn’t disappear, and your title shouldn’t fight everything else for attention. If the added text has ruined what made the sample work, ask the designer to fix the layout before you approve it.
