When you decide to self-publish a book, one very important thing you will need to do is a create a good cover image.

Whether you're paying someone else to do it, or doing it yourself using a free tool like this one, or using readily available tools like PowerPoint or Keynote (you can find our own guides for using these tools here and here), you will still need to use your judgment to decide on the final product.

Of course, there is no disputing matters of taste, but if your goal is to reach your audience in a way that will maximize your discoverability and sales, here are some simple Leanpub-style guidelines for creating a book cover.

- Get started! Don't let your inexperience hold you back, and don't worry about getting it right the first time.

- Confirm your cover image size, in pixels and/or inches. This will depend on the platform you're using.

- Spend an hour looking up recently published bestsellers on your specific topic or in your specific genre. This absolutely doesn't mean you should copy what other people are doing, but rather that you should assess any characteristics that the covers of successful books may have in common (do they show a person? an animal? the author making a funny face?).

- Use sharp fonts that will stand out on web pages and in web and mobile ads. You want people to be able to read the title and your name no matter what the image size is, and whether they're looking at it on their phone, a tablet, on a laptop, etc.

- Typically you will want to use bright, healthy colors. Those are subjective terms, but here's an example of what we mean:

- Get advice from your friends and family, and ask an AI like ChatGPT for some feedback. Don't forget your kids can draw too, like in the these Leanpub bestsellers:

- Finally, get something out there! Here's the cover of one of Leanpub's all-time bestselling books:

- Don't do skeuomorphic book covers - the ones that look like they're showing a picture of a hard cover book standing up on a bookshelf. We know we said there's no disputing matters of taste, but these are really ugly. They also waste image space and are harder to read.

- Don't use small text and try to cram too much information onto the cover

- Don't just use a full-size picture and slap some words on top. At least, you might want to ask an app to transform the picture into something more like a graphic.

- Don't make the image complicated. Here's an old design joke about complicated packaging:

- Don't use an obviously AI-generated image with very little iterative human and guidance, especially one with those weird smushed half-baked letters. This will make people think the book itself was generated the same way.

In conclusion: don't hold yourself back, decide what image size or sizes you actually need, take inspiration from successful covers of recent bestsellers in your topic and genre, and make something easy to read and pleasant to look at. And have fun too: you're creating something new.

If you have any questions or feedback for this article, please email the Leanpub Team at hello@leanpub.com.

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