book cover design
Choosing the right book cover is almost as important as ensuring your story is edited and formatted to the highest possible standard.
Over the years, we have proudly undertaken our own design work for the majority of our titles. This page shows a selection of some of our best titles, but since we have grown we now commission designers to create covers for us - these can be seen on 'Our Books' page.
The majority of the authors we sign are fortunate enough to have this service included, but we can also design eBook and paperback covers (front and back) for authors looking to get a standout image that will get potential readers clicking on your sales links or reaching for the bookshelf. We also work with some great freelance graphic designers.
Prices start from just £99 for personalised eBook covers and £199 for full paperback front and back cover, with eBook included. Contact us for more information and to get a no-obligation quote.
Author Matt Adcock was really adamant he wanted a demon on a stained glass window for his front cover. He had commissioned his own art work from Liz Noble and wanted a cover to grab the reader's attention. We looked at the idea of having a contrasting white cover to juxtapose the connotation of the title. We then created a stained glass window effect over a gothic vector archway image and chose a colour scheme that complimented the original artwork. The font needed to be bold and futuristic; we chose Pirulen from typodermic fonts through dafont.com and mixed it up with a simpler serif font for the quotes. The end product was striking and used in all of Matt's promotional work for his novel.
When we liaised with John Michaelson, aka The London Vampire, he wanted a cover that didn't scream vampire novel but instead reflected the theme of something malevolent lurking beneath London. Whilst we had fun taking pictures of John in London at various landmarks, it was the picture of the fountains in Trafalgar Square that had a murky red reflected in the water that had connotation of red blood cells and evil. Next we simply chose a font and colour scheme that complimented the cover and made the image more striking.
Chris Malone's techno-thriller was linked to the premise of a glitch that destroys all communication networks and even affects power and infrastructure.
Being released at a time when conspiracy theories were rife and the reliance on technology very clear, we wanted to capture a moment that reflected the high stakes of the book's plot. We took an original image of a 4G phone mast and photoshopped it, adding scenes of devastation and glitch effects against a gloomy background.
In keeping with the convention of the genre, we also paid homage to the colour scheme and connotations of similar dystopian thrillers from the likes of Cormac McCarthy and included the idea of an ominous-looking path, representing the struggle the protagonist must go through. Her follow up novel has a much more traditional, dystopian thriller feel.
Owen Knight's book, Another Life, explores many themes, including folklore, philosophy and the old religion. Owen was very keen to have a large oak tree in his front cover to represent the green man, however, this didn't really look too engaging.
Since we read all of the novels we work on, we understood the significance of a Solomon's knot and the architecture of churches in the Cotswolds. Owen provided an image he had of the green many and we found a vector image of a Solomon's knot. Combining the two with a clean white cover, connoting the afterlife, and a classic serif font, the final cover makes a striking impression and has been well received by readers and bookshop owners.
Dan Klefstad's vampire novel, Fiona's Guardians, has it all. The book is much more than just a standard vampire novel, it echoes 80s horror and clever juxtaposition that you would find in a Tarantino movie. However, the cover really needed to scream all of these things.
We found an image that had the right level of enigma, deepened the reds to be in with the lead female, a manipulative and evil vampire, and added a layer of bone on the forehead to show she is almost mythical. The font needed to be clean and pop from the cover, yet connote Hammer horror and classic vamp horror; we also gave it a very slight red shadown to look like extended fingernails.
We also threw Dan a wild-card cover and had fun watching the reaction on Facebook as he asked his friends to vote on their favourite cover. Off the back of this, we made this cover even stronger.
We also help our authors on ways to market their books. We have done cover reveals and even created Facebook, Twitter and Instagram adverts, and some really cool GIFs.