No . . . that' not MY leg!!

I'm getting tons of positive feedback on the cover design for my book! It seems we nailed our goal of designing an intriguing cover that gives a potential reader the "feel" for what the story is about.

One of the main questions I'm getting however is . . . "is that YOUR leg?"

The answer is "no, that's not my leg."

For the benefit of other self-published authors out there wondering how to create a professional-looking cover without the benefit of being a graphic designer themselves, here's the process I went through.

I've mentioned in earlier posts about how excited I am to be meeting other interesting, helpful authors on this new journey of mine, and that's exactly how I came to design the cover of my book.

I would like to personally thank Ann Narcisian Videan, http://anvidean.com/, for telling me about MicroBurst, http://www.mycroburst.com/, an on-line company offering logo, graphic and web design services. MicroBurst offers a unique way to work with their designers - through design contests. You offer to award a specific amount, input the parameters of what you're looking for, and then designers submit their designs for your review and approval. You can then chose your own winner and work with that specific designer to fine tune the design.

For instance, I input that I wanted a book cover design showing an apparently naked professional woman standing in front of a large home and behind a FOR SALE sign. I wanted the word HOUSE on the FOR SALE sign to be crossed out and the word SEX written above it. That's all I put. I left the rest up to the imagination of the designer.

Over a week's time, I received nearly 40 designs. Of the 40, I was interested in 8-10. Some of the designers totally missed the mark and others nailed it. It was fun to log in every day to see if any new designs had been uploaded and then to check out each one. Believe me, I saw some really interesting designs.

The design I chose is now the cover of my book (without the text, that was done by someone else). That particular designer paid attention to what I asked for but put his/her own spin on it by having the naked woman peek out from the side of the page instead of standing behind the sign. I hadn't considered that possibility BUT LOVED IT! I'm pretty creative, but I'm not a professional graphic artist. I relied on the talents of those who are and together, I think we came up with a killer design!!

I paid less than $300 for the design and had it done within one week. MicroBurst was excellent to work with and walked me through the entire process. I intend to use their services for the cover design of all my future books.

I have since learned there are other online graphic design services so I encourage you to check them all out and chose the one that would work best for your time, budget and comfort level.

Bringing a book to market yourself is NOT as difficult as you might imagine and if you ask, you will undoubtedly find another, more experienced self-published author to help you or guide you.

If you think I can help you in any way, just ask :)