Your story deserves to be seen.
In a sea of endless books, your book cover is your first and only chance to grab a reader's attention. It is the visual promise of what lies inside. In the span of a few seconds, your book cover needs to instantly catch a reader's eye, communicate what genre the book is, and establish the expectation that the story inside is equally as captivating and professional.
At PaperWild, every aspect of your cover design will be intentionally chosen. We will work with you to come up with a brief that combines your vision together with genre expectations, and our curated team of artists and designers will get to work creating your custom cover. From the typography of a high-fantasy epic to the atmospheric colour palettes of a romantic suspense, you can be assured that your cover design will stand out.
You've heard the expression: Never judge a book by its cover.
Well unfortunately, most readers do exactly that. In fact, that is the very point of a book cover. It's why many authors spend a lot of money to get their book covers perfect.
A well-designed professional cover communicates that the book has had thought, care and professional input, while a poorly designed cover says that the writer doesn’t care. And an AI-generated cover will instantly make readers assume the content of the book is AI-generated.
Professional Cover Design
A well-designed cover communicates that the book has had thought, care and professional input. It takes important elements of your world and your vision and puts them together in a beautiful package that clearly communicates the genre and hints at what the story is about. For example in this design for Bonds of Blood and Duty, you can instantly tell it's a fantasy, and that the theme of a wedding or a marriage is central to the plot. The palace shadow in the background signifies that the story may have to do with royalty and kingdoms, and the upside down shadow hints at either warring kingdoms or a kingdom turned upside down.
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Poor Cover Design
A poorly designed cover implies a lack of care and thought. If the quality of the cover is poor, it makes the reader assume the quality of the content inside it will be equally poor. Things like poor choices in typography, images that don't communicate any association with a genre or hint at any themes, that look cheap, careless and thoughtless, will not attract many readers to pick up the book.
The above is a brief sample quickly designed in Canva so as not to bring any real published books into disrepute, however it has many of the same issues often seen in poor cover design: common font, an image that doesn't say much, and the author's name being barely visible.
Is this a non-fiction gardening book? A children's story? A novel about friendship? Who knows?
AI Cover Design
Despite the fact that AI image generation has progressed very quickly, 99.9% of AI-generated images are still very easy to spot when you realise what you're looking for. The highly saturated golden hues and yellow-ish text are some of the biggest giveaways, as well as unnatural 'plastic' looking skin on characters, and often features or overlaps you don't expect.
And more and more readers are turning away from AI-generated content, and even if you didn't write your book with AI, if you choose to use an AI cover, readers will assume the inside is AI-generated as well. Don't do it.
At Paperwild, we offer 2 options of Cover Design
Option 1:
Cover Design using licensed stock images
This is the more affordable option, but is no less professional or lower quality than an illustrated cover and often can give a very realistic 'film-poster' like effect, especially suitable for contemporary novels.
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We will work with you to specify the brief and get your vision into words,
ensuring it aligns with the genre expectations of your book. -
We will then suggest specific images for you based on your brief.
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Once approved, our designers will create a professional design for you.
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Unlimited revisions - we will work with you to finetune any details of the
design until it fully represents your vision*.
*This is based on refining the initial concept. Any significant change in the direction of the cover design will incur an additional cost.
Option 2:
Cover Design with Custom Illustrations
Custom illustrated covers are hugely trending at the moment and for good reason. Simply the fact that it is illustrated instantly communicates the thought and care that has gone into creating the image, and for some of the most trending genres like fantasy, illustrated covers are an ideal way of bringing a fictional world to life.
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At PaperWild, we work with an incredible team of artists and illustrators across a huge range of styles, who all share our commitment against AI.
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When booking a custom illustrated cover, we will first discuss the style of illustration that best suits your book, sending you a selection of sample styles to choose from.
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Prices of custom illustrated covers can vary greatly depending on the complexity, experience and demand of the illustrator. Once we have come up with your brief and selected an artist, we will confirm the price before continuing.
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You will receive an initial black-and-white sketch. Revisions are unlimited at this stage within the initial design concept.
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Once the sketch design has been approved, our designers will add colour, details and rendering.
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Final files will be delivered to you ready for publication in both paperback and e-book formats.
*This is based on refining the initial concept. Any significant change in the direction of the cover design will incur an additional cost.
Cover Design FAQ
Both options of cover design include unlimited changes to get the original vision of the submitted brief to the point where you love it. Any changes have to be discussed at the initial design / sketch stage, as once an image is rendered, it can no longer be changed.
Absolutely. Our team of designers and illustrators are always on top of any trends in book cover design. When we work together to come up with your brief, an important part of that process is completing the market research into your genre and comparing the best-selling titles similar to yours. At the end of the process, the design you choose to go with will be entirely your own decision, however we will always advise you on aspects that will communicate things like genre expectations and market trends.
Absolutely. If you want to base your cover design to be similar to another cover you love, send us the reference. We will then use the basis of the design and incorporate key themes and elements from your story into your design to create a cover that is truly unique to you but captures the essence you love about the reference.
Yes. Your standard cover design package includes your design in both paperback and e-book formats, as well as your spine and back cover design. If you need your design amended to a hardcover as well, this can be arranged for an additional cost of £10 GBP.
Get Started Today!
Fill in the form below and I will get in touch with you to find out more about your book and make a plan to start bringing it to life!
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