Getting creative with covers

Gin, Fizz & Tonic, my latest novel, a romcom meets chick lit, is now available for pre-order here.

One piece of advice I received early on was to splash out for professionally designed covers, and up until now that is what I have done.

Producing a book can be expensive, and for this one I splashed out on two critiques and a proofreader, so I decided to save money by creating my own cover—not only the front cover for the e-book but a paperback cover too.

I used Midjourney (an AI graphic tool) for the artwork on the cover and Canva to make the paperback cover. For the paperback, you can download a custom template from Kindle Direct Publishing and use this as an outline to ensure that your design for the front, back and spine are in the right places.

I couldn’t do anything fancy with it, such as continuing certain elements of the design onto the spine and back, but otherwise I’m very pleased with it, and it’s saved me around £200, which I can now channel into advertising.

As it was so easy, I decided to create a hardback cover version too, which I’ve never had for any of my books. I’ll be the only person who buys it but holding a physical copy of your own work in your hands feels ‘realer’ than an e-book. Awfully satisfying!

I’m now busy creating paperback versions of some of the Highland books. When I published the last three initially, I didn’t bother with print versions because of the expense. Since then, I’ve purchased software that can create e-books and print book interiors and now that I know how to create paperback covers, I’m going to ensure there are print versions of Highland Wedding, Highland Chances and Highland Christmas too.

A good friend of mine (Caron Allan; author of cosy mysteries) has always made her own covers. She’s far more skilled at design than I am, but having done it now, I can see why she enjoys it so much. As you get older, it’s so important to keep learning and teaching yourself new tricks. Keeps the brain active and young!

Some time ago, I downloaded free audio software and bought myself a microphone with the vague plan I should join the podcast revolution but now I’m wondering about creating an audio book… It would be time-consuming but it wouldn’t cost me anything.

My cats have been finding new and unusual places to sleep, as is a cat’s wont. Here is William is sleeping in my desk.