Getting Started – Getting Better

Custom Cover Pro is evolving into a comprehensive site on book design, working from the inside out. While screenshots are from Affinity Publisher or Microsoft word (for book interiors) and Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photo (for covers), the same principles apply regardless of your chosen design tools.

Our background in desktop publishing goes back to the early 1990s and Quark XPress. At that time, we compiled and published a small local daily news flyer, a single-page foldover distributed to local restaurants. The publishing process entailed a computer with an enormous 23″ CRT screen (which cost a fortune in the early 1990s!) and a large color Gestetner printer/duplicator. It was quite the learning curve, and boy, did we learn.

In the early 2010s we published our first eBook, via a division of the traditional publisher Penguin/Random House for our initial release. Digital was evolving and had become a major player in the business. However, what a lot of DIY authors hadn’t realized was that even for digital, presentation counts.

The old saying notwithstanding, people absolutely do judge a book by its cover. A book is also judged by its blurb (the engaging text on the back of a paperback book, if you’re unfamiliar.)

Eventually, of course, we also published print books. Our first trial of Print On Demand (POD) via Amazon and Instagram Press was circa 2016. It mandated more experience, more learning, and many impolite words, as we discovered how challenging it could be to go from manuscript to publication.

We’ve learned a lot since we started on Quark Xpress.

With the active and ongoing help of publishing professionals, we are building a teaching community which includes this site and our Facebook groups:
Book Cover Design 101
Book Interiors 101 (New 2022)
Book Cover Marketing 101
Design Resource Hub