Three Useful Resources for Designing Your Own Book Cover

Since I'm young and just now working on getting my name out there, I've decided to publish independently, at least for now. It's made me feel a bit crazy and free, which is something I rarely feel. I've been told I often have the personality of an eighty year old woman, after all.

Anywho, independent authors often have to work harder at marketing strategies and whatnot, in addition to spending a lot of money for things such as book cover designers. I decided that that wouldn't fly for me (translation: I'm poor as crap and don't have $500 laying around), so I began looking into designing my own book cover. I've always liked playing around with photo-manipulation programs, so I figured I wouldn't mind working with a few tutorials.

Book covers are amazingly important. Studies show that people really do judge a book by its cover, deciding based on what they see on the front jacket if they're even going to consider reading it. Here are some things that I've found incredibly useful when embarking on that sometimes tedious but always fun journey. Only your own creativity limits you!

1. GIMP -- If I could kiss this program I would. It's arguably the best one out there next to Photoshop, which is extremely freaking expensive and more than I actually need at the time. There are tutorials strewn all over the net that can help you accomplish what you're looking for, but I would recommend starting by just opening up a few pictures you have on your hard drive and playing around with it. You'll be surprised by all the cool things you can learn to do yourself that way!
2. Several Sources of GIMP Tutorials ---  Here, here, and here. While playing around with the program to learn what buttons do what and how you can combine them for different effects is fun, sometimes it's equally as fun to learn what others have discovered they could do. Or, you know, already knew because they were some sort of fancy schmancy photographer person.
3. Public Domain Photos --- I cannot begin to tell you what a nuisance it is to try and find good images that you can manipulate for your cover without owing your firstborn child in royalties to the photographer (or getting sued). Even if the photo is creative commons, most of the time it clearly states (or states in the fine print that you get chastised for not reading when that big fat lawsuit slaps you in the face) that you cannot use the image for commercial use, i.e. the cover a book that you are going to sell. Ladies and gents, I hereby present you with a website of great images to serve your purpose that are free for personal AND commercial use.

Even though the last one says that the images are free for commercial use, it would probably be best to steer clear of the ones with people in them just to be safe. I state the Vampire Weekend mishap as an example. Just because the photographer releases the image into the public domain doesn't mean that the model won't see her image on something famous and demand a piece of the action.