Episode 204: Book Cover Design Tips with Damonza
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Coming on audio platforms Friday Sept 26th.
Book covers have a fraction of a second to make an impression on a reader. Good covers attract the right readers, bad covers don't attract anyone.
On this episode of The Best of Book Marketing Podcast, we get book cover design tips from the experts at Damonza. They're the talented team that just remade the cover of Lainey's debut, The Exit Strategy.
Get behind-the-scenes details on Lainey's experience recovering her book so you can choose a cover that's right for your book or give useful feedback to your designer.
About Damon Freeman
Damon Freeman is the founder and Creative Director of Damonza, a design studio dedicated to helping authors give their books the best possible shot at success. After nearly two decades in design and advertising, he stumbled into book cover design in 2011 and never looked back.
What started as a side project quickly grew into a full-time business during the self-publishing boom, and today Damon leads a small team of designers creating covers and interiors for authors around the world. His focus is simple: high standards, thoughtful design, and giving every book the chance to stand out in a crowded market.
Connect with Damon:
Episode Resources
Books Mentioned
The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron
Who says the other woman has to be the enemy?
Winner of 15 book awards including American Fiction Awards, Chanticleer Somerset Award for Literary & Contemporary fiction, National Indie Excellence, Readers' Favorite, and more!
The empowering feminist page-turner you didn’t know you needed. Readers call it ‘fresh, addictive, and deeply satisfying’.
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means Lainey earns a tiny commission (maybe enough for a coffee) if you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
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Note: next sections are mostly created by AI for your convenience - so please forgive any typos or inaccuracies!
Summary
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron discuss book cover design with Damon Freeman, founder of Demandza. Lainey shares her experience of redesigning her book cover, emphasizing the importance of genre fit and testing. Damon highlights the five key elements of a good cover: tone, relevance, attractiveness, interest, and typography. He advises authors to provide accurate genre descriptions and cover references. Lainey's testing results showed varying preferences between Facebook and her newsletter audience. Damon also discusses the use of AI in design and the importance of feedback from the target market. Demandza offers free cover reviews and genre guides to help authors.
Transcript
Paulette Stout 0:03
Hello everyone, and welcome to the best of Book Marketing podcast. We are so excited today because this topic, people have been asking us to do an episode on cover book cover design for ages. So we are so excited to be joined by our guests, who will introduce in a little bit, but we will talk about, you know, look at tips from experts, you will, you know, from the talented team that made Lainey new cover. So we're going to talk about it more generally, and then we're going to dive into specifics about the covers. Our guest has a hard stop, so we're going to keep it moving and lively today. So I guess we can just jump into updates. I don't know if you want to go first on your updates.
Lainey Cameron 0:44
Lainey, sure. So my biggest update is that I got my rights back. I mentioned this a couple of months ago to the exit strategy, which was my debut novel that came out five years ago and tomorrow on September 15, if you're list if, while we're recording this tomorrow, it's coming out as a new addition with a new cover. So this is actually really fun episode for me, because we have the designer, the head designer of the team that worked on my cover, who happens to be really good at book covers in general, but also happens to have worked on mine. So I get to share the insider experience of what that was like putting a new cover on a book that's five years old, the thought process, what I learned from it. So it's always fun when we can learn from our own experience.
Lainey Cameron 1:23
And the other thing I did in the last month is you can almost still see the blue hair I went to Burning Man, which was an absolute blast. And I'm very proud of myself that I went completely phone free, stuck the phone away, phone and alcohol free, for the whole time that I was there, and we had an absolute blast and felt great and had just the best time, despite the storms, despite the mud. It's all true. So it all but it was not nearly as bad as the headlines written by people who weren't there. So if anyone ever wants to ask me questions about that, happen to happy to answer. But those were kind of my big things, and I'll show that what's really special. Because, as you know, I'm here in Mexico and San Miguel de Allende, which happens to be known as the cradle of independence, because the independence of Mexico actually started in this region of Mexico. So I will be coming. I will be becoming an indie author, my own independence in publishing on Independence Day in Mexico, which I think is kind of fun.
Paulette Stout 2:14
That is super fun. Lainey, we are, we are happy to join, for you, to join the ranks of India. And the cover is amazing. And can't wait to get into that. Into that conversation. I'll be really quick. I'm finishing the rewrite of my book, of my second edition of my first novel. Lovely, better tonight. I will finish that tonight, and after our recording, and super excited that I'll go off to, like, one beta reader and then, um, hopefully to get going on the cover with my cover designer. Also really quick, I just wanted to mention something that's been coming up a lot in author chats and about a note to phones folks about AI scams. There are a lot of emails going around right now where people will email you and they look like they know your book. They know your story. They want to do some kind of promotion. They want to do some kind of offer for, you know, these are fake folks. You know, these are mostly generated by AI. See so many comments where people post them in, you know, on Facebook or whatever. Please be confident that these are not real. Book deals are very hard to come by. People will not be emailing you randomly, out of the blue. So if you get one of these emails, please be confident that it is not real. Don't give money to anybody. Don't respond to those offers, right this this wanted to kind of mention that, because I've been posting a lot in forums lately about this, and I just wanted to bring it to our audience here as well.
Lainey Cameron 3:36
And you know, we talked about trying to get Victoria, from writer beware, onto the podcast. At some point, she did a great article, just like a month ago, about less than a month around, about a month ago, about this, and I'll tell you one of the ways you can spot it. It's a little sad, but they the first thing you get is an email from another author, and they're, like, massively complimenting your book. And it's a little too much and a little too much detail, if you think about it, like, if I was going to write to palette and say I loved your latest book, I'm probably going to write three lines on a lines, honestly, like I read your book. Here's what I liked about it. I'm not going to write four paragraphs, four incredibly articulate, very respectful, very detailed paragraphs that is written by AI. I'm sorry to say that if it's that long and amazing, it's made up. I'm sorry. Sorry.
Paulette Stout 4:19
I know it feels good, but just we just wanted to get that so yes, without further ado, let us introduce our guest. Our guest today is Damon Friedman. He is the founder and creative director of demandza, a studio dedicated helping authors give their books the best possible shot at success. After nearly two decades in design and advertising, he stumbled into book career design in 2011 and never looked back. His team is super busy. They did laineys cover. They did so many people we know their cover. We're just so excited to have Damon with us. Thank you, and welcome to the best of a Marketing podcast.
Damon Freeman 4:54
Damon. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Really happy. You guys invite. To be on. Thank you. Yay.
Lainey Cameron 5:02
And I'm going to show you just for context, because we'll talk a little bit about my own cover during this but I thought it might be interesting for people to see what the old version and what the new version looks like. So I have it here. So for those of you who are listening to this on audio, you're just going to have to go find it on Amazon. It's the exit strategy by Lainey Cameron, but this is the original cover from five years ago. It has a lot of light tones, a lot of lights, kind of light, coffee, soft vibes to it. And this is the new cover that just is coming out tomorrow. And it's it's got blues, like you tend to see in women's fiction. It's much more dynamic. It's much more punchy. It looks a lot fresher.
Lainey Cameron 5:41
So I'll answer questions as we go through this, but it may be interesting for people to see how different your cover can be for the same book, the book has not changed at all. So right. So let's start with a little bit of history about you. Damon, um, can you tell us a little bit about your personal experience as a book designer, and what you what attracted you to become, to come into the field? To start with,
Damon Freeman 6:01
oh, I kind of fell into it so long time ago, many, many years ago I was, I was part of an advertising agency, and we focused, actually, mainly on sports related advertising. So there was a lot of kind of emotional, emotive kind of advertising that we try to do to get people built up for sports. And I started sort of dabbling in other kinds of of design actually, what I was doing was I was trying to get extra money, so I was, was pitching all kinds of different design things.
Damon Freeman 6:33
And, you know, there was, there was a website, it's called 99 designs.com and what that was, was, you could, you know, designers could go in and pitch a design for for any kind of design related service, and and there were posters and websites and logos and book covers, and I found that when I was pitching for book covers, I had a much higher success rate of of winning those pitches. So I just started to focus more and more on book covers. And I found that the way that emotive advertising worked for sport also works for book covers, you know, to get that immediate emotion as somebody looks at a cover. So I just started focusing more on book covers and less on all those other bits and pieces. And eventually that's all I was doing, only doing book covers, and I left my advertising career and just focused purely on book cover design. Yeah, and then that was 14 years ago. You know, haven't looked back since then.
Paulette Stout 7:35
So talk to us a little bit. Why are book covers so important to the success of a title. And I'd love to also know if there's common mistakes that you see people making with their book cover design. Well, I
Damon Freeman 7:50
mean, that's often the first impression, right? The very, very first time somebody sees or hears about your your book. And in that very, very first impression, people make a judgment, right? So they're going to compare. You know, your book is very It's not often seen on its own. It's usually seen next to other books, right? And whether it's on a bookshelf in a bookstore or on an Amazon page, wherever it might be. So it's important that your book looks like it belongs there and it fits with those other books. Otherwise, people are just going to scroll past it. They're not going to notice your book.
Damon Freeman 8:29
You know, if it doesn't, if it's if your cover isn't good enough, people are just going to always assume it's not as good as the books next to it, right on the bookshelf or on that Amazon page. So it's important that it's good, that it's it works for for the genre. And I guess that's the mistake that often see. Is sometimes that somebody might design or have a good cover design, but it doesn't actually work for that genre. So there's a bit, there's sort of misleading impressions that could potentially give a reader, right?
Lainey Cameron 9:03
And what makes for a good cover? Like, if you were to break it down and say, like, here's the four things or three things you need to think about as an author that make up a good coverage for your book.
Damon Freeman 9:15
So well, the things that I look at or I consider is, is tone, right? So the tone of the cover really meaning, does it look like the genre, right? Does it fit within the genre? Does it match up with reader expectations for that genre? Relevance, you know, other things, tone, relevance. Others are other elements that are on this cover actually relevant to this book, right into the story. Attractiveness, attractiveness is the third one. Is it attractive to potential readers, right? Is it, you know, at the end of the day, an ugly cover is going to turn people away, right? Interest? Is it interesting, right? Are people going to sort of, as they their eyes moving across the page on the bookshelf? Is it going to attract interest? Is it. To catch their eye. And then, very importantly, typography, right? So it's, is, is it legible?
Damon Freeman 10:08
Typography is one of the aspects where it can make or break a cover, and it's probably the most common part of a cover, where, where self published authors may struggle, right? It's if, when I, when I'm looking for cover designers to work with and to hire, you can find people that can do amazing artwork, but typography just, it just doesn't work, like they can't get it. So those are the, those are the five elements I would say, make a good a cover good, the tone, relevance, attractiveness, interest and typography right trait, so I call it trait, T, R, a, i, t.
Lainey Cameron 10:46
I have a follow up question on typography, because I've shared with Paulette in the past that fonts are the devil. To me, I hate fonts. Like, I swear when I'm in hell, I'll just have to choose fonts all day. Any tips for and I completely agree with what you're saying. Like, it's so interesting when I see, like, a bad, self published cover, it's the fonts, right? I instantly know that it was done without a professional designer, without a very skilled designer, and it's always the fonts that give it away and but I can't tell you why, because I'm hopeless with fonts, right. I just know looking at it, it just doesn't look right. Can you give us any tips on like, what are the mistakes that people make with fonts? Like, if someone is designing their own cover, or they don't have a very skilled designer, how do we, how do we get around this issue with the fonts, making it look super amateur?
Damon Freeman 11:30
I think what, what it is, is that, as we've, you know, as we've all certainly, for me, you know, as growing up with computers, and, you know, in the past, Word Art and, you know, Word documents, and the sort of standard fonts that you would get with every computer growing up, and when you had school, you're doing your projects and you're using the very, very standard fonts. For me, it's those, those fonts and those looks start to get associated with, those kinds of, I don't know less, let's say amateur applications of those fonts. And then I think what happens is now, later on in life, you know, people just don't recognize that there are 10s of 1000s of font options out there, much, much better than those standard ones that come off the computer, you know when you buy it. But But new designers or authors that are designing their own covers. Perhaps don't know that. So they start to use those funds that you know, whether it's Times New Roman or, you know, Comic Sans, whatever it might be, that's all they know. So that's what they use, Ariel. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Damon Freeman 12:35
So for one, I guess one of the aspects is, is in terms of font selection is choosing fonts that are so generic that it just immediately gives the impression of, this is a school report or a PowerPoint presentation cover or whatever it might be. I mean, that's the one aspect, then the other part of it is sizing, right? So typography and sizing too many authors make the text too small, right? I mean, that is one of the most common errors I find with self published covers or even professionally designed but poorly professionally designed covers, is that the font is too small.
Paulette Stout 13:17
That's great. I think I've definitely found those same two things. So talk to us a little bit of composition. This is something that I've always found super interesting. I have a little bit of a, you know, background design, and I just find that, how do your elements are arranged on the cover make such a big difference with the visual hierarchy and those things, can you talk to us a little bit about how, you know, good composition on the cover can make a really big difference for people, sure.
Damon Freeman 13:42
Well, I mean, depending on the genre, perhaps it's a little bit different, but, I mean, I like to start it with typography right to start there, because that's going to be the most important. Well, not the most important, but that's going to be very important when it comes down to the when they looking, when it readers, potential readers, looking at it thumbnail size cover and you be able to see what that title is. The typography itself already gives an impression of the kind of book that it is. I mean, you're not going to have a flowing cursive for a book on business strategy, right? I mean, it's just so the typography, the color, the contrast, and, yeah, the hierarchy of those things.
Damon Freeman 14:28
So I would admit, yeah, I would say that the type, the topography, first, the title first, and then building a a feeling from it, using color and contrast. You know, you can just have a beautiful color and pattern on the kind of cover, with, with type, with, you know, big, strong typography, and it will be a very, very effective cover. And that happens all the time. Have you seen that more and more recent, common in recent times, where you'll just get a beautiful color, beautiful pattern, big type, and that's the cover.
Paulette Stout 14:58
Yeah. So follow up. Question for you about composition, because I've often seen people aiming for, like a Z, eye tracking. Or are there, is there a specific composition arrangement that you find given, you know, for, especially for E commerce and Amazon? Um, I've heard Z a lot. Is that something you go for? You're not kind of wedded to that, necessarily.
Speaker 1 15:22
I'm not wedded to that. I mean, I think for the most part, your very, very first impression of a book is going to be that thumbnail size, right of a cover, and that's tiny. And you're really going to you're not looking at it, you're seeing it in one shot, you know? And you maybe you're seeing five of them at the same time next to each other, right? So I don't think you're really analyzing that cover in that way.
Damon Freeman 15:43
One thing I do think is that authors, yeah, more many people kind of think, Alright, you gotta have the title at the top, the author name at the bottom, and in the middle, you have your image. In reality, that's not usually how it works, right? Usually the titles in the middle and the author name might be above that or below that, but the the title and the image should be one cohesive single whole element that you see in one shot. It's not separating the title, then the image, then the author name. They really all have to work together in one cohesive focal point.
Lainey Cameron 16:20
That's one of the errors I see. Actually, is not an error, but a sign of a kind of amateurish cover, is it's like they're all separate elements, right? They don't want to risk putting the text over the image, and so the text is completely separate and not overlapping the image. And one of the feedback I've given to people, a lot of the times when they show me their covers, I'm like, try putting the text on top of the image, just a little bit, just overlap it a little so it doesn't look like two separate things.
Damon Freeman 16:42
Yeah, absolutely. And they all should work together. You shouldn't even be questioning, how is it working? What? What's not? They should just you shouldn't be noticing separate things. They should just be one cohesive cover.
Lainey Cameron 16:55
So I have a question for you. Sorry, did your question first?
Paulette Stout 16:58
No, I was just, I love that idea of just kind of like, you know, overlapping.
Lainey Cameron 17:02
And so I have a question for you, but cover comps, because you talked about genre, and I'm going to go back to my old cover here as an example. So this cover, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It conveys a tone. What's wrong with it is it doesn't convey the right tone for my book. My book is like fierce feminist, like uplifting, fast paced, nothing about this cover says any of those things. But the other thing that was really interesting, as I came back to it, is, just like, five years ago, I did not have good cover comps, and I really struggled with being able to say, like, here's two covers of books that are very similar to mine. And if I had a cover somewhat similar to this, it would be awesome. And I knew it was going to be hard for that reason. That's a really hard thing for the design team. If you can't say, like, here's two really good cover comps or one really good cover comp, I think you're putting it on the design team to invent it from scratch, and it's really hard on them. But I want to get, I want to get your take on this, like, cover comps, like you ask for them for your design agency. Any tips? Like, they're important, right? Like, what should people look for in a cover comp?
Damon Freeman 18:00
Yeah, cover comps are important, maybe a little bit more important. And I'm actually realizing this now so crazily, sort of told us down the line is maybe more important than cover comps. Are book comps, you know, give us examples of other books that that's that preferably a really popular, best selling book, that somebody who read that book is going to read your is going to enjoy your book, right? So then, so then we can go, alright, let's we need to create a link in this person's mind between this super popular, you know, book that's done really, really well, and your book and and we can look at the cover of that book, and kind of get a feel for what the tone of that the tone was of that book from the cover, and try to try to replicate that tone with your book as well.
Damon Freeman 18:49
So yeah, it's important to get cover references more, less so for the book itself, but more to see you as an author. What kind of style do you like? You know, what do you want? It's important that you also like your own cover. So we like to cover references, to see what kind of artistic feel that you have or that you that you want to see in your cover. And it also helps to have the book comps, to get a feel for the actual tone of this book that we designed.
Lainey Cameron 19:18
And it, it really does matter in genre, right? You mentioned earlier. It needs to look like a genre fit. And what I spent a lot of time doing, because de Monza gave me some fabulous covers, there were multiple options, was taking those pictures and putting them in the Amazon category with all the other covers that are in the same category that my book was going to be on in. And so, for example, this book fits in divorce fiction. It fits in feminist fiction. It's women's fiction, contemporary women's fiction. And I would take screenshots of like the contemporary women's fiction, and then take the potential cover drafts and put them right there in the middle and say, does that fit or doesn't it fit?
Lainey Cameron 19:50
And that's a big reason that we ended up with a blue and a teal ish color, because if you go look at contemporary women's fiction, or you go look at divorce fiction, it's full of blues and contemporary. Women's fiction, and so that was important to me, because I wanted my book to look like it fit right there in the genre, and especially because it is a little bit different and it's set in the workplace, I needed it to look like it belonged. And that was very important to me. And it was actually one of the things that ultimately disqualified some of the other draft covers, is putting them in the category and going, it's a beautiful cover, but it doesn't look like the other covers in this category, or it doesn't have to look the same, but it have to look has to look like it belongs in the category.
Paulette Stout 20:25
Yeah. And I think that I'm sorry, go ahead Damon,
Damon Freeman 20:29
I was going to say, I remember that process. We went through quite a few but I think part of it was also because we're trying to often, what we might try and do is when you know we're presenting a few different options. So we might try, though, okay, well, let's do one or two that kind of fit, and then maybe look at the third one that's, we also believe fits, but maybe just is a little bit a little bit different, right? A little bit a little bit more unusual, you know, and that, but that process of getting feedback on all those drafts is really what gets us to the final cover that everybody's happy with.
Lainey Cameron 20:59
And we'll talk a little bit later about testing, because I had to test them, because I got to a point where I was just bewildered and I didn't know what to do. Like, I had covers that I loved, but they didn't look like the genre Exactly. And I was like, do I take a little bit of a risk and go with this beautiful, like, like, memorable cover, right? Like the people will remember because it looks so unique, but it maybe doesn't look like everything else in the genre? Or do I go with something that maybe is a little closer fit to the genre, but maybe not as unique? As unique. And it was actually a hard one.
Lainey Cameron 21:24
And I actually think it's a little bit like, you know, how the combination of your title and your cover and your book description all work together. I think it's a little bit like that, in that if your book is a little bit of an odd duck, you maybe don't want to go with a cover that makes it even more of an odd duck. You maybe want to go with a cover that helps people say, okay, but I might like it like this other thing. Whereas, if your book is kind of like fits right into the category and looks like every other book, maybe you can be a little bit more daring and put a cover on it that actually shows what's different about it. I don't know. It's just
Paulette Stout 21:52
my personal theory. What are your thoughts on that? I thought this is a great question Name and
Damon Freeman 21:59
Well, I think the end of the day, what is the job of the cover, right? The cover, the cover, all the cover has to do is to get someone to click on it or pick it up. That's it, right? Because after that, the description and the Amazon paid or the blurb on the back of that's the next job, right, to sell what it is. So I think if, if your cover, however, the cover is, you just need to be able to get that click right? And that could be because it's Wow, this is a really interesting and unusual cover, or, Wow, this looks exactly like the kind of book I really like to read, right? So those are your two ways of of getting that click, and that's really the most important part. I think that's that's just going to be the focus the whole time.
Paulette Stout 22:38
So a question for you, um, about experience with designers. Because sometimes, especially if people are, you know, trying to save money, or, you know, when you work with people they know, they say, Oh, I know somebody who knows a designer. What is the type of design experience that authors should look for, for a cover designer? Because not all design is the same as you know, book covers,
Damon Freeman 22:59
yeah, and that's, that's difficult and problematic, and I understand that. I know when I'm looking for, I mean, I've placed a job ad for a cover designer recently, and I had 200 applications, and not one of them was able to do what I needed them to do. Because graphic design is not the same as cover design, and it really is about marrying that conceptual, I guess, work with the typography to make it all work as one unit. One thing that that works so often you get guys that are, you know, amazing illustrators or good with Photoshop, or whatever it might be, but just fall down on that, on that typography.
Damon Freeman 23:47
On other hand, you might get people that are really good with with layout and all of that, but then conceptually, they're just not really able to come up with something that's interesting and unique and all of those kind of things. So it's difficult to to find a a experienced cover designer in that sense, unless they that's what they've been doing for however long. And yeah, even then, even then, you'll find people that say that they're cover designers and they aren't cover designers. But there's they are just different levels of cover design that you get out there. Ultimately, for the most part, unfortunately, it can be quite expensive to get a very, very good cover designer that knows what they're doing and is able to deliver on on really, I guess, giving you the best outcome for your book.
Lainey Cameron 24:35
I do think looking at past covers really matters, right? Like if you look at their portfolio of work, and you can't imagine your cover being part of that portfolio of work. It's probably a good sign they're not the right team for you.
Damon Freeman 24:46
Like, yeah, that's true, but, but also, I mean, it's, it's difficult to to judge, to judge it right? You, you almost have to you, you almost have to see, I guess the best way to do it is probably to look at covers. Online and see all right? These, these are successful books, right? Who designed these colors? As opposed to somebody who's who's got nice designs on the on the in their portfolio. But when you look up those books, whatever it might be, you know, they've got no readers or very few reviews or downloads, just difficult to to judge objectively. I think that's, I guess that's what it is. Yeah, that's fair. Look at the success of the books. Look at the success of the books and see who designed those covers. I mean, I guess that's and that's not always easy to find out, because authors don't always put to the code designers.
Paulette Stout 25:37
That tells you something there too. I always put my cover designers in my book,
Damon Freeman 25:42
yeah, and you don't, I mean, we don't insist on it or anything like that. So, I mean, it's just people, just sometimes just don't think
Paulette Stout 25:47
about it. So, Lainey, do you want to do that question about,
Lainey Cameron 25:57
oh, sure, sure. So I just went through this. I didn't exactly have a choice about recovering my book, because my first publisher that I got my rights back from owned my first cover. So, I mean, I could have gone back and renegotiated to get that the rights to that artwork, but I knew it needed to change anyway. Part of why I knew it needed to change is, well, one, one of my theories was, I had applied multiple times for a book bub, and I never could work out why it was getting rejected until I was at a conference, and it was shared with me that the most common reason that you get rejected from BookBub if none of the other reasons make sense, they've got a great list on their website where they say, like, these are the 10 things we're looking for. If you match all the 10 things and you still keep getting rejected, someone shared with me that it's probably the cover that the cover doesn't look in genre enough, and that's one of their standard like, if they take a look at your cover once and decide it doesn't look in genre, they're just going to keep rejecting you off, like, right away, and that was what happened to me. So it's going to be interesting to see if that changes with this new cover. But my question for you, Damon, is, how do you know when it's time to recover a book? Like, how do you know that this book is this cover is not serving my book as best it could?
Damon Freeman 27:01
I mean, it's difficult to be objective, right? And that's really what's required. You know, it's very difficult to be objective about your own cover, about your own work, especially if you've spent time and effort and money producing that cover and and perhaps you think your books doing well, but in reality, the cover might not be doing me justice, and it's, and you're probably your friend, your family and friends. They're not going to tell you that. It's, you know, the cover is not right, or whatever it might be. So I guess if you're not getting the sales you expect, and, and, and even then, right, how do you know what sales expect? Right?
Damon Freeman 27:41
I would imagine, I would imagine, if you advertising right, and your your your ads, maybe on Facebook or Instagram or whatever it might be, if they're not getting the click through rate that would be expected for that kind of ad or that genre, then you can, one of the possibilities is that your cover is not drawing people in like it should, or like it could. It's different if they click on the ad and then they go to your page and then maybe they don't buy the book, then, well, then maybe it right, or maybe the or maybe the cover is not an accurate representation of the book, if they get to that point and then don't buy so I mean, there's all kinds of things, but I it's difficult to be objective with those kinds of things.
Lainey Cameron 28:20
And I'm going to put a little plug in for your team here. We had it at the end, but I'm going to put a plug in now that you do this amazing thing where you do cover reviews at no charge for people, where you will actually look at their cover and tell them whether or not you think it's a good cover for their book or performing for them. And this was actually what convinced me to go with demandza, I put in for a free cover review and Damon's feedback, where he kind of got my book and said, Well, this book, this cover, doesn't really match the tone of what I'm saying. Your book is that was what we can convince me that this agency understood my book and would be able to work with me on what I think was a really hard cover, like my book isn't quite on genre. It's a little bit quirky, it's a little bit different, and I think that made it a really difficult cover to get right. And so I was very selective, and I thought that your feedback on that free cover review, really, that was what made me feel very confident moving forward. So it's on the episode page. We have the link to how you can get that free cover review if you'd like to do that.
Damon Freeman 29:11
Yeah, sure, yeah. And those are, yeah, can be very beneficial. Look at the end of the day, most 90% of the people that are submitting their covers for review already know that it's not right. You know, that's why they're submitting it for the review. So I mean, the fact that they're taking that step to submit a cover for review, they've already got doubts. And as I say, 90% of those times the diet those doubts are well founded, because the covers do need to work and changes.
Paulette Stout 29:43
So we're going to pause for a moment for our sponsor break, and after that, we're going to talk a little bit deeper into Lainey experience on her covers, and also ask that question about AI. I know people are concerned about that, so we'll ask that question, but we have an amazing sponsor this week. Lainey,
Lainey Cameron 30:02
I don't know if I'm a sponsor this week, but we want to thank our past sponsor, Lynne Golodner, who was our sponsor for the last three episodes. And Lynn has this fabulous retreat in San Miguel coming up in January, which you can still go learn about. I'll just talk for a minute about my program for people who want to learn how to launch their book successfully. It's called 12 weeks to put launch success. And over 12 weeks, I work with you to build your launch plan.
Lainey Cameron 30:26
So every week, you get a live class from me, everything from branding to how to set up your book to how to get your Amazon keywords right to how to do PR if you want to do your own PR, to how to get social proof. How do you reach out to other authors? How do you reach out to podcasts? How do you reach out to reviewers and influencers? One of my big things is I don't want you to do it all. What we're going to do in each area, we actually have a framework with four parts, which starts with your foundations, and then we go into awareness and social proof and giving your reader a reason to act. We talk about covers as well. But one of the things that I say is I don't want you to do it all.
Lainey Cameron 30:59
When we get into an area like awareness, I give you a list of 50 things you should do or could do, and then I want you to pick three. And like, I'm adamant, as we build people's plans, I will actually work with you personally to say, like, oh, this list of 50, there's the three that I think might make sense to you. And no, you can't have four, because people drive themselves absolutely crazy trying to do too much, and half of it doesn't work, and you just make your brain explode. And instead of writing your next book, you're spending all your time doing stuff that's a waste of your energy.
Lainey Cameron 31:23
So that's my big thing with this program, is build a plan that will successfully launch your book, not anybody else's book, your book. I have registration open this week for a group that starts just at the beginning of October, and then it's not going to open again until next year. We'll have a group starting in March 2026, and each group is small. It's only 10 people. There's a scholarship program. If you're from a group that is traditionally underrepresented in publishing, you may be able to get a no fee spot, as in, you don't have to pay at all for the program. So I do encourage people to apply for the scholarship program. I will tell you that the people who come in from the scholarship are some of the best students who bring the most to the groups. And so I love having this scholarship program for that reason, and also because some of us have a harder not me, some people in this world have a harder time getting published and getting attention to their books, and it's often people from groups that are underrepresented historically, because it's easier to model something that was already done than to be the first in a category or to be one of the first few in a category, whatever that group is. And so that's why I like to try and help if you're trying to break through and you're maybe from a maybe from a you've got a book that doesn't look like something else that's out there, I want to help you work out how to find its place in the world and its readers. So that gives me so much joy.
Lainey Cameron 32:30
I love running this program. I just have so much fun doing it. I have, at this point, had 30 plus authors who've gone through it. I think every single one is a testimonial. So if you go to my website, you can actually go look and read the testimonials from the 30 plus students in three groups so far. Like I said, I love it, even if it's not a fit right now, you might want to get on the wait list, because it does tend to sell out. So I'll be running it again next year, and I always start with the wait list, and that's all I have to say. You can find all the details at Lainey cameron.com and let's get back into book covers.
Paulette Stout 32:59
Yes, awesome. So, um, so AI is a big topic these days, everywhere. And I just was curious, kind of, what your thoughts the pros and cons on AI graphic design, and how do you approach AI in the work for your team at the Monza? Right?
Damon Freeman 33:18
So, I mean, we see AI as a a tool, like Photoshop is a tool, or, like stock photos are a tool that's probably a better, a better way of doing things. So for the past, so we're for the past 12 years, right? We've used stock photos, composites of stock photos and text and combining all of those different images from stock photo libraries and all those kind of things, right? Rights manage images, all of those pre existing images to create cover designs, right? And when AI came along, well, now with generative AI, we kind of, we use it as a an opt in, opt out optional tool, where, if we can't find the right images for for, you know, from stock images, we might use AI to help with that process. And we don't do it if an author doesn't want us to use AI, we don't have a problem with that. You know, our experience has always been in the past not using AI. So kind of when we sort of implement it now where required or where necessary, if we feel it will make a better cover, then we make sure we have the buy in from the author before doing any of that. You understand it can be controversial, and that's fine.
Damon Freeman 34:35
We don't have a problem with not using AI. Sometimes, there are times when it's just not possible for us to create a particular kind of cover without using AI, because we're not 3d modelers or illustrators. You know, if you want a picture of a gigantic creature with a rhinoceros head and a flamingo body, then you know, we have to use. AI to create something like that, because we just don't have those kinds of images in any other way. So we don't have a problem with using AI where necessary to get the right images. And ultimately, it makes where we can use it and where it's helpful. It makes for a vastly improved book cover. On the other hand, if it looks like it was used, done, created, used, if it was created with AI, then you completely undo the effect of the cover.
Damon Freeman 35:30
So that's the other side of it, right? It's, it's a useful tool. But as soon as somebody's looking at your cover and go, Oh, that was made with AI, then the covers not doing its job, right? Because that nobody should be thinking about how the cover was made. It's the same as if somebody looks at your cover and goes, Oh, well, I've seen this stock photo 10,000 times on other covers. Why they're thinking about stock photos, right? It's the same. Why are they thinking about AI? They should just be thinking about your book. So when we create a cover, whether or not we use AI or a stock photo, or however it's done. We just, we, we never want people to be thinking how the cover was made. It's always going to be, Oh, this looks like a cover or a book that I might love to read.
Lainey Cameron 36:14
So I'm going to jump into a question that was Colette's question, because it kind of follows in from here. So what do you ask from authors when they're setting your team up for success. What do they give you to start off with? What do you need the most?
Damon Freeman 36:26
So we have, we have to have a good understanding of the genre, right? So sometimes what happens is an author might not often, but sometimes it happens when author might brief us and then give us quite a broad genre, or a genre that doesn't and then a description, but it doesn't sound like it matches up. So maybe they've described the book in one way and they've listed it under a certain genre, but either they're not clear on what the genre is, or the description is not quite right, you know. So it's a for us. It's very, very useful to get an accurate genre, good description, key elements, meaning we're not going to read the book, right? So we design 100 covers a month, right?
Damon Freeman 37:08
We're not going to read the book to to create this cover. So we need to get a good idea of what are some key moments or key elements or key items or important parts of this book that could appear on a cover in one way or another. If there are people, if you want people on the cover, we sort of character descriptions. What do they look like? Not we might not put people on, but if they did, we want to make sure that it's a reasonably accurate representation of the people that appear in the book, as we've discussed, sort of cover references, so we can see the kinds of covers that you like the style. Make sure we you know, if you're really into photo realism, then we're not going to give you an illustrated cover. But it's good for us to see that you're really into photo realism, the bright colors or contrast or whatever, likely, as well as reference console book references, references of tone and genre. You know, other other books within their genre that you could see your book alongside in the bookshelf.
Paulette Stout 38:09
So after you hand over all that kind of background information that you're going to use to really understand what the title is about, like, what what, as designers, do you do next? Like, what comes what comes first?
Damon Freeman 38:24
So, I mean, it's, I guess it would be research, but we're always doing that right? So it's research of what is in the genre. Who, who is this book for? And what do the best sellers within that genre, what do they look like? You know, we need to make sure that this book fits in with those books. For us, that's the most important part. This book needs to look like it's already a best seller within the genre, right? So that a reader that's coming, they're confident that they're going to read something that's a really amazing book. So we want to make sure it looks like it's a really, a really amazing bestseller within that genre. So the first step would be research to make sure that it's or to make sure we have a clear understanding of that genre. And then, you know, we put together the first draft options depending on the package that's ordered. That could be between one and four first drafts.
Damon Freeman 39:16
Then they, you know, from our side, we try to get them as close to finished products, as you know, we don't, we're not giving sketches or things like that, you know, they finished designs that we provided. And then the main part of, really the process after that is the feedback, right? So once we get that feedback on those first drafts, that really guides most of it, because then we see, okay, well, we got this wrong, or we got that right, or, you know, this part of this draft is good, but, you know, I prefer that part of another draft, or whatever it might be. So the feedback process after we send those first drafts is probably the most important part.
Lainey Cameron 39:51
And how should we give you feedback? Like, what is the best way for authors to give feedback to a designer or a design team?
Damon Freeman 40:00
I'll tell you, it's something between the two extremes that we sometimes get, right? There's the one part of Well, I don't like it, right? So I don't like it. Do something else, okay? So that's that doesn't help us. On the other hand, on the other side of it is I don't like it or whatever it is. I do like whatever it might be, but now do these 20 very, very specific things that are now, you know, you have to do exactly this way, and that's what I want. So we get those two kind of anything between that is probably fine, anything between that of, you know, this is not quite right, and this is why I don't like it. That's very important. These are, these are, these are the reasons why I don't like it.
Damon Freeman 40:43
If you have then something that you do want to try, you can say, Okay, well, why don't we try this concept? Whatever it might be, the problem that we sometimes get is obviously, obviously, if we don't get the feedback of what you didn't like about it or why didn't like it, it's very difficult for us to come up with a better option just because we're not sure what it was that you didn't like about it. On the other hand, if you very, very specific with the changes, often that can sacrifice the overall impact of the cover, because we're trying to shoehorn Frankenstein style, whatever it is, create this cover that you want in this very, very, very specific way, but losing sight of what the point of the cover is. All you need to do is get that click right. All you need is get that click to the next page to see what the book's about. Don't focus too much on these elements that might be too busy, too cluttered. You're not. You don't have to give away the entire story on the book cover. You know it's yeah. So anything between those two extremes is probably fine.
Paulette Stout 41:43
So just to kind of summarize, we want to know what the problem is, and then leave it to the designers to fix it. Don't be prescriptive about how to fix it. So tell you what's wrong and then leave it to your designers to figure out what's the proper solution. Is that what I'm hearing?
Damon Freeman 42:00
Well, yeah. But also you can give suggestions on on how you might prefer it, but still leave it open for interpretation. Or give us options, right? Give us reference, but it's yeah. Don't try to cram everything in. Just gives, give us options. Give us feedback. That's That's yeah, tells us what you don't like about it, and maybe if you have suggestions, give us those as well, but allow us to work around those.
Lainey Cameron 42:26
One of the things I used to teach people when I worked a lot with agencies and was in marketing for big companies in tech, was try and compare to the goal versus saying whether or not you like it. Is what I used to tell people in that context. So if the goal was to create something dynamic and bright that looks fast moving. The feedback is this dull gray doesn't look like a fast moving, dynamic thing, which was the goal of the design, versus, I don't like gray, if you see the difference like you're comparing to the goal as as opposed to comparing the design against itself, like, if the goal is this, does it meet the goal or not, and why does it not meet the goal at just different context? But I found that's helpful sometimes talking to designers, because it's not what it's not really about whether you like it or not. It's about whether it meets the goal of being a great book, a great cover for this book.
Lainey Cameron 43:13
Now that actually became a challenge for me. We'll talk about testing because I had one that I deeply disliked, that was testing really well, and I was willing to go with it, even though I didn't personally like it because of that experience of design and marketing, I was like, Okay, if it tests Well, I should be okay with it, even if I don't personally like it. And I don't know if that was right, I feel like I got myself twisted around. And maybe I should have just been more like, you know, I have to like the thing too.
Damon Freeman 43:36
Yeah, you absolutely have to like it as well, because if you've got to sell it right, you've got to be the one that's promoting your book, right? And if you're not happy with the way it looks the cover, you're always going to be promoting it kind of half heartedly, and you might not confident. And I think that's you have to like it as well as it being a market, a genre fit
Lainey Cameron 43:56
That's like a that's a really, really good on the topic of feedback, yeah, go ahead.
Paulette Stout 44:02
No, I love that because, you know, we did have a question on, what should you do if you don't like it, to your point, but I love that reality that even if you don't like it, you're not going to really be pushing the story. You'll be disappointed, and that'll come through in your marketing. So that's a really excellent kind of, like, human aspect of reality.
Lainey Cameron 44:21
If you're with a big publisher, the reality is you may not have a lot of influence over your cover. I've I've talked to so many friends who are with really big publishers who've said that they got a little input up front and no input after that, and they weren't even allowed to have an opinion on it, like, like and often, if you really, truly hate it, you have to have your agent advocate for you with with the publisher. But it's not unusual to not have a lot of say if you're with a big design a big firm, yeah.
Damon Freeman 44:47
I mean, we work with big traditional publishers, and I mean, that process is different to working with authors, but not that different. I mean, I mean, I think it really depends. I mean, it just, I think probably depends on the on the on the publisher. But. Even within the publishers that we have different creative directors, from their side, that we're working with different art directors, and the feedback that we get from them is usually, you know, we'll go through two or three rounds of changes from from them to us, and then they'll present one or two options to the author, and then they'll come we'll come back with another one round of changes, but that'll be it. So they, I know, for these, these publishers that we work with, they do they are presenting some sort of options to the to the author, but yeah, they certainly don't have as much influence as if they were just doing it themselves.
Lainey Cameron 45:35
So in terms of feedback, should people ask for feedback from people they know, from other authors, from their mom, from their best friend, like, what is your take on who they should ask for feedback? If anybody?
Damon Freeman 45:48
I mean, they can ask whoever they want for feedback, but it depends who they believe, right? So family and friends are just going to say probably what you know they believe you want to hear, right? I think the best place to get feedback is from people who don't know your book, never heard of you, never read your book, but who are your target market, right? So if you can reach those people, those are really the best way to get feedback, and that's going to be through poll, polling, you know, advertising, advertising to the right target market. But yeah, so it's, it's subjective feedback from from family and friends, not the best idea, really. I mean, it's fine, it's good, it can, you know, make you feel good, but you it's not going to result in actionable feedback.
Paulette Stout 46:37
I think part of the problem is, is like the people that you're asking your family may not be your ideal reader, so you probably want to get as close to your ideal reader as you can. And that's, I think, where testing covers can potentially come into play. So I'm curious, Damon, what you recommend you know from a testing perspective, and then I'd also love to know Lainey like, what how did you approach testing your cover when you were working with the demands of team. So to start with Damon, just what your thoughts are on testing.
Damon Freeman 47:07
So if we recommend, I mean, we recommend testing, but we don't do it ourselves very often. We sometimes offer it. We use PickFu, which is the website PickFu, where you can put few covers up against each other, or, you know, you can phrase different ways of questioning, but it's not, it's not cheap, you know, it's maybe $80 whatever it might be to test against 30 or 50 potential meters. And they've got limited targeting that you can use, like, you know, they have some broad, broad genre targeting that you can, that you can go with look, I'd say for the most part, you look yourself. You compare that whatever cover that you get provided by a designer, put it up against the top covers within that genre. You compare it. See, how does it look? Does it look the same as those? Right? Does it not the same? But does it look like it fits on the same shelf as those? That's going to be your number one goal.
Damon Freeman 48:07
I don't think you need testing necessarily to do that, other than your own eye, hopefully and maybe ask, I guess, I guess it depends on the question, right? So if you can see it in yourself, to ask, Does this fit in, versus asking your friends and family, what does this cover look like? You know, they're two different questions. The Yeah, so PickFu we use, and then it might be presenting four different covers and saying, which is the one that you would most likely spend money on, not which is the best cover? It's like, which one are you actually going to spend five or 10 or $20 on if you had to make a decision?
Paulette Stout 48:46
Yeah, I used PickFu years ago, um, for bookworms, but I didn't, never thought about it for cover. So that's interesting. So Lainey, how did you approach testing when you were trying to decide?
Lainey Cameron 48:57
So this is really interesting, because I did what I thought I should do and I didn't like the results, so what I thought I should do is exactly what Damon said, which is, well, we're going to test clicks, we're going to do a Facebook ad. We're going to take the same copy, and we're going to take the three covers that we're considering, and we're going to put it on Facebook to an audience of women's fiction, and we're going to see which one gets the most clicks, with everything else being equal.
Lainey Cameron 49:18
So the only difference is the cover on the 3d book in each of the three ads that I ran. And I had three covers that I tested. I tested I'm going to show you I tested one that this is actually the one that I didn't like. There is nothing wrong with this cover. It is a beautiful cover, but I was viscerally not loving it, and I couldn't explain to myself why. And later I realized it was a little too girlish, but I couldn't work it out at the time. Very good colors, exactly in the feminist fiction genre colors. And then I had this one that that demands I had done, which is beautiful, it's bold, it stands out. It's absolutely memorable. But what I was struggling with was, to me, it didn't look like it fit exactly in the same way in the genre. And then I had the one that was closer to what we ended up going with, which is a little bit, a little bit color change, but. Very close. And the interesting thing is, the one that I didn't like on the Facebook testing, tested three times better than anything else. It got three times the clicks of the other two covers. And I literally wrapped myself in knots going, okay, maybe I just need to go with it. I don't love it, but maybe I just need to go with it, because clearly it tested three times better than any other cover.
Lainey Cameron 50:21
And then I don't know if it was you Paulette, or someone said, Have you tried it with your own newsletter subscribers? And I thought, you know, I haven't, and these people know me better. So let's see if the results are any different. If I put it out to 8000 people who subscribe to my author newsletter, and the results were totally different. So the one that they liked the best, and I put out four options for them, the one that they liked the best was actually the cover very close to what I ended up going with. Scored like 55% of people picked this cover. And this is an audience that knew me better, which is interesting, right? They knew me and my work better, so you could argue it both ways, right?
Lainey Cameron 50:54
But interestingly, the bold one that was slightly like, is it in genre? Is it not in genre? Scored second best. People in my newsletter list really liked this one. They thought it captured the tone of the book. It's a great cover. I still love it. And the one that scored the best on Facebook scored the worst with my newsletter letter list did not score high at home. Only 15% of people picked that out of you know, they had four options, so it wasn't like a 5050, choice. So it was really interesting, and I only could conclude that my audience is not a general women's fiction audience, right?
Lainey Cameron 51:25
So when I put it out to a general women's fiction audience, that answer is different than putting out to people who are a little bit more honed or a little bit more on the feminist side, or at least closer to being my readers. None of this is precisely, exactly scientific, right? Like, like, I'm sure you could design a perfect study that would go after the right audience of Facebook, etc, etc, but it was fascinating to me that the real results were diametrically opposed, right, that the one that scored the best on Facebook testing with a generic women's fiction audience was not the one that scored the best when I went out to 8000 people in my newsletter, and I gotta thank my newsletter subscribers, because hundreds of people wrote in why they liked each one. They didn't just vote. They actually wrote, I voted for this one, and this is why I liked it and why I didn't like that other one.
Lainey Cameron 52:09
And the feedback that was qualitative, that was what helped me make the choice. Because, like I said, I didn't even realize why I had this one, that I knew it was fine and it was a lovely design, and I didn't personally like it, and I didn't realize it was because it felt girlish to me, until someone said that in the comments. I'm like, That's it. It feels too girly, but it I couldn't get it, like, I just couldn't work out, you know, like with fonts where I'm like, it doesn't quite look great, but I can't tell you why. Same thing, and they're all beautiful covers. The cool thing is, demandza gave me so many gorgeous covers, all of which could have worked, right? But I wasn't going for good enough. I was going for the cover that's going to do justice and help this book sell the way it could.
Paulette Stout 52:44
Yeah, so I'm going to jump around a little bit, because we have so many questions. We don't have that much time left with Damini as a hard stop. So I'm going to steal a question from Lainey, which is a little bit more about demandza in terms of, do you specialize in certain genres? If you can just tell us a little bit more about the work and the authors.
Lainey Cameron 53:02
And I'm going to add into this one, because Wendy Kenner in the comments asked, Are there any genres you wouldn't do, or any kind of clients that you would turn down? So this is actually very relevant to that question.
Paulette Stout 53:13
Yes, thank you. Thank you for the question, Wendy.
Damon Freeman 53:17
No, no. So we we put up with all genres. There's nothing that we wouldn't do or haven't done. We tend to get more of certain kinds of covers than others, just I guess, for a number of reasons. One would be word of mouth. We do a lot of fantasy covers. We do a lot of suspense thrillers. But also, what also tends to happen is, I don't know why this is really but we there might be some authors that are suspense through the authors that would write 30 books, you know, in a year, right? So we'll do all of their covers, or or fantasy authors that might, you know, the same they're writing a lot of books, right? So they keep sending us their work. So we do a lot of those kinds of covers, but we do everything right? There's no nothing we haven't done that I can think of. I actually, what did I get the other day? I thought, Oh, this one's unusual. I think it was mythology. It was a it was a mythology, mythological sort of slash history. And I was like, Okay, we haven't done anything like this before, so it does happen. But, I mean, we work with everyone and everything is we don't really have any genres that we specialize in, but we do tend to do more suspense through fantasy, probably, although it's changing lately, we've had a lot more non fiction, to be honest, of business self help memoirs that have come in,
Lainey Cameron 54:38
And you've done quite a few women's fiction recently, I know at least four authors have done women's fiction covers with you.
Damon Freeman 54:43
Yeah, yeah, sure. We, I mean, yeah, we do everything, right, yeah.
Lainey Cameron 54:48
So what about series? I'm skipping, we're skipping around and jump stealing each other's questions now, so what about series? Because Paulette is the series girl here. She's the one who's not serious. But are there special considerations? If. Doing covers for a series that you might want to know up front or think about.
Damon Freeman 55:04
Yeah, it's good to know. I think we don't normally take it into consideration when starting the series. I maybe we should, but we tend to happen is we design the first one on its own as a beautiful cover as much as we can, and then we make sure that the rest of them follow on from that first one. It's not unless we're getting, I guess, an order of three or four of them at one time, then we might do that. But normally, that's not how it works, right? Normally, we'll get given one cover, and we're told, okay, this is going to be the first one in a series. But we don't think about that. We just, we try to make that one cover beautiful and effective, and then we just make sure that the ones thereafter match, and that will be through the typography, the style, the color combinations that we might use that I mean, but and doing it this way is has worked for us, so we just stick with it.
Paulette Stout 56:00
So what do you think is the right time to start working on a book cover? And you know, so that's part of it. And then also, how long does it take to work with your team?
Damon Freeman 56:12
I would say, probably two months before you you looking at releasing your book would be a good time to work on the cover. So from our side, we provide the first drafts within two weeks, right? So two months is probably a good lead time, because it gives enough time for changes and all kinds of things. And who knows what might happen. Maybe, you know, goes through many, many rounds of changes, probably for the most part, the process takes three to five weeks, let's say, for most cuttings from our side. But it could take longer. So I would build in two months. I would actually never, I would say, don't announce anything. Just get the cover finished and then decide when you could do your launch, and all of those bits and pieces, but, but if you have to kind of have these hard dates from, I would say, building two months from your release date, or you have to get started on the cover
Paulette Stout 57:07
process. And for people listening, just think if you're going to put your book up on pre order, or if you're trying to make an award program, or whatever it is, you need to plan in advance. So although you know the demand to team takes two months, you might want to plan, you know, figure what are your key hard dates, and then back out from there, right?
Lainey Cameron 57:27
So you might be two months, but then you've got a pre order period to two months after that, so you need the cover before the pre order starts. For example, um, yeah, for me,
Paulette Stout 57:36
I had my book up for a year, you know. So I had a public way in advance of that.
Lainey Cameron 57:44
So this is a bit of an odd question, and then we'll wrap things up. So for someone who's with a traditional publisher, it is a little different. In the you know, when you're an indie, you get to completely have a say over your cover. You get to design your cover, working with an agency or working with an individual designer. For people with a big publisher, they get to give input to their publisher, and then the publisher works with the design team. Is there any advice you would give people who are working with big publishers on how they can kind of set themselves up for success from the start and tell us terms of the input that they give their publisher?
Damon Freeman 58:16
I can't answer that question. I don't I don't know the relationship between a an author and a traditional publisher. We've just never seen it from that end. So we're either getting, you know, the order coming from the author or from the publisher, but that specific relationship between the publisher and the author, I don't know how it works. I don't, you know. I don't know how much inputs they get at that in the beginning, I guess, I guess, you know, give comps. You know, provide comps with with that you like, give as much information about the things that you like, and hopefully the publisher takes longer.
Lainey Cameron 58:52
Yeah, I think comps, and I think tone really matters as well. I will say that I have some empathy for publishers, and I saw that my last publisher of The Wild Rose press, their input was like, tell us the tone. Tell us one element that might belong on the cover, but only one. And I knew exactly why they were saying that, because it was what you were saying earlier, Damon, when you're in debut author, and you're like, my book has a necklace and it's blue, and it takes place in the in the park, and there's a bandstand and there's a hummingbird and there's a this, and this is that, and the author wants it all on the cover. And I liked, and you said earlier, like, No, that's a horrible, horrible idea. Don't ask for that.
Damon Freeman 59:30
And I'll tell you, that's actually quite an interesting point that you just mentioned, that I probably should have brought up earlier, is that you'll find many, many cover designers that will try to do all of those things, and they will try to put all of those things on your book, and at the end of it, you've got a cover that has all of those things on it. The covers, the designers done exactly what you said, but it doesn't work right? It's too much. It's too busy, too cluttered, it's confusing to look at, and it's nobody's fault. It's just the way that it's happened, and you need a. Good cover designer to be able to edit that all down into something that that actually works for your book.
Lainey Cameron 1:00:07
Well, I want to be respectful of your time here, because I know you got another engagement to get to. Do you want to just talk a little bit more about demandza and some of I know you got, you've got a long backlist of clients waiting to work with you, and it's busy, but like, if folks do want to work with you, but also maybe some of the resources that you make available, you've got these great jobs. These great genre guides, for example,
Damon Freeman 1:00:25
yeah, yeah. We've got genre guides that I put together a while ago to kind of as much as I could at the time. It took a while. Yeah. So what works within each genre, what to look out for in terms of your cover, if you're designing it yourself, or if you're briefing the designer hidden bring you know, this is the kind of information that they need, and these are the current trends as they are at the moment. We also offer the free book cover review that I do. It's quite a detailed review where I look at your cover and I sort of I compare it to those, the trait, the tone, relevance, attractiveness, interest and typography, and also compare it to the other covers within the genre. So you can kind of see how your cover stacks up against those you've got a free ISBN Barco generator website that's new, yeah, I mean, it's have a look at the website. There's a lot of information there. Demands a.com you'll find a place to get the free review there and the genre trend guides at the bottom.
Lainey Cameron 1:01:28
And I would just encourage folks, I had a great experience. Your team were fabulous. I think I was a difficult client, not that I was being a pain in the ass, but I think my cover was a difficult one. It wasn't obvious what the right cover for this book was and I struggled with comps, and I wasn't able to start off with like, just make it like this other book. And so I thought the team did a just fabulous job, and were incredibly patient and worked with me through each stage. And so I want to say
Damon Freeman 1:01:52
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Lainey, it was great to work with you as well.
Lainey Cameron 1:01:56
And next month, we have a really exciting episode coming up, which is all going to be about. And it's interesting that Maggie Smith is commenting about the the timing and how much, how long you need to be on pre order, and much longer than we said. And I tend to agree with you, Maggie. Maggie Smith just brought out a fabulous thriller, and next month's episode is going to be all about thrillers. We're going to have one of my favorite authors, Kimberley Belle. We're going to have Salima Ishq, who is a really doing a lot of fun things with thrillers on Tiktok. So I'm really excited to have kind of both of them, because they're going to bring kind of the big, traditional angle of a big, successful, traditional thriller author with Kimberly Bell Saleema Ishq, who's just taken off like crazy and done some really interesting things on Tiktok with thrillers. So I think if you're interested in what it looks like for a specific genre, this is going to be our first genre specific episode where we dig specifically on thrillers, and I think it's going to be a really fun one. So that is what's coming up in October, and Damon will let you get back to your day, because it's tomorrow for you in New Zealand.
Damon Freeman 1:02:56
Thanks very much. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Paulette Stout 1:02:58
Thanks everyone for joining and asking questions, and we'll see you on the next episode. All right. Cheers,
Paulette Stout 1:03:04
Bye, bye.