Your Book Design Is Underway!

Thank you for submitting your book design questionnaire. Publish Her’s team of experts in publishing, design, editing and marketing work together to review the information and ideate design concepts. In addition to your personal preferences, we consider your book audience, category (fiction, nonfiction, etc.), subcategory or genre (romance, crime, memoir, etc.), and central themes. Next, the design team gets to work developing concepts for your book cover and interior. The goal: creating something that feels good to you while also meeting or exceeding publishing industry standards.

Four rounds of book designs are included with your publishing package.

A. Front Cover Concepts

You will receive two front cover concepts to start. These are rough sketches utilizing basic digital graphics. For this reason, we ask that you refrain from sharing the cover concepts with a broader public via social media or otherwise. You may, however, ask close friends and family to weigh in, if that feels right to you.

After viewing your two cover concepts, you may know instantly which one is right for the book. For some authors, the choice is not so clear-cut. It can be helpful to hold the two visual concepts in your mind for a day or two to see which one ultimately speaks to you the loudest.

Once you’ve decided, let your publishing manager know which one of the two concepts you’ve selected and provide any feedback that may be helpful for the designer.

B. Front Cover Design Refined

Next, the designer will fine-tune the front cover and you will receive a second round of proofs. At this point, your cover should be as close to its final design as possible.

C. Front and Back Cover Design

For the third round, you will receive proofs of the final front cover, plus the back cover, including your book description and identifiers (barcode, etc.).

D. Interior Design

For books without interior images (other than an author image), you will receive proofs of your book’s interior design in the final round. Because interior design is generally focused on formatting your content to publishing industry standards, author input is minimal.

If, after four rounds of proofs, you are not satisfied with your book design, please communicate your concerns with your publishing manager. In some cases, an additional round of design edits can be added to your publishing package. Your publishing manager can let you know whether your publishing schedule allows for this, as well as the fee for doing so.

*Some parts of the publishing process (design, editing and marketing) occur simultaneously