Books need covers. Even ebooks. Even standalone short stories. I make my own covers for very cheap: nothing. I download royalty-free pictures from Unsplash and then make the cover with Canva. 1600×2560 is the size. It’s fun to pick different fonts and effects, though I’m not always strictly following the best guidelines.
One guideline that I got from Dean Wesley Smith is that the author’s name should be big and at the top. Treat yourself like a big-whoop author with a meaningful brand. You also want the title big so that people can hopefully read the thumbnail. You also want the image to have to do with the story’s genre.This can be a challenge. Unsplash doesn’t have much to offer for a genre like fantasy, even we disabuse ourselves of the notion that all fantasy cover art has to look like a Frank Frazetta painting. I will say that at least my name is always on the top.
You don’t have to credit Unsplash contributors when you use their uploads, but I always do. Sometimes I wonder if someone who finds out I used their image will read my story and be like, “You’re a fucking maniac! Don’t associate me with your lunacy!”
So far one of my cover images is a photo I took myself, because the rug in A Good Creature is based on a real rug in my home. I have another idea for a story that could go with a picture I took, but I haven’t written it yet. A friend of mine actually took a better picture of the subject, so I’d rather just credit them instead.
Someimes when I need a palate cleanser from writing a story I just go make its cover before its done. So, in most cases this means the title is already picked out.
I’ve published 10 story collections so far and they all have the same combination of hotel-y, neon-y fonts on them. It’s like a theme, I guess. Also, at least one standalone story from each collection also gets those fonts as a sort of special honor, although it’s not like those are the best or flagship stories. They’re just the ones that felt right with neon. Extreme Speed has two neon stories. Now that I’m 10 collections in, I might consider retiring the neon thing and considering that a “generation.” Or I might keep it going.