Note: lots of pictures here. It may take a minute to load.

The purpose of this tutorial is to help you create a simple yet attractive cover for your self published book. With just a little work, you can achieve much better results, or at least more of the results you want, than you can get with the automatic cover designer that CreateSpace offers.

Step 0: Get the stuff you need

Here’s the stuff you’re going to need for this tutorial.

1. A CreateSpace.com account.
2. A manuscript pdf (see my text formatting tutorial)
3. A big background image. Check out http://www.sxc.hu and http://www.morguefile.com. Both sites have plenty of images that you can use for. Be careful with the licenses of the pictures.
4. If you want cool fonts, you’ll have to find some that allow for commercial usage. I recommend http://www.fontsquirrel.com. It has many free fonts that can be used for commercial purposes.
5. Download & install OpenOffice.org and the Gimp. Both are Open Source and FREE.

Ok, now that you have everything you need, let’s get going.

Step 1: Start Your Project & Download your Cover Template

Login to your CreateSpace.com account. On your main “My Account” page, click “Add New Title”

and then select “Paperback Book” from the list that appears.

Fill out all the information for your book.

And then click the save & continue button at the bottom.

Now you should be looking at the “physical properties” page.

This is why you should have a finished manuscript pdf – you need to know how many pages so that it can calculate the spine width of your book. Click “save & continue”.

Now you are to the “Add Files” screen. This is where you can download your cover template file. So, you know, download it.

Step 2: Make your cover.

I’m going to use a few features of the Gimp just to give you an idea of things you can do. I’m not claiming to be creating a lasting work of art.

Ok, so unzip your newly downloaded template.

Start up the Gimp.

Open the unzipped file that ends in “.png”

The filename is something like BookCover6X9_280.png

Now you can see the file open in the Gimp.

Hit Ctrl+Alt+O (that’s an O as in Open) or select File -> Open as Layers…

And navigate to / select the image that you will be using as the background, then click “Open”.

The picture will now open up as a layer.

The picture I imported is too small for the cover! SO I’ll need to resize it. To resize it, make sure the picture is selected in the Layers dialog. (One of Gimp’s weird floating windows.) Select the layer simple by clicking on it.

Once the layer is selected, select “Layer-> Scale Layer”

Then set the width or height and click “scale”.

I had to set my height to about 2800. You want to make sure that the red part of the layer below is covered up.

That brings up a good point, I think I need to talk about the Background “template” layer a little. Let’s bump it up so we can look at it better.

In the “Layers, Channels, Paths…” dialog, Select the “background” layer and then click the move layer up button.

Now you can see the template layer on top.

Now, the explanation:

The red zone is going to get cut off when the cover is printed.

The blue zone may get cut into a little, so it’s not safe to put important pictures or graphics there.

CreateSpace is going to superimpose the barcode over the ISBN area.

As you work, you may not always want to see that template layer. If you want to hide it, just click the little eyeball in the Layers dialog. It is useful to keep the template layer at the top so you can judge where you are putting things.

Okay, let’s add some text using the text tool. (circled) Once you select the text tool, you can adjust how the Gimp is going to render your text by playing with the options below. (see arrows)

So play with those options and then click on the main image window near where you want the title to go. Type in your title.

Now use the text tool to put in the rest of your horizontal text.

I have turned off the template layer for the moment so you can see better how it’s coming. Also at some point it might be nice to turn back on the template layer.

The text is still hard to read, so I’m going to create a new layer (click the button in the Layers dialog)

Then move the new layer down to just one spot above my background image. (Using the move layer down button again.)

Now use the rectangle select tool

To select an area behind the title. Just click and drag to create the selection.

Now change the foreground color to white.

Then click OK in the Change Foreground Color dialog.

Now select the bucket fill tool.

Then click in the selection you just made.

Now by making new selections, changing the foreground color, then using the bucket fill, I’m going to put a box behind all of the text I’ve created, as well as one for the spine.

Now I’m going to make the spine Text just the same as any other. Put it anywhere, we’ll move it in a second.

Now select the rotate tool.

And click on your spine text.

Enter 90 in for the angle then press enter then click rotate.

Now select the move tool.

Click on the spine text and drag it where it belongs. If you start dragging other stuff, you’ve not clicked right on the letters themselves. Just hit Ctrl + z to undo then try again.

Make a new layer and select white as the layer fill type. Then click OK.

Then move that layer down to the very bottom. Don’t ask me why we do it, but just know I do have a reason.

Now hide your template layer if it’s not hidden. (click the eye)

Select the layer with the colored in boxes, then change the layer mode to overlay.

Now make a duplicate of that layer by clicking the duplicate button.

Here’s my result:

Last thing for the cover.

Select the layer that has the title. From the file menu, click Filters –> Light and Shadow –> Drop Shadow

Set the Offset X & Y to 0, and set the blur radius to 40, then click Ok.

And just for fun I’ve used the File –> Open as Layers… again to import a picture of the author. Here’s with the template showing:

…and without:

Make sure that the template layer is no longer visible. Now click File –> Save As and save your work as MyCover.png or something else ending in .png. Select “Merge visible layers” from the dialog that pops up, then hit “save” on the next one. The Gimp will then grind away and save your image. Remember where you saved it.

Huzzah! Now your cover image is made! You can close the Gimp and move on the step 3.

Step 3: Make a pdf.

I’ve never figured out a good way to export from the gimp to a pdf, so this is my workaround.

Start OpenOffice.org Writer.

Go to Format –> Styles and Formatting or press F11

In the Styles and Formatting dialog, click the Page styles tab.

Then right click on the “Default” page style and select “Modify” from the menu that pops up.

On the “Page” tab of the Page Style dialog, change the width from 8.5 to 17 and set all the margins to 0. Then click OK

Now select Insert –> Picture –> From File from the menu bar.

And select the cover image you just made in the Gimp. Then click Open.

Your cover image should fill the whole page.

Now click the “Export to pdf” button.

In the dialog that pops up, choose a name and a place to save the pdf. Then click save.

You may get this warning (Just click OK if you do.):

You can close OpenOffice without saving, unless you really feel the need to save the cover document.

Open your newly made pdf in your favorite pdf viewer to make sure everything is all right.

Ok, now you have your print ready cover pdf and you are ready to upload it!

Step 4: Upload Cover pdf to CreateSpace

Go to CreateSpace.com and log in. Go to your “My Account” page. Click on the title of your book from the “My Products” list. IT should return you to where you left off before on the “Add Files” step of the “Title Setup.” Scroll down to where it says “Book Cover” And click “Upload a PDF”.

Click choose file then navigate to your freshly minted pdf file and click “Open”. The click “Upload”. Depending on your connection speed, it may take a bit to upload.

Once it says “Your upload was successful”, click close. Then click Save changes in the main window.

You are finished with your cover! You’ll just need to finish going through the CreateSpace publishing wizard, and order a proof copy of your book, then you’ll be good to go.

Good luck and let me know if there are any questions.