#03 · Cover · Designed with Fred
A cover that belongs on the shelf with your comps.
Fred has already read your book, so the brief starts from its genre, its comps and its central image. He designs the art at your trim size, and you set the title and your name yourself.
A plain book titled Your book title here opens to its first chapter as a draft. Fred, the editor, first gives his read of the whole book and the one thing to fix first, then suggests a light line edit with his reasoning, and once accepted the page updates. Three typeset styles are tried on the same pages: Romantic with a drop cap, Thriller with a large chapter number, and Editorial with left-aligned headings. The book closes, cover designs are dragged onto it, and it ends ready to publish as a print PDF and an ebook.
01
Designed from your book
Fred knows the manuscript, its genre and its comps, so he arrives with a direction. You agree the brief together, and every line of it is yours to change.
02
Made at your trim size
Three directions to choose from, then the one you pick is made again at print quality for your trim. Select any part of the picture and ask for a change there alone.
03
Front, back, and on the book
Set the title and your name in real type, add a back cover with copy Fred drafts from the book, then put both on your typeset book and download them at print resolution.
One part of the house
It all works from the same manuscript, so nothing gets redone.
Common questions
For now, yes, and on purpose. Editing is the first and hardest part of getting a book out and the part nothing else does well, so it's where we started. But the longer plan is the whole journey from finished draft to published book: editing first, then typesetting, then cover, then getting it onto the shelf and devices. We're building the publishing house as software, one piece at a time, and the edit is the piece that's live today.