The Design Process
For all the romanticism attached to writing, books are about selling, and what sells is what catches your eye. It's about attraction. Buyers glance at your book cover for only a few seconds before making up their minds to buy (or not). Great book covers require specific skills, experience and, of course, talent.
The cover design process takes between 10 and 35 hours, roughly. I research what the competing books look like, find the right imagery and fonts, do some sketching and scribbling, photo manipulation, color correction and all that design stuff.
Within a week I'll send you up to 4 front cover concepts. One of them is often accepted with some revisions, but you are welcome to ask for as many revisions as you like or even a totally new concept.
Once your front cover is approved, the back cover and spine follow within a few days. With your approval of the back cover, we are ready to go to press.
I'll provide ready-to-print digital files to you or directly to your printer, according to the specifications. I've been working with the leading print-on-demand service providers like Lightning Source and CreateSpace.
Well, but how long?
Usual turnaround for book cover design is 7-10 days, from start to finish. Complete book design (cover, interior and typesetting) takes two weeks—if your manuscript is edited and proofread and you provide comments in a timely manner*.
*Within 24 hours of the request for information.