Redesigning A Book Cover

When I was in college I had to take two graphic design classes. At first, I thought I wasn;t going to enjoy the classes and believed they were going to be a waste of my time. But it turned out I loved graphic design and my classes. Even to the point where I would end up taking a third graphic design class just for fun.

Now, many years out of college my good friend, Sam Steiner, was republishing her memoir, My Bipolar Mind and wanted a new cover.

Why Change Your Cover

The original My Bipolar Mind cover was not one that would sell a lot of copies for a memoir. First, the girl on the cover was not Sam. Second, people had no idea if it was a work of fiction or non-fiction. Third, it’s hard to sell copies of a memoir with a person on it if you are not a celebrity.

The Original Cover Of My Bipolar Mind

So it’s safe to say My Bipolar Mind needed some rebranding. It needed a fresh take to draw a wider audience and it needed to be able to recognize what the genre was when searching through millions of little snapshots of other books.

Out With The Old, In With The New

When someone is looking to change up their book cover they are looking for something different then what they already have. In Sam’s case, her book was colorless and didn’t fit into the genre she was in.

The first thing I knew I needed to do was to add “a memoir” somewhere on the cover. It needed to be clear to anyone in bookstores or shopping online that this was not a work a fiction. Next, I wanted to get rid of the person on the cover-especially since it wasn’t Sam. Ideally, people like to be able to put themselves into a person’s shoes when reading a book. So having a silhouette of a woman would allow more people to relate to Sam’s journey and to pick up the book to look at.

The Redesigned Cover I Made

An aspect that I knew I had to pitch to Sam was the brain filled with different colors. This was something I hope she would love like I did since it would symbolize mental illness. The hardest part of redesigning the cover was picking out the right colors for the background. Since this book was covering a very important and serious topic I didn’t want to put bright colors on it. I wanted the cover to be solemn, but beautiful to look at.

In all redesigning this cover was fun. I am happy to help not just an indie author, but a friend create the book they have always dreamed of. If you are interested in learning more about the book click here and make sure you head to Amazon to get your copy of My Bipolar Mind.

Anyone that is looking for a cover designer can feel free to reach out to me for quotes and to see if I can help you like I helped Sam.