Last time I discussed the Editing Production Achievement Award in our Self-Publishing Achievements, and also showed how seamlessly this award functionality is incorporated into our self publishing website.
Another production achievement award is the award for Custom Covers. Unlike the award for editing, the custom cover achievement award is still being rolled out deliberately and slowly to our authors. Such is the case with complex technical roll-outs that involve real time interaction with social media sites. Internal “alpha” testing is difficult because of the immediacy of social media, so precise beta testing on a small scale with measurable results is more appropriate.
Custom covers share many similarities with copyediting. It’s an important, yet often overlooked, investment that all authors would be well-served considering. And, much like editing, I believe more authors would select professional custom cover design if they were SHOWN the advantages and benefits of it. At Outskirts Press, we recently created a short ebook to do just that — we show side-by-side comparisons of free Standard Covers and their Custom Cover counterparts. Seeing these samples side-by-side, it’s difficult to argue in favor of Standard Covers. Click the ebook cover below to flip through the samples…
President of Outskirts Press 