Custom Book Cover Design
If you want people to pick up your book and start reading it, you need to have an engaging cover. Ask yourself what kind of cover would draw someone in to read your book? With the Balboa Press cover design service, our experienced design team will create a cover that perfectly fits your book.
We work with you to incorporate your ideas, photos and graphics to give you a one of a kind cover that fits your vision. Your cover will include your book’s title, subtitle (if any), authors name(s), additional marketing copy and your customised artwork, if you choose to supply that to us. We offer stock photos for authors who do not have custom artwork they would like to supply.
To ensure that any cover images you submit to us come out clear and crisp on your cover, please follow these requirements:
- Submitted separately from your manuscript as a TIFF (.tif) file format
- CMYK colourspace
- 300-dpi resolution
- Match the dimension of the final trim size, plus a 0.3cm bleed on the top, right and bottom side. (i.e., a cover image for a 15.2cm x 22.9cm book would need to be submitted at 15.6cm x 23.5cm)
- Written copyright permission from the creator (artist, photographer, etc.) to use the work on your book cover.
- Exception to the requirements: sample graphics and other illustrations that will only be used as ideas or guidelines for the design team can be submitted in any format.
You may also include the following items with your submission for inclusion on the back book cover. All of these items are optional:
- Author bio (no more than 50 words)
- Marketing copy about your book (no more than 200 words)
- One to four published reviews (no more than 50 words each, including the credit line)
-
A photo of the author. If a photo is submitted it must meet the following requirements:
- TIFF (.tif) or JPEG (.jpg) format
- CMYK colourspace
- 300-dpi resolution
- 600 x 600 pixels (if JPEG)
- 5.1cm x 5.1cm printed size
One round of corrections or adjustments to your cover is allowed after receiving the first proof copy. The first round of corrections is free of charge, but any subsequent changes will result in a corrections fee.
Image Submission FAQ
We request that authors do not submit images embedded in their manuscripts because the text of your book and the images will be imported into the design program separately.
Embedded images are automatically reduced in size and resolution and must be extracted and resized before they can be replaced separately back into your book.
Image extraction incurs a fee for you and will lengthen the completion time for your book.
Please submit each image in a separate, individual file by e-mail in a JPEG or TIFF format with a resolution of 300 DPI or higher.
If your files are too large, or you have too many, you are encouraged to send them on a CD or flash drive. Submitting original hard copy photographs or illustrations is not encouraged, unless it is an absolute last resort.
Due to the high volume of materials we receive and process in our headquarters, we cannot assume responsibility for lost or damaged physical materials.
In order for our book designers to know which image is which, you must use a labeling system that is clear and signifies the order and placement of images within your book.
For example, the first image to appear in your book should be labeled "01.jpg" or "A.tiff"; the second image in your book should be labeled "02.jpg" or "B.tiff", and so on.
Following this method ensures your images are placed by the book designer in the order you want them to appear and you can easily refer to each image by its label.
Placeholders are used instead of embedded images to signal where each image should be placed within your manuscript.
When writing your manuscript, simply include a placeholder like [PLACE IMAGE HERE filename.jpg] so your book designer will know to replace that text with the image you submitted separately following the instructions above.
If you would like to include a caption or other instructions for your image, type them in within your image placeholder. Example: [PLACE IMAGE HERE 08.jpg CAPTION: Our wedding day, 28 July, 2007.]
Call 1 800 844 925 to order
or speak to a Balboa Press team member for more information about this service
Disclaimer: Prices listed do not include applicable taxes (such as sales, use, excise, value-added, goods and services, or other tax), which will be added to the total at the time of purchase. Prices listed do include the copies of the book; the cost of shipping and handling will be calculated and charged after your book is made available for sale.