They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but let's face it--you only get one first impression. A good cover needs to be eye-catching, signal your genre, give clues to your story, have an engaging and readable title treatment, and make readers want to know more.

Easy, right?

If only! The trouble is, authors aren't always the best at breaking their stories down into one or two compelling visuals. Where words fail us, enter Jake Clark and J Caleb Design. The artistic mind behind countless covers, J Caleb focuses on badass covers for badass stories. He lent us his expertise for this episode! Join us in discussing what exactly goes into making a book cover great, from concept and brief to final product.

In Part One, We Discuss:

• Minimalistic choices and simplifying cover briefs to get the best options

• Differences in processes

• Lucky Charms

Resources and Guest Links:

• J Caleb Design: https://www.jcalebdesign.com/

Help us thank Jake! Covers are tricky, and we’ve been so excited to share this episode and give people insights from such a talented artist and creator.

Host Links:

• H.Y. Gregor: https://hygregor.com/

• David Shadoin: https://www.davidshadoin.com/

Credits: (all assets licensed through the sites listed)

• Intro: Music- Cinematic Epic Trailer by PaulYudin on Pixabay

• Animation and Image- From Vecteezy user- kazim hussian; from pixabay users-davidfoxx, DavidGallie, olenchic, stefaniejockschat, AiVreaSaStii, RuneSnow, duyen-nguyen, EnchantedStudios,

• Outro: Music- Good Night by FASSounds on Pixabay

• Animation and Image- From Vecteezy user-onlydesignz; from pixabay users-olenchic, Placidplace, Evgeniy_Z, Dantegrafico, Shayea_Kim