Cover layers: title, tagline, and extra images

Your cover art is the background. Everything you place on top of it — the title, a tagline, the author name, a series logo, an award sticker, an author photo — is a layer, in the Text & Image Layers section.

Adding layers

Five buttons:

• + Title, + Tagline, + Author — text layers that come pre-styled for the job.
• + Text — a free text layer for anything else.
• + Image… — any image file. A transparent PNG makes excellent title art over a background photo.

Positioning

• Drag a layer on the preview.
• Or select it and nudge with the arrow keys — hold Shift for bigger steps.

Arrow-key nudging is the one to reach for when you're lining a title up against something in the artwork; dragging gets you close, and the keys get you exact.

They stay sharp

Text layers are drawn as real text in the print PDF, not as pixels. Zoom into the exported file and the letter edges are clean at any magnification, which is what you want at the printer. That's also why a title typed as a text layer beats a title baked into your image file — see What makes a great cover image?

Switching bindings keeps them in place

This is worth knowing if you plan to publish the same book as a paperback and a hardcover.

A layer's position is stored relative to the trim — where it sits on the front cover — not as a coordinate on the flat wrap. The wrap is a different width and shape for every binding: a dust jacket adds flaps, a case laminate adds board wrap, and the spine width changes with the page count.

Because positions are trim-relative, your layout carries across. Set your title once on the paperback, switch to case laminate or dust jacket, and the title is still exactly where you put it on the front cover instead of drifting off toward the spine. The same holds in Book Mockups.

If a layer warns you

A warning appears under the layer list in two situations, both of them real print risks rather than style advice:

• It crosses the spine fold. Anything straddling a fold gets bent through it — and the fold moves as your page count changes, so a layer that looks fine today can end up on the crease.
• It reaches a trim edge. Every printer cuts with a tolerance of about 1/16 inch, and anything inside that band can be shaved off the finished book.

Nothing is flagged for merely sitting close to the edge by design standards — only for being inside the zone where the blade actually reaches. Move the layer inward and the warning clears. See Trim, bleed, and the safe area and Cover check.