How do I make an awesome front cover image?

BookPublish builds the print-ready wrap — spine, back cover, bleed, barcode, correct dimensions — but you bring the front cover image. The good news: you don't need to hire a designer or learn Photoshop. AI is your cover designer now.

Use an AI image generator

We suggest Ideogram — it handles composition and lighting beautifully and, unlike most generators, it can actually render clean typography if you want title text baked in. Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, and Leonardo also work well. Most have a free tier that's plenty to start.

A prompt that actually works

Great covers come from specific prompts. Start from this template and fill in the brackets:

Book cover art for a [genre] novel titled "[Title]".
[Main subject or scene], [mood/atmosphere], in the style of
[art style — e.g. moody oil painting / cinematic photography /
minimalist vector], [color palette]. Dramatic focal lighting,
strong single focal point, clean negative space at the top for
the title. Highly detailed, professional publishing quality,
vertical 2:3 aspect ratio. No text, no lettering, no watermark.

A worked example:

Book cover art for a literary thriller titled "The Tide House".
A lone clapboard house on a storm-battered coast at dusk, tense
and foreboding, in the style of moody cinematic photography, deep
teal and slate-gray palette with a single warm window light.
Dramatic focal lighting, strong single focal point, clean negative
space at the top for the title. Highly detailed, professional
publishing quality, vertical 2:3 aspect ratio. No text, no
lettering, no watermark.

Tips that separate pro from amateur

• Leave room for the title. Ask for "negative space at the top (or bottom)" so your title isn't fighting the art. You'll add the title in the Cover Maker, where you can set the font and color.
• Say "no text." AI-rendered gibberish text is the #1 giveaway of a cheap cover. Generate clean art, add real type yourself.
• Match the genre. Romance, thriller, and literary fiction have visual conventions readers scan for. Name your genre in the prompt.
• Go high-resolution. Export the largest size the tool offers, and upscale if it offers that too — a 6×9" cover needs about 1900×2850 pixels, which is more than a standard AI generation produces. See What size should I generate my AI cover art? The Cover Maker warns you if an image is too small for print.
• Generate several, pick one. Run the prompt a few times and choose the strongest. Iterate on the parts you don't like ("darker sky," "move the house left").

Then bring it in

In the Cover Maker, upload your front image. The editor extends its color across the spine and back — then use text layers to add your title, tagline, and author name right on the cover: pick from the built-in fonts (including display faces for titles), set the size and color, add a shadow or outline so the type reads over the art, and drag each layer exactly where you want it. The text stays razor-sharp vector type in the print PDF.

Prefer designed title art? Generate a title treatment on a transparent background in your AI tool and add it as an image layer over the cover — same drag-to-place control. Either way: one background image in, a finished, typeset print wrap out.