30 Covers in 30 Days: A Book Design Challenge

What happens when a book designer gives herself thirty fictional books, thirty days, and a blank canvas?

I’m about to find out.

For the next 30 days, I’m taking on a personal book cover design challenge: 30 fictional books, 30 different covers, one cover design every day.

The books don’t exist. The authors don’t exist. The stories don’t exist.

But the design possibilities do.

Why a book cover challenge?

I love the part of book design where a handful of words on a page have to become something visual.

A title, an author name, a genre, and a few implied clues about a story are surprisingly powerful starting points. From there, the challenge is to imagine what the book might feel like before anyone has read a single page.

And because each book is fictional, there are no existing covers, established visual identities, or publisher guidelines to work within. I get to experiment.

Some covers might be quiet and literary. Others might be bold, atmospheric, romantic, mysterious, historical, strange, or completely unexpected.

The goal isn't to create thirty versions of the same design.

It's to see how much range I can explore within the world of book cover design.

The 30-book list

Here's the lineup I'll be working through over the next 30 days:

1. The House at Briar Lake by Eleanor Voss; Genre: Gothic Mystery

2. What We Left Behind by Daniel Mercer; Genre: Literary Fiction

3. The Last Orchard by Clara Whitmore; Genre: Historical Fiction

4. A Map of Forgotten Things by Julian Hart; Genre: Literary Fiction

5. The Silence Between Us by Mara Ellison; Genre: Psychological Thriller

6. Beneath the Winter Garden by Rebecca Vale; Genre: Historical Romance

7. The Night Clerk by Thomas Wren; Genre: Crime Thriller

8. When the River Turned by Elise Rowan; Genre: Contemporary Fiction

9. The Girls of Willow Street by Natalie Pierce; Genre: Women's Fiction

10. A Season for Ghosts by Arthur Bellamy; Genre: Supernatural Fiction

11. The Inheritance of Rain by Lydia March; Genre: Literary Fiction

12. Seven Days in October by Graham Ellis; Genre: Contemporary Fiction

13. The Glassmaker's Daughter by Vivienne Cole; Genre: Historical Fiction

14. Under a Borrowed Sky by Hannah Reeves; Genre: Romance

15. The Hollow at Blackwater by Simon Kessler; Genre: Horror

16. Letters from Saint Agnes by Margaret Bell; Genre: Historical Fiction

17. The Things We Don't Say by Caroline West; Genre: Women's Fiction

18. A Stranger in the Garden by Peter Alden; Genre: Mystery

19. The Stars We Couldn't Reach by Naomi Foster; Genre: Science Fiction

20. The Bookshop at the Edge of Town by Claire Bennett; Genre: Cozy Fiction

21. Where the Wild Roses Grow by Samuel Reed; Genre: Family Saga

22. The Vanishing of Clara Bell by Audrey Sinclair; Genre: Mystery Thriller

23. All the Roads We Took by Benjamin Hale; Genre: Literary Fiction

24. The House of Salt and Smoke by Isabel Crane; Genre: Fantasy

25. After the Fire by Louise Merritt Domestic; Genre: Thriller

26. The Cartographer's Secret by Edward Finch; Genre: Historical Mystery

27. A Thousand Small Winters by Nora Caldwell; Genre: Literary Fiction

28. The Ocean Between Houses by James Avery; Genre: Magical Realism

29. The Midnight Correspondence by Sophie Laurent; Genre: Romantic Mystery

30. Before We Were Strangers by Michael Rowan; Genre: Contemporary Romance

What happens after the challenge?

Here's the fun part.

These aren't going to disappear into a folder at the end of the month.

After I design each cover, I'll be adding the finished designs to the LV Book Design premade cover shop.

That means these fictional books will become real, ready-to-use cover designs for authors.

If you see a cover during the challenge that makes you think, That looks like my book, you'll be able to purchase the design and make it yours.

The fictional title and author are simply placeholders for the challenge. Once a cover is purchased, I'll customize it for your book with your title, author name, and other agreed-upon text.

Follow along

I'll be sharing the covers throughout the challenge, so you can watch the collection take shape from day one to day thirty.

Thirty books.

Thirty genres and story worlds.

Thirty opportunities to try something different.

And hopefully, thirty new covers for the LV Book Design shop.

Let the challenge begin!

Pre-made Book Covers VS. Custom Designed Covers

Speaking from the design-perspective, there is a bit of a stigma attached to pre-made design products. While they are more budget-friendly, especially to someone going the self-published route, they can also look cheap. They may not fit the book's story, or feature a person that looks nothing like any of the main characters. Some pre-made products available on the market are created by amateur or beginner designers who are not practiced in informational hierarchy and are not polished in their work.

Most veteran designers encourage their clients to go the custom route, which allows for a cover that, most of the time, can better represent the story within its pages. The artwork isn't stock, the end product is polished and professional, and the client also is able to have a lot of input in the final product. However, the price point will always be higher than that of a pre-made cover.

The goal of LV Book Design is to help all authors, self-published or traditional/publisher based, reach a final product that not only they love but their readers will love as well. No matter the budget. With that in mind, I came to decision to offer high quality, pre-made covers. I didn't feel like I was offering all I could to self-published authors. Having seen first-hand the self-publishing process, and the costs that accumulate, I wanted to be able to help provide my veteran expertise to those who don't have the budget to hire a designer to create a cover for them from scratch.

There are cover artists out there who have low prices–but the old saying "You get what you pay for" holds it weight in most of these cases. I have been a designer for over ten years, and worked in publishing of one sort or the other for all them. I started LV Book Design to focus on my favorite form of publishing: the book. I wanted to offer my professionalism, my dedication to the craft, my enthusiasm for the art of writing and my many years of polished experience to self-publishing authors every where. So I sat down, and approached this project with the mindset of designing covers that I would personally be interested in picking up and reading. Normally, I have my clients fill out a questionnaire that helps me reach the right audience with the right message and the author's vision. With creating pre-made covers, I had imagine what story each cover was telling the world. Whether or not it fits with the product it eventually will go on doesn't matter to me. What I hope is that an author will see one of these designs and go "That one is perfect for my book!" Another hope is that perhaps an author or aspiring author will just be browsing and one of my covers will be inspired to tell its story.

I'll be updating the shop each month with new designs, and just know this: once a cover is sold, it will no longer be for sale. I want to help my clients as much as possible, and no one wants to share a cover!

As always, I wish you all the best and happy writing!