Hey Visionaries! Are you moving toward publishing and wanting to do a cover reveal but aren’t sure how or where to start? Or perhaps you’re wanting to plan for the day you will need a cover reveal, but again aren’t sure how it all works…
Never fear, I’m here to walk you through the process, step by step!
Doing a cover reveal is one of my favorite parts, minus release day, of publishing! I love helping with cover reveals because it’s so much fun! And trust me, a lot of other authors and bloggers love doing cover reveals as well, so if you know how to get in touch with the right people, you shouldn’t have any problem getting people to sign up for the reveal!
So, what are the steps for a successful cover reveal?
I’m glad you asked!
Step 1 - The Cover
Needless to say, before you can do a cover reveal, you need a cover. Now you can make it yourself, but then you run the risk of being generic. There are a lot of covers that I’ve seen on Canva that show up on more than one book because they are pre-done generic covers.
So, to avoid that…you either need to put your own cover together on Canva. Such as I have done with Emotional Commotion for my sister Marisa, and with Heard in Silence which is an anthology I curated.
Or, you can hire an artist to do an illustration for the cover! As I did with World of Silence. (Truth be told, the artist is my sister Jaiden, so it was free, but whatever. She is open for commissions though!)
And lastly, you can pay a cover designer. I know several people who do cover design and WV actually works with a few to give you discounts if you are a Challenger Member of the site! Discounts vary between at 5 & 10% off for a cover package!
Step 2 - The Info
Now that you have a cover, you need a blurb. So get that together, that’s not something anyone can really do for you…though I’ve heard of people hiring people off Fiverr to write their blurb, definitely not something I recommend. If you’d like a post on how to write a blurb, let me know!
Now, once the cover and blurb are done, you need to have a release date or time frame in mind. You usually, if self-publishing, do the cover reveal between 2-4 months before release and open pre-orders. Which if you are using KDP is just for ebooks, but you will need to pick a release day.
Once this is accomplished, you are ready for step 3!
Step 3 - Make Your Graphics
I always like to make my graphics before I do the cover reveal sign-up form because I don’t like the stressful thought that I might forget to make them…lol…
So, make some mock-ups of the cover and some graphics on Canva. Or you can pay someone to do this for you, it’s totally up to you.
Now, once your graphics are made combine all the book info onto a Google Doc or a Word Doc if you don’t use Google…but this whole process is so much easier if you set up a Google Account because you can:
Share your info on a Google Doc
Create a Google Drive folder to put all the cover reveal graphics in
And use Google Forms to have people sign up for the reveal!
In this Google Doc you want to include, an intro/thank you, the Blurb, tagline, book details such as release date, genre, cover artist, book links on Goodreads and Amazon, etc., and Author info and links, it’s also nice if you include hashtag options.
Then put this doc and your graphics into a Google Drive Folder!
Step 4 - Create the Sign-up Form
I use Google Forms because it’s super easy! So, here’s what to include in the form.
At the top, do an intro that tells when the cover reveal will happen, how you’d like their help, and thank them at the end of that. Now, you need a name slot, email, and confirm email.
Then ask where they will share the cover, which could be a checkbox layout or just one where they write where they will share it.
If you do the checkbox layout here’s the platforms I usually include:
Blog/Site
Newsletter
The next question needs to be a place for them to drop their links or social handles so you can find them.
And then ask if they understand that your book is a [fill in the genre and target audience].
End it with a thank you and now you are ready to share the sign-up form!
Step 5 - Sharing the Form
Share the sign-up form on your blog, in your social stories, in your newsletter, anywhere and everywhere! Leave it open for a week to two weeks and reshare on social media every few days and mention it on your blog when you can. Before you close it send one last reminder to your newsletter and then you should have plenty of sign-ups!
Once you have all those emails, put together an email with all the needed details, and thank people for being part of the cover reveal. Yes, I thank people a lot because they are helping make your dreams come true! So, make sure they know you appreciate it!
Include the link to your Google Drive Folder in this email and send it out between 1 week or 3 days prior to the cover reveal. I usually do a week, so it doesn’t get lost in the email, but gives people enough time to schedule the reveal!
Now, all there is to do is wait until the cover reveal day! Of course, the day before reveal you could send out just a friendly reminder to the reveal team that tomorrow is the day. Just to be safe.
Step 6 - Thank some more!
Now, why did you gather all the links and social handles on the form? Well, so you could go to each post and thank people, of course! So, the evening of the reveal, throughout the day, or on the next day…get to work thanking people for sharing that cover! You could send out a thank you email, but it’s more personal and shows that you care if you thank each person.
Of course, if you had an extremely large reveal team, over 30 or something, I’d say just do the email so you aren’t at your computer all week…lol…
Conclusion
And that is how you run a cover reveal! In a nutshell, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know! I’d love to answer them!
Have you ever done a cover reveal? Or participated in one? Did this make sense to you? Anything else you’d like to know about indie publishing or writing?