Designing your own book cover can be a daunting task! I sometimes outsource my covers to a freelancer but with my Sweary coloring books I make my own.
In this article you will see the whole process.
Gimp Is a free program, and I urge you to try it! Gimp is Amazing! And I have created so much gorgeous stuff using it!

CAUTION: THIS COVER IS FOR A BOOK WITH SWEAR WORDS, THE WORDS ARE NOT BLURRED OUT! IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SWEAR WORDS, PLEASE CLICK AWAY FROM THE ARTICLE NOW!

Here's the start, I have a Coloring book template saved in gimp, So It's all ready to go!

Setting up my guides to ensure accurate placement of the covers (I'm doing back and front covers on the same canvas)

I dragged and drop the photo for my first cover onto the canvas, Dragging and stretching it to fit where I want it. I designed the front cover page by drawing the coloring page, Then coloring it with colored pencil, Then I scanned it at 600 D.P.I

I like to add a black border on the top and bottom of the cover, So I can put the author name, Which is Immature Coloring (For my sweary books only)

I make the cover crooked, On purpose, Because from personal experience I have found that crooked covers sell better than straight ones. The "imbalance" grabs the eye of the viewer.
I'm setting up the frontal layer, Removing the white. So the cover will show through. I do them on separate layers so they are easily edited as needed

Now I 'm designing the back cover, I like to use a variety of pages from the book, to give the viewer an impression of the inside.

This is NOT recommended, But I haven't finished all the inside pages yet, So the coloring pages, aren't yet converted to Vector. That is why they look slightly pixelated, But the proof shouldn't show that. Because It's zoomed in really close.

I have to remove the outer white outline from the Sweary Mandala, That way they can sit next to each other, Without a "boxy" look to them.

I'm adding more and more Mandalas, SO I can play with what It will look like

The cover looked a bit boring to me, With just the black and white Mandalas, So I decided to use a colored pencil stock photo to enhance the color

It takes a lot of editing to achieve the results I want.

I still didn't find the cover interesting enough, So I decided to add a pencil sharpener

This one took more editing, Because of all the white surrounding the little sharpener.

I also became indecisive on where I wanted the sharpener to sit.

I decided I needed color, So using the color picker tool, I picked up the color of each coloring pencil, and then I painted additional color on the back.

I also put the dots at the bottom, To represent a colorist "Testing" the colors they have. The colors of the colored pencils on the back cover.

For some reason my other screen shots didn't save. But I added the text, and now the cover is finished.

My covers aren't the most professional covers out there. But I like colorful and "fun" covers!

What do you think of the cover?