How to Hand a Cover Brief to a Designer

Hiring a designer is how a concept becomes a cover you can print. It goes badly when the designer receives a title, a shrug, and twenty reference images that do not agree. It goes better when they receive a short packet that already contains your refusals. You are not paying them to discover who the book is for. You are paying them to make that decision visible, in type and image, inside a file that fits the printer.

ImprintaAI does not include a designer marketplace and does not produce the print wrap for you. A cover concept from the book cover tool can be one reference in the packet. It is not the assignment. Cover Crushing, at covercrushing.com, is a separate site aimed at book cover design. It is not this workspace. Whoever you hire, the packet is the same.

What you are hiring them to do

Write one sentence at the top of the message so the scope is obvious. “Please design a front, spine, and back for a 6 by 9 paperback, using the attached template, setting the title in real type, and using the attached concept only as a mood reference.” Or: “Please design a front only. I will build the wrap.” Those are different jobs and different prices. Do not imply both.

Say what done means: a layered file you can edit, a flattened PDF that matches the template, and a plain-language note of the fonts. Say how many rounds of changes you are buying. Two rounds is enough if your brief is tight. Six rounds usually means the brief was missing and you are deciding in public, on their time.

The packet, in this order

Send one folder. Name the files dully.

First, the one-page style sheet. If you do not have one, fill it before you write the designer. A designer should not be the person who discovers that you refuse script fonts.

Second, the cover brief: reader, promise, allowed signals, refused signals, and the type order. Include the exact title, subtitle, series line, and author characters. Paste the name card. Tell them which words may break across lines and which words may not be dropped.

Third, the reject note from any concepts you already threw away. “We rejected three images because the title was misspelled and the art read as romance.” That sentence saves a round. Include at most two concepts you are willing to see echoed, labeled “reference, not to trace.” Include book one if this is a series, and the seven series rules. A designer who has book one and the rules will not need a lecture about consistency.

Fourth, the technical spec. Trim size. Page count of the final interior, or a clear statement that the page count is not final and you do not want a spine yet. Paper type. A link or a file of KDP’s current paperback template, which you should download yourself from the paperback guidelines rather than asking them to guess. Say whether you need bleed. Say where the barcode must stay clear. If you want them to place a barcode, send a real one generated from your ISBN, not a picture of stripes from a concept.

Fifth, rights notes. Which photos are yours. Which illustrations they must create from scratch. Which references they must not imitate. If a concept image is only a mood, say that they may not vector-trace its painted letters. Painted letters are where misspellings hide.

What you still decide

The designer will offer judgment about contrast, type, and whether your subtitle is too long. Listen. They see thumbnails all week. If they tell you the title fails small, believe the thumbnail test, not your attachment to a phrase. Cutting a subtitle is your decision to approve, and you should approve it when the test fails.

You still decide the promise. A designer should not invent a more commercial book than the one you wrote. If they add “the ultimate guide” or a medical-looking symbol you did not ask for, send them back to the not-this list. You still decide likeness. If a face looks like a real person, reject it with the same energy you would reject it from a generator. What to reject applies to human-made art too.

You still own the account. The designer does not log into KDP for you unless you have a separate, explicit arrangement, and even then you remain responsible for the listing. This product will not do that login either.

How to review a round without wandering

Review against the packet, in order. Spelling of every name. Hierarchy: title first. Series rules if this is book two or later. Thumbnail at the same width you used before. Barcode zone clear. Spine matches the page count you sent. Palette inside the sheet. Then, and only then, taste. If you want a change, point at a rule. “The accent color is new; return to the copper rule.” “The series number moved; put it back in the corner we specified.” Avoid “make it pop” and “more premium.” Those notes create a new brief you have not written.

Keep the accepted round’s fonts and colors on the style sheet so the next book does not start over. Pay for the files. Store them next to the interior PDF. When you upload, use the paperback checklist so the listing still matches the jacket they drew.

A good handoff feels almost uncreative. The creative work already happened when you chose the reader, the promise, and the refusals. The designer’s craft is to make those choices clear at the size a shopper actually sees, in a file the printer can use. Give them the choices in writing. Then let them do the part you hired.