The Writer's Guide to a Good Story

Basic Cover Making

The cover of your story is not nearly as important as what's inside it. But in all honesty, many people do tend to judge a book by its cover. They shouldn't, but they do. 

Spoiler Alert: I don't make my own covers. They are made by the lovely and talented people in the Multimedia Designs threads. Which is always an option for you, if you want. But if you really want to make your own covers, here are some tips. 

And I know a lot of you probably have made covers before on your own to use for your stories. For those of you that are new to Wattpad and don't want to use covers of your own, or simply don't feel like making your own covers, that is okay. It's your choice.  Like I said, if you were to make a list of what makes a good story, the picture on the cover would probably be at the bottom or not there at all.

For those that do want to make a cover and have no idea where to start, however, I'm going to tell you one thing.

If at all possible, stay away from the Wattpad cover creator. The cover creator on this site doesn't really offer a lot of variety when it comes to pictures. If you don't choose a cover of your own, Wattpad will automatically use your profile picture as a cover and blur the picture while putting your story title over it.

Here are some ways you can make good covers for your stories.

1) Get a good picture. You can find some great ones at Photopin. Make sure that the picture relates to the title or plot of your story and save it on your computer.

Remember that if you do go on google and find a drawing from deviantart or something, you have to ask the photographer for permission before using the photo. Make sure your picture really pops. Choose something that's bound to catch someone's eye.

2) Edit it. I recommend a website called Picmonkey. It lets you put words on your picture, brighten it, dull it, do all kinds of cool things.

You can choose different fonts and colors for your titles. By the way, don't hesitate to match the theme of your cover with the theme of your story. For example, if your story's set in the 60s, you can use the black and white setting on picmonkey.

3) Save it and test it. Sometimes the pictures are too big to fit the allotted space allowed for the book covers on Wattpad. In that case, you can always crop the picture where it is needed. (The standard wattpad cover size is 256x400)

See that the words in your title aren't cut off when you edit your cover. Be sure to leave the picmonkey window open with your original picture while testing so that you can edit your photo again and re-save it when you need to.

4) Admire it. Sit back and enjoy looking at it for at least a minimum of fifteen minutes (Ha ha just kidding. That's not a real step...)

Most of these steps are for beginners or people like me, who are not artistically talented and cannot make wonderful covers. There are plenty of people on this site who are talented at making covers and will make them for you on the Wattpad threads. If you really want to make your own cover, you can follow the steps above, but if you are artistic and want to go into detail, there are probably a lot of other programs you can download to help you out. 

Anyway, I hoped this helped some of you that were looking for information on cover making. Happy Wattpadding!