Need Help?
Check out the helpful information below and if you need more assistance, please feel free to get in touch using the form below.
General Questions
You can contact me by using the form at the end of this page or by joining The Swoonies Romance Art Facebook Group.
Use the contact form below to send me a message. Under the What do you need assistance with? question, select Technical Issue with the Website.
General Cover Questions
No. When you purchase a premade or custom cover from The Swoonies, you’re purchasing the exclusive right to use the artwork for your personal book related promotional materials. You do not own the cover or takeover the copyright for the cover. The Swoonies maintains all copyrights for all cover art.
Yes. Please review The Swoonies License page for more information, or download a PDF of my license terms.
In most cases, you cannot make anything out of your covers that you plan to distribute, whether for free or to sell. This is a limitation of the stock licesnes associated with the images I use to create your covers. I do occasionally make commercially licensed covers that you can make merchandise with, but unless this has been specifically disclosed to you, that most likely isn’t the case. That said, you are able to make marketing materials with many licenses. To be 100% certain what you can do with your book cover license, please reference the licenses from the stock photo sites where I licensed your cover images. Additional information can be provided upon request.
I primarily source my images from DepositPhotos, AdobeStock, Envato Elements, and Freepik Premium. Premades are also occasionally created with iStock and ShutterStock images. You can request images from these or other sources for custom covers, but be aware that it may result in an additional fee.
Premade Cover Questions
I’m almost always sold out of premade covers but if I have any, you can find them on the Premade Covers page. The best place to make sure you catch my premades before they are sold is in The Swoonies Romance Art Facebook Group.
If you purchased your premade before November 1, 2022, your cover likely included the ebook title design and print cover, though this does vary so you’ll need to reference your invoice or ask me to verify to be certain.
If you purchased your premade after November 1, 2022 you’ve purchased an artwork only cover. You’ll receive an immediate download of your artwork. If you’d like to add the title design or a print cover, you can do that at the time of purchase or at a later time.
Premade covers are generally sold as-is, but in some cases I can make minor changes for free or more complex changes for a fee. If you’d like edits to a premade, please ask before purchasing the cover to make sure the changes are possible. If you need edits due to having issues with Amazon, please reference the Amazon doesn’t like the cover I purchased from The Swoonies, can you help? question below.
If your premde cover included the title design & print cover or you purchased them as add-ons, you can request to have your covers completed as you are ready for them. To request your covers, you can use this form or send an email with your details.
- For title only requests, please include the title and author name you’d like to appear on the cover.
- For print cover requests, please download and review the Preparing For Your Print Cover PDF before submitting your materials to make sure you have everything you need.
If Amazon rejects a premade cover that you purcased from The Swoonies, I’d be happy to offer you one round of minor adjustments to see if we can address the issues mentioned.
- This would include things like men’s shirts so they appear closed, closing the open back of a gown, or covering an exposed leg.
- It would not include alterations to suggestive poses or amorous expressions, or any creative requests to change the appearance of the cover.
If you’re concerned about Amazon’s approval, talk with me first about what can potentially be altered on the cover in the event Amazon rejects it. I will not refund covers that are rejected by Amazon. If you are not comfortable with the risk, please do not purchase the cover.
When you complete your premade cover purchase you’ll receive an immediate download with information about how to access your files. If you’re a new client, it may take 24-48 hours to deliver your files as I get you added to my systems, not including weekends.
I can’t apply custom cover deposits to premade cover purchases. You can buy the premade cover outright and speak with me separately about refunding your custom cover deposit. While deposits are typically nonrefundable, I’m usually pretty accomodating with this request, so long as work has not begun on your cover yet and I have enough notice to fill the spot.
I accept payment plans for premade covers under the following conditions:
- You must be able to make an initial, non-refundable, payment covering 30% of the cost of the cover.
- You must commit to making montly payments on a specific date.
- The cover must be fully paid off within 6 months from your first payment.
- If you need to miss a payment, you must notify me before the day your payment is due.
- In the event of a missed payment without notifying me, any amounts paid over the 30% deposit will be immediately refunded and the cover will be placed back up for sale.
- You will not be able to purchase the cover again unless you are able to immediately pay in full.
- If a client fails to fulfill a payment plan agreement without effectively communicating the issue to me, that client will no longer be able to request payment plans or book custom covers.
- Essentially, what I ask for is clear communication. Things happen. If you need to make adjustments to our agreement, I’m happy to help you out with that as long as you communicate in a timely manner and don’t make me chase you down for payments.
You can return a premade cover within 7 days under the following conditions:
- No additional work has done on the cover by your reqest, such as edits, title design, or print cover setups
- You have not shared the cover on social media
There will be a 30% restocking fee for all returned covers.
Custom Cover Questions
Visit the Custom Cover page for intormation on my available packages. Scroll to the bottom of the page and use the form to get in touch.
Custom covers are bookable with a minimal $50 deposit, which can be split into 2 payments of $25 across two months. The full $50 must be paid at least 3 months before your cover booking.
The balance of the cover is not due until the artwork is completed. I’d recommend scheduling your cover for a date far enough into the future that you’ve had time to set the amount you need aside.
That’s awesome! I’m excited and I hope you are too. Once you’ve booked, keep an eye out for an email from me with additional information. For the most part, there isn’t a whole lot for you to do until it’s time to start working on your cover. In the meantime, you can familiarize yourself with your project board or work on creating a Pinterest board for inspiration.
I use the app ClickUp to manage all my custom and premade covers and I universally call this your “project board” for convenience. Within ClickUp you’ll receive a dedicated space where you can find details about your bookings, quick access to your download files once they’re completed, records of our correspondence, and easy review comment tools for providing feedback on your covers. Your Project Board keeps all the details of your premade & custom covers in order and prevents small details from falling between the cracks.
I’ll send the Custom Cover Questionnaire to you by email when it’s time to fill it out.
This is one of my favorite parts of designing covers. I loooooove looking at potential cover models for them. So swoony! While I won’t personally be able to help you with your model selections until we’re ready to begin designing your cover, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun daydreaming about that now. If you’re feeling restless about starting, I primarily use Period Images and DepositPhotos to license the cover model images (other sources may be an additional fee). Keep in mind that not all photos are suitable for book covers, nor are they suitable for all packages. I recommend bookmarking your favorites or creating a pinterest board that you can share with me when we begin designing your cover. At that time I can weigh in on the best ones to use.
Here are some tips to get you started:
- Look for full length images that show the models from head to toe or only cuts off their legs.
- Waist high and shoulder high images that have arms cut off are not suitable for covers.
- The images should also be clear, without extensive or overly obvious post processing. Examples of this are things like applying grain to the image, unnatural lighting, over softening, excessive blur etc.
- Avoid images that are too low or too high in contrast, as well as women dressed in flimsy white gowns, as they don’t recolor well.
- Look for images with even lighting across the entire body, avoiding those with areas of deep shadows or overly bright areas.
- Choose poses that show the models face well. Avoid slivers of faces.
- Look at the positioning of arms and legs and eliminate those that look awkward.
- If your model has their hair short or up, usually hair swaps are possible. If the model has long hair that is draped over the body, these generally cannot be converted to updo’s. Additionally, long hair may interfere with costume alterations.
- Avoid overlapping faces if you’re considering a head swap.
Revision rounds are the opportunities you’ll have during the design process to review and request edits to your cover. The number of revisions rounds is highly dependent on the package and complexity of the cover. When we reach this stage of the cover design, I’ll make sure you know exactly what information I need and you’ll have at least one opportunity to approve or request a change to every element on the cover.
You download and review the Preparing For Your Print Cover PDF if you’d like to get a jumpstart on preparing for your print cover. Otherwise, I’ll let you know during the design process when it’s time to get ready for that.
When your files are ready for download, you’ll receive an email with a direct link to download them. You’ll also be able to find access to a personal downoads folder on your Project Board.
During the cover design process you have ample opportunity to weigh in on the appearance of the cover, including the chance to request edits and changes to every aspect of the cover along the way. It’s important that you let me know during these opportunities if something isn’t working for you. Generally speaking, once you approve your cover and it’s delivered to you, no more changes can be made.
That said, I never want a client to be unhappy, so if you’re not loving something about your final cover, come talk to me about it and we will see what we can do. If it’s a minimal change, I’ll try to do it. Some changes may result in an additional fee.
