Book cover templates are not such a terrible option if you tried to make your own cover and either couldn’t get what was in your head onto a Word doc, or you don’t have the time or energy to figure it all out.

There are template websites out there that sell them and also lots of places to buy already-made covers. You just put your own info into the template and you’re all done–similar to the CS Cover Creator.

While I was looking around some of these sites I noticed a few things:

1. Some templates only fit certain book sizes, so make sure the cover that you think will perfectly fit your story and title will also accommodate the size of the book you were planning on. This is especially important if you’re paperbacking a novella. The smaller trim size will make more pages, creating a thicker book.
2. Some sites sell you the cover and that’s it. Make sure that you are buying a template that also includes the spine and back, otherwise, it will be your responsibility to match font and colors to create the spine and back cover. This isn’t so important if you are going digital (e-reader) only, but maybe down the road you decide to create a paperback as well, you’ll need to submit all of it.
3. Sometimes you can copy it for free. Study the picture, the background, the placement of title, where your name will go. How fancy is the back?  If you found the picture at Dreamstime could you copy it and save yourself a couple bucks? It’s worth trying to find the picture at least before you buy the template. You can do this for any book cover as well. Look up the top selling books in your genre. Make a list of the things they have in common and see what you can come up with. If anything, this will give you an idea of what you’re looking for in a template.
4. Maybe a template is cheaper. I made a pretty one on Canva, and the picture was a dollar. I found the same picture on Canstockphoto, but since I buy them singly there and don’t subscribe, it would have cost me 8 dollars. Canva is front cover only, so either way I would still have to do the spine and back cover myself. And if I use Canva, I would need to figure out the font so I could use the same on the back cover.

All I did was Google “book cover templates” and came up with a few choices.

Cover Design Studio looked nice, and they have some pretty covers. Make sure you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page of a template you like and look for Additional Information. It will tell you the trim size available, etc. In the pricing, they have a couple of options, and one is CS plus Kindle. That sucks because if you upload to CS first, they send you the file for the Kindle cover, it even says so in the file name:

There’s The Corner of 1700’s Kindle picture of the cover CS sent me for when I put my book in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). So that website is making you pay for something you don’t need. Otherwise, you can buy the Kindle version and make the spine and back cover yourself.

Joanna Penn on her blog post listed DIY Book Covers as a resource. I didn’t check them out but that could be something to look into as well.

Otherwise, Google “Premade Book Covers” and that will give you a bigger selection of finds. But, as always, make sure you ask about the spine and back cover. They may charge you extra for those.

Hopefully, you can use them for inspiration. I found this one on Cover Design Studio:

Something about it called to me. I don’t know if was the sparkles, or what. But I liked it and wanted to replicate it. I couldn’t find the picture, but I found something . . . not similar, but something else I liked, and I made this:

It’s not exactly what Cover Design Studio made, but I like mine. Maybe you can find something that can help you put down what you like too. And I always have to add the disclaimer to make sure you can use it commercially, and in the copyright page of your book, credit the photo to the website and artist who made your picture available. You bought it, but it’s the polite thing to do. I stole this picture off Pinterest so I wouldn’t be able to use it for a real cover. Hopefully, I could find it elsewhere, but this book hasn’t been written, so it’s not terribly important.

Happy browsing!