What you need for a book cover
You also need to know what size and company you are printing through as they all have different requirements.
These covers are all different. Even from paperback to hardcover. Different page counts too, which for Ingramspark and Lulu have to be exact page counts.
Amazon gives you a few pages to be off but if your page count is off you can end up with spine errors.
Page counts include ALL pages. (See Below)
Ingrams requires all that space around the cover for the best printing. That space has your ISBN and what type of book you are printing. If that information doesn't match your Ingram account they won't print the book.
My Beef with Lulu! They won't tell you the cover size or give you a template until you upload the interior. This is good as you can't get the wrong size. This is bad as you have to go step by step rather than doing the interior and cover at the same time.
INGRAM SPARKS DIRECTIONS!
Easiest: Get your ISBN and load all the meta book data to Ingrams FIRST otherwise you will do it twice and if the information doesn't match it's a pain to change.
Go fill out the form:
CHANGE the File Type to PDF
You will get a pretty Pink and Blue PDF in your email (check the spam folder as this normally takes less than one minute and a max of 5 minutes)
Looks like the below minus my additions.
If I am building your cover, Send the PDF to me.
If you are buying a Canva link, keep reading.
In the yellow highlight you'll find a Document Size (blown up on this version for easy viewing) Check the size go to the templates and download the correct size. Follow the instructions to use this on Canva. These do not go by your book size!
If you are using Fiverr go back there here
For ALL cover creation, I use Adobe Photoshop. It has the best features for these files.
