Cover Story - Libby Cone

One thing that an indie author has to be is resourceful. Book covers can be expensive and sometimes you just don't have the money to splurge, especially when you're publishing a short story for 99¢. Libby Cone explains how public domain artwork and graphic design shareware can be an indie author's best friends.

I have designed the covers (if you can call them that) for all my Kindle books and short stories. I hired a designer I found on LinkedIn to execute my idea for the self-published paperback edition of War on the Margins. She did a very good job.

When I published the Kindle edition of Flesh and Grass I used a Dutch painting that I thought was in the public domain. When I found out it wasn't, I obtained a public domain painting.

I did the "cover" for "Quantum Fashionistas" using GimP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), but had to redo it when I realized its definition wasn't high enough. GimP is somewhat daunting, but I eventually figured out how I did it the first time and produced a reasonable facsimile!

Libby Cone's works can be found on Amazon.