This may be one of the most frustrating parts for me. I'm a bit of perfectionist, so I really want my stories to have good covers, and when they don't, I'm hard on myself and will spend more time making multiple covers for that story rather than actually writing it.

Having a good cover for your story or fan fiction is really important. Of course there's the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" but we all do it, unfortunately. But don't be fooled! Some stories are really bad but have amazing covers and some stories are amazing but have awful covers. Don't just assume that a story is good because it has a good cover. If your story is good though, having a good cover will help it get more views (probably).

There are a few different ways you can get a cover for your story. The first way is to , but I wouldn't use it because it's not really that good. Wattpad really limits you on what fonts and pictures you can use for the cover.

Another way is to This obviously could go with using the software on Wattpad, but there are other sites, softwares and apps you can use to make them. Heck, you could even draw your cover on a piece of paper and scan it/take a picture of it. I'll put a list of softwares and stuff you could use later.

The third way you can get a cover for your story is to Whether it be a professional graphic designer (or someone who works in that field) or a friend or family member or someone you know or someone on Wattpad, I garuntee (did I spell that right lol?) you'll find someone who could make a cover for you. If I weren't making the cover, I'd probably just look on here for someone who could. The easiest way to do that is to search up "book covers" in the search bar. You'll find people who are willing to make covers on here. More often than not, however, they'll have a set of rules and guidelines to follow, and possibly even payment (not really money though). If they do have rules, read them carefully and follow them.

Now if you're going to make the cover yourself, or if you're someone who wants to make covers for other people, here are some websites, softwares and apps you could use.

This one is the most obvious. I don't use it because I don't have it and I'm not going to pay for it. If you have it though, or you're willing to pay for the software, go ahead and use it. I'm pretty sure it's the most commonly used software for book covers.

This is a website that is very similar to photoshop. This is what I use 99% of the time. It's really good and easy to use if you've ever used photoshop before (I have in school). If you haven't used any type of photoshop software before, it may be more difficult. I'm sure there's an instruction manual thing on there somewhere. It's free to use and you don't need to make an account to use it. I put an external link somewhere here for you guys.

This is an app I bought on my iPod and transferred to my iPhone. It's also like photoshop and it's pretty easy to use. However, it doesn't have any options to add text, so you'll have to add that separately using another app or software.

This is also very similar to use. It doesn't have a lot of the tools that photoshop softwares would have, but it has enough of them. I've made some pretty decent covers with that app. You can download it onto your laptop (depending on what laptop and software you have) or your apple device. I don't know about Samsung.

Here is a cover for my story "Dark Side of the Moon [Louis]" that I made using Superimpose and PicsArt.

This is actually the best cover I've ever made, I think.

**Sidenote: you're not restricted to the apps and softwares and websites I suggested. If you know any good sites/apps/softwares you can use, go ahead. You can even look some up yourself. My dad suggested a software called "Gimp" and even downloaded it onto my computer, but I find it confusing.**

- Make sure you know the dimensions that the website allows for the cover. Don't use an online canvas that's 800x800 if the dimensions are 500x800. What I do for my covers is just take a cover that I currently have and paint over it with one cover before making another one. That way I don't always have to look for the dimensions. I can't remember what they are for Wattpad.

- If you want an actual person (like a celebrity) on the cover, search up their name and add png (ex. Louis Tomlinson png). Their pictures will either come up with a white background (which you can remove easily using the Wand tool on photoshop or Pixlr), or they'll come with a transparent background, so you won't have to worry about removing it. If your cover is going to have a plain white background, photos with white backgrounds may not be a problem. If you can't find any decent png's, just find a way to remove the background (on photoshop and Pixlr, it's called the Wand tool).

- Try to not have too many people on the cover. It gets crowded. And if you are going to have a lot of people, try to focus on one or two. Make them the main focus of the cover (besides the title).

- Keep allignment and proximity in mind. I'm taking graphic design in school right now, so I've been focusing a lot on this. Proximity is more important in making a cover, but still. Proximity is (and I'm copying and pasting this from a website because it explains it better) "simply the process of ensuring related design elements are placed together. Any unrelated items, should be spaced apart. Close proximity indicates that items are connected or have a relationship to each other and become one visual unit which helps to organise or give structure to a layout." (http://www.edgee.net/the-principles-of-graphic-design-how-to-use-proximity-effectively/) I wouldn't worry about it way too much, but if you want to know more about it, look up the elements and principles of design on Google.

- Make sure the cover is to the story. If you have someone smiling and laughing on the cover but they're really depressed in the book, it doesn't really make sense.

- I don't really like black and white covers all that much. They're bland and can be hard to work with. If you do search up elements/principles design, you'll see stuff about the importance of colour. (I know I have a black and white cover, but I was just lazy with that one).

- The cover should be bright and fun(?) if the story is happy/funny/any positive feeling or emotion. If the story is sad, darker and/or duller colours may be useful for this (black and white can be used here). If it's a dark, mysterious, and/or scary story, dark covers work really well. If you look at the cover I put above for my story, you'll see that it uses various shades of blue, a cool colour, and is dark. The story is about a werewolf, which is why it's dark.

That's all I can think of for now. If I have any other tips, I'll be sure to add them.

Btw, if you love One Direction and werewolves, please check out my story "Dark Side of the Moon". It would me a lot to me.