Spray My Edges, Please

Book Covers that Dazzle and Attract Readers

Guest Post by Author Alayna Ravenwood

Sprayed edges, anyone? Reversible dust jacket? Special editions are all the rage right now. You can’t scroll Bookstagram without seeing them. You may even be a victim of impulse purchasing a gorgeous book you spied on the shelf at your local bookstore just because it was pretty. I know I am. My most recent was Stolen Midnights by Katherine Quinn. Have I read it? No. Will I? Probably not—it’s YA, not really my thing. But I bought it. Seriously, go look it up. It’s gorgeous. 

The fact is, you are not alone. 

We, humans, are designed to be attracted to pretty things, and there is no doubt a colorful, foiled, digital edge art-designed book might make all the difference in your publishing journey. Think of it as taking the cover design a step further, or stopping the scroll. You have two seconds—that’s it. We live in an incredibly fast-paced world, and the digital landscapes of BookTok and Booksta are even faster. 

I first self-published Eternal Night when I was twenty-five.

I learned a lot that year, and the next, and the next. Self-publishing is not easy—your confidence must be top tier, your budget near endless, and your resolve thicker than steel. At twenty-five, I was armed with none of those traits.

Fast-forward to 2024. Now, I wouldn’t say my budget is endless, but it was okay. The other two things? I have those now. These are required pieces of armor to head into battle with, because believe it or not, self-publishing is a battlefield. The predatory onslaught of scammers is a marked sign of how economically desperate a large portion of the world is. I survived this part of launching my rewritten debut novel, now titled Eternal is the Night, without any more than a few wasted e-mail exchanges that quickly proved to be nonsense. (Looking at you, international book clubs.) We won’t get into the alleged Director of Acquisitions from Random House e-mailing me about the intense world-building or atmospheric start to The Cursed Realm Saga. 

Don’t be a victim. Look for valid domain names, not ones that lead to a website that is “under construction.” No—instead, train your algorithms to show you the reels your readers are seeing. Create similar content; provide a product those influencers want to put in their social media posts. For me, in the romantasy genre, a gorgeous book is almost (dare I say, if not more so?) as important as the story itself. 

Because remember, if you’re self-publishing, you’re competing against traditional publishers printing thousands of copies at a time (and if you don’t understand the difference between offset printing and print-on-demand, you need to—as my tween would say—”search it up”).  We do have one advantage as Indie authors though—traditional publishers sometimes seem to forego all the bells and whistles, paring down a “special edition” to one or two things instead of all the things. A sprayed edge here, an embossed title on the dust jacket there. Cost matters significantly in the trad world; that’s why agents won’t talk to you if your book is over 120k words.

The cool thing about being an Indie is if you can figure out how to finance and produce your own offset run, you can do ALL the bells and whistles, and it is far less per unit than print on demand. At 150k words, my book is far longer than the trad world will have anything to do with unless you are a sales-proven author. 

I see why now. Print on demand makes a book of this length almost impossible to profit from.

This, and my amazing content team putting in their written demands in my DM’s, resulted in me diving into the dark abyss of the internet to figure out how to do this. So, how did I do it? Let’s get into it. 

First, I needed a printer. The big ones that came up first were US-based print-on-demand. These are okay for small print runs, under five hundred, I’d say. You can get a start, get these in the hands of the right influencers, and have them flash your pretty book on the socials that are so integral to an Indie author’s success. 

However, this is not what I advise. If you are serious and you want to see profit eventually, investing in an offset run can be a good idea. Note the word investing here. An offset print run is absolutely an investment in yourself—your book is the risk. You must know your market. If you are selling a space cowboy soap opera (I don’t know why that popped into my head) with an alien MMC with six eyes, it’s unlikely you need the same level of bells and whistles as a romantasy or fantasy. However, a simple sprayed edge (even a solid color) can stop people from passing your table at a book fair. 

The most cost-effective offset run pricing I’ve found is overseas. With a father who supported my family my entire life as a printer in the US, this hurts me, but the fact is, I couldn’t do it if I had to pay the prices US printers quote. Many overseas printers have English-speaking employees and are used to guiding us through the process. Still, do the most research you can, and be prepared for a lot of e-mail exchanges. 

Okay, so you have a printer, what do I tell them?

My entire special edition for Eternal is the Night was designed by me and outsourced to multiple different artists (all of whom I found on Fiverr) and one artist I found on Instagram. There is an artist for every budget, and you can have them design every part of the book and send it on over to the printer. Upfront cost? Yes. Investment, remember?

I know what you are thinking. How do I know what I want to do? First, decide if you are going all out, going minimal, or somewhere in between. Then, go shopping. Look at other examples in your genre. See what they did. Decide what you like, then get your quote for what you want in your special edition. 

This sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?  It is, my friend, it is. Remember what I said about resolve thicker than steel?

Alayna’s love of storytelling began the moment she opened her first copy of Harry Potter and realized books could hold entire worlds. Since then, she’s been creating her own worlds filled with magic, love, and inevitable darkness. Her debut romantasy series, The Cursed Realm Saga, is set to relaunch in the fall of 2026. Beyond writing, Alayna is passionate about helping women rediscover their self-worth and supporting others to live boldly and authentically. She believes joy and light are meant to be shared, and that storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to do it. Alayna publishes her works through Aurelia Press, an imprint of Aurelia & Orion Publishing.