When a cover design project goes wrong — multiple rounds of revisions, a final product that misses the mark, or a frustrated relationship with a designer — the cause is almost always a poorly written brief, not a poorly skilled designer. A cover designer can only work with the information you give them, and most authors dramatically underestimate how much information a designer needs to produce the right cover. "I write thriller novels, please make it look professional" is not a brief. It is a prompt for the designer to make assumptions, and their assumptions will not match your mental image. This guide explains what every good brief needs to include and provides a template you can fill in for any cover project.
What a Cover Brief Is Actually For
A cover brief serves three purposes. First, it gives the designer the factual and contextual information they need to make informed design decisions. Second, it creates a shared standard for evaluating whether the finished design is correct — if you briefed a dark atmospheric palette and you receive a bright pastel design, you have a clear, documented basis for requesting changes. Third, it forces you to articulate what you actually want, which is harder than it sounds. Many authors discover through the brief-writing process that they had only a vague, inconsistent idea of what they wanted before they tried to write it down. Working through the brief is a design clarification exercise that benefits your own thinking, not just the designer's.
A brief should be detailed enough that a competent designer can produce a strong first concept without needing to ask basic clarifying questions. It should not be so prescriptive that it removes all creative room from the designer — specifying exact hex colors, exact font names, and exact image compositions turns the designer into a production technician rather than a creative collaborator. The goal is to specify the parameters clearly while leaving the designer freedom to make decisions within those parameters.
The Cover Brief Template: Every Section Explained
Book title and subtitle. Provide the exact text that must appear on the cover, including correct capitalization. Also specify the author name exactly as it should appear, including any middle initials or pen name distinctions. Note any series name or series numbering that must appear.
Genre and subgenre. Be specific. "Romance" is not specific enough. "Contemporary romance, small-town setting, heat level moderate to steamy" is useful. The more precisely you identify your subgenre, the more targeted the designer's genre research can be. Specify whether this is the first book in a series (cover should be designed with series branding in mind) or a standalone.
Book synopsis, 100 to 150 words. Not a jacket blurb and not your full query letter synopsis. A brief description of the premise, central character, setting, and core emotional conflict. The designer does not need to understand every plot point; they need to understand the book's emotional world and the promise it makes to readers.
Target reader. Who buys books like this? "Women 30 to 55 who read in the Kindle romance store and follow Bookstagram accounts" is more useful than "readers who enjoy romance." The target reader description tells the designer about aesthetic expectations, sophistication level, and platform context.
Comparable covers. Provide three to five specific covers from published books in your genre that represent the direction you want. Include both what you like about them and what you want to do differently. This is the single most useful piece of information you can give a designer — seeing what already works in your genre is better than any amount of verbal description. Include URLs or attach images.
Covers to avoid or anti-references. Equally useful: covers that represent directions you do not want to go. A designer knowing "not like this" saves as many revision rounds as knowing "like this." Be specific about what you dislike — the color palette, the typography style, the image type, the overall mood.
Mood and tone keywords. List five to eight adjectives that describe the emotional world of the book and therefore the desired emotional impact of the cover. Examples: dark, mysterious, intimate, playful, epic, melancholy, tense, warm, eerie, sophisticated. Pair with one or two anti-keywords: "atmospheric but not bleak," "serious but not cold." These are guiding creative constraints, not design specifications.
Color direction. Indicate preferred color palette range if you have one, and any colors you want to avoid. "Warm tones, amber to deep red, avoid cold blues and greens" is sufficient direction. You do not need to specify exact values unless you are matching existing series branding. If you have no strong color preference, say so — a good designer will derive the palette from the genre and mood information.
What to Include About Technical Requirements
Deliverables. Specify exactly what files you need. For a standard indie ebook launch: a JPEG at 1600 x 2560 pixels (Kindle cover), possibly a smaller web-optimized version for social media, and optionally a 3D mockup. If you also need a print cover for KDP Print or IngramSpark, this is a separate scope item that requires spine width calculation and should be specified explicitly along with your interior page count and paper type (these determine spine width).
File format and resolution. State the required dimensions and format clearly. For digital ebook covers: 1600 x 2560 pixels, JPEG, sRGB color space. For print covers: specify the template source (KDP's cover calculator, Ingram's specifications) and request that the designer work from that template.
Number of revisions included. When hiring through Fiverr or a similar platform, the gig package specifies this. When hiring directly, agree on a revision count in advance. Two to three rounds of revisions is standard for cover design at most budget levels. An unlimited revisions offer typically means the designer expects to make minor adjustments, not fundamental redesigns.
Timeline. State your publication date and any hard deadlines along the way. ARC distribution, launch team reveal, or pre-order listing dates may all require the cover before the final publication date. Give the designer a realistic working window — cover design at the $100 to $300 level typically takes seven to fourteen days including revisions.
How to Review and Give Feedback on a First Concept
When the designer delivers an initial concept, evaluate it against your brief before reacting to whether you like it aesthetically. Does it match the genre? Does the mood align with your keywords? Does the typography serve the hierarchy you need? If the answer to these questions is yes but you still do not like it, the issue is usually personal taste rather than a design failure — and that is a much harder conversation to have productively than "this doesn't match the brief."
Useful feedback is specific and directional. "The typography feels too light and delicate for a thriller — can we make it bolder and more impactful?" is useful. "I don't like it, can you try something different?" is not useful, because it gives the designer no information about what to change or in which direction. Every piece of feedback should tell the designer what specifically to change and, where possible, what the change should move toward.
If the first concept is fundamentally wrong in a way that the brief should have prevented — wrong genre aesthetic, wrong mood entirely, clearly unrelated to the comparable covers you provided — that is a signal that either the designer did not read the brief carefully or the brief was not as clear as you thought. Before escalating to a dispute, send a message pointing to the specific brief sections that the concept doesn't match and asking for a concept more closely aligned with those specifications. Most designers respond well to this approach and will produce a significantly better second concept.