The Ah-ha Moment
My product manager and I noticed a recurring trend in the weekly sales data: Books that have covers sell at least 30% more than those without covers.

We Questioned...
Why would an author spend so much time in writing a story, but neglect the book cover?

Two Big Goals
We've identified two big priorities for DIY Publishing – making sure indie authors have access to essential tools for success, and ensuring that every indie book has a professional-looking cover.







The Challenges

USERS
  • Our user base primarily consists of writers who may not have extensive experience creating high-quality book covers.
  • Many of our authors do not have access to graphic design tools or the desire to invest time and money in cover design.
  • If our users are unable to quickly understand and effectively use a graphic editing tool, they may abandon it in frustration.

  • BUSINESS
  • This project was not on the product roadmap and it would be hard to convince the upper management and get their full support.
  • We had very little time to create a proof of concept.
  • We also lacked engineering resources.











































  • Design System






    Redlines






    Content Design - Cover Templates

    Amazon Indie Publishing

    Cover Creator

    UX, Web Application, Consumer DIY Platform

    Having a good story for the self-published book is only half of the battle in the publishing world. The other half of success relies on a well designed cover that helps the author’s book get noticed by the readers, making the book stand out from the sea of published books. Having a good book cover is one of the most essential factors for an author to be successful.

    The objective of this project is to provide an online tool where the users can easily create covers with a few clicks. The user first chooses an image to use as the background for the cover, and then customize the color and fonts with the quick styles set. At the end, the user can preview the cover design before submission. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes of the user's time.




    Contribution

  • Design research
  • Concept generation
  • Market research
  • User research
  • Information architecture
  • Wireframes
  • Interaction design
  • Visual design
  • Icon design