Design a Professional Book and EBook Cover

Thone is incompetent. Do not use him for any work under any circumstances.

I first contacted Thone with clear instructions and my own design for a Createspace book cover. Thone took an extremely simple idea and made it look terrible, like a Disney cartoon.

Although Thone was quick to provide revisions, they looked appalling - as if a child had drawn them using Microsoft Paint in 1997.

Given that Thone was clearly not up to the task of even improving on an extremely simple logo concept, I used a basic online image editor to create a new logo. Thone then smoothed out the edges of the new logo.

His total contribution to my project was a slightly different font, adding a white border around the edges of the front cover, and smoothing out the edges of my second logo design. He also provided a very basic spine design, which an amateur friend (who I’ll get to in a minute) replaced and did better in about 90 seconds.

Thone also added a white border on the back cover - but this led to the cover being rejected by Createspace, as it interfered with the placement of the barcode.

Createspace also rejected the cover, as it was not correctly sized despite my having given Thone explicit instructions on the cover dimensions.

I got a friend and Createspace author with minimal experience using Photoshop to correctly size the cover using a Createspace cover template - which, given the fact that Thone advertises himself as being a professional Createspace cover designer, he should have done in the first place. My friend tells me that this took a total of five minutes to complete - including removing the offending white border (Thone’s contribution) from the back cover.

After receiving a Createspace proof copy in the post, it turned out that the red Thone had used for the cover logo printed out orange. Had Thone been competent, he would have chosen a shade of red compatible with Createspace’s printing requirements.

This meant that I wasted some $20 and a week waiting for delivery, ordering a proof copy that only then allowed me to realise how useless Thone’s contribution was.

My friend then corrected the cover, another proof was ordered, and it turned out perfectly, no thanks to Thone.

My amateur friend, with minimal experience using Photoshop, was able to do a better job than Thone - a so-called professional.

I paid Thone’s invoice rather than dispute it through PPH - but if I were you, I’d save yourself the hassle, download a trial version of Photoshop, and do it yourself.

It will be done faster, and to a higher standard.

TL;DR: A child could do a more professional job than Thone. Do not use him for any design work whatsoever.