Your book cover and your book title are the two most important parts of catching a prospective reader's eye when they're scrolling through Wattpad looking for their next read, so you need to take the time to get this right. Now, I'm not a graphics designer or anything, but I can drop a few tips here. And if you just don't want to deal with graphics at all, I've put together a list with graphics services I've found across the server, and these wonderful, talented people will do the work for you. Click the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button to go there, or click the link in the inline comments here. →

First, the book title and author's name need to go on the cover! If they aren't there, it's just a pretty picture.

Second, any text, especially the title, needs to be big enough to read before you click on the book to go to its landing page. Yes, that can be tricky. It looks fine, and then you save it and scroll through on Wattpad to check, and then you can't read it. I've been there, and it's annoying, but you just have to go back in and edit it again.

Third, and this is my preference, but if a book is part of a series, I like the series name on the cover, too. And I hate "by so-and-so." You don't need the "by." I know it's your book. That little word takes up precious space on that all-important, very limited rectangle of pixels. Just get rid of it. If doing so doesn't help you, it will at least stop triggering me. 😉

Canva is the built-in tool here on the Wattpad website for making covers, and I recommend sitting down and playing with it to see what's available. There are tons of pre-made templates on there that you can use, although you have to be careful about choosing ones that are free, unless you want to pay for higher-quality goodies. It won't ask for payment until you're ready to publish, so you can always change your mind (and your cover). The cover for this book was one of those pre-made templates, and it was free. I moved the text and graphics around, removed a couple of text boxes I didn't need, and added the pencil outline. It took me over an hour, but I really like it. I stuck with free, pre-made templates for most of my books, but I couldn't find anything that felt right for my original story, Second Chances, so I took the plunge, took a few days and many hours, and ended up with a cover I created that I really like (out of free elements, because, ya know, broke). That was really satisfying. I made the covers for A Dove's Tale and A Beast's Tale myself, too, but I still don't like to do my own covers, and I'm not looking forward to doing another one. Fortunately, I now have that graphics services list to reference when I want to skip out on doing it next time. Yay!

Desygner is the tool for the app. I've only played around with it a little on my phone, and I wasn't too thrilled. But I'm more of a computer gal, so I need to play around with it more on the desktop before I can render a verdict. In the meantime, I prefer Canva.

Well, actually I prefer someone else doing the work, but... 😉