Beyond generating ideas, Visuals by PublishFlow gives you full control over your book cover creation. The Cover Tool is designed to help you go from a rough idea to a professional, print-ready design.

Here is how to create and refine your cover step by step.

How to Start Creating a Cover

Start in the Visuals Dashboard. Click on “+ New Visual”.

Select Cover to open the Cover Tool.

1. Set Your Creative Direction

This is where you define how your cover should look and feel.

Select the Cover Engine

Choose between:

• Version 1: Uses your book details and creative direction to generate covers.
• Version 2 (Beta): Allows you to target a specific marketplace (e.g. Amazon US) and keywords, while using current marketplace patterns for a more competitive market positioning.

1. Define Your Style

Select your preferred aesthetic or let the AI choose one for you.

2. Select the Mood & Feeling

Select your preferred mood or let the app choose one for you based on your book.

3. Select the Cover Size & Specs

Choose the correct format based on your book type.

4. Subtitle Strategy

Choose between two subtitle styles for your cover:

• Standard: Make your full subtitle appear as text on the cover. (If your book doesn't have a subtitle you can also let AI create one.)
• Sticker/Badge: Add a short text as a visual badge or let AI generate suggestions. (Stickers can also be added later in Magic Studio.)

5. Characters & Vision

• Add AI-generated characters
• Upload reference images
• Or describe your vision in text

6. Style References (Optional)

Upload 1–3 cover images or other visuals whose style you'd like to use as inspiration. PublishFlow can analyze elements such as color palettes, typography, composition, and overall mood to help guide the design process.

You can:

• Specify what elements to borrow from the image.
• Define a Style Match Strength (Subtle, Balanced, or Strong) to control how closely the generated design follows your reference images.

2. Generate Your First Covers

The first generation may take a few minutes. Once your initial covers are created, generating new variations becomes much faster.

Review Your Cover Results

This is where your ideas come to life.

You can:

• Finalize a cover
• Open it in Magic Studio
• Generate more variations

Create Variations

You can keep refining your direction until it feels right.

Choose between:

• Combine Favorites
• Remix a Favorite
• Same Settings, New Images
• Fresh Direction

This allows you to explore different styles without starting from scratch.

Refine in Magic Studio

Once you find your favourite result that matches your vision, open the cover in Magic Studio.

Here you can:

• Reposition text
• Adjust styles
• Add stickers or badges
• Fine-tune details

3. Finalize Your Cover

When your cover is ready, click Finalize.

This will:

• Upscale your cover to print-ready 2K quality
• Format it for KDP standards
• Allow you to download it as a JPEG file

4. What You Can Do After Finalizing

After finalizing your cover, you can:

• Use it as your book thumbnail
• Duplicate it
• Download it
• Create an audiobook cover
• Generate a back cover
• Return to Magic Studio for further edits

Why Use the Cover Tool?

The Cover Tool lets you explore, refine, and finalize your design in one place.

Instead of relying on a single result, you can iterate quickly and stay in full creative control, until your cover looks exactly the way you want.

Can I edit external covers with PublishFlow?

At the moment, it is not possible to import external covers into PublishFlow for further editing. However, you can use PublishFlow to create wraparound covers and A+ Content. You can also upload an existing image and use it as a reference when creating a new front cover.

Want to see it in action? Check out the tutorials for the Visuals Tool.

Updated on: 04/06/2026