So you are on a strict budget but you need a really great cover to catch a potential reader's eye?  The cover is really the most difficult aspect of publishing because it's the most important.  It sounds superficial but it's true: You will get overlooked if your cover is unimpressive.  People will judge your book by its cover.  Why?  Human nature I suppose.  Good things are supposed to come in nice packages.  If it weren't a part of our make up as homo sapiens, then Christmas presents wouldn't need the gaudy bows and glittery paper.  Your cover will visually speak to your audience, tell them what your book is about, and inspire an emotion within them to actually take a look or possibly even buy your work.  I'm sure that your story or idea is gripping, but if it cannot pass the 15 second sight test, it'll stay on the shelf and collect dust.

I'm not an artist.  I can draw stick figures at best.  Even then, they don't look all that great.  If you can find an artist to do your cover, then you're really in luck.  I could not afford an artist as a student.  Many of the professionals I talked to would draw or design a cover, but for a price that would've exploded my non existent budget.  However I wasn't going to give up.  A bland cover would be suicide, after all.  So, I tried to look for programs that were inexpensive and tried to go it alone.  If you have a little visual skill and some time, you can make a great cover, and spend only a slight amount of money!

First off, I use Gimp as my program to manipulate images.  GIMP is like photoshop, but free.  That's all I needed to hear.  I use a lot of freeware.  Openoffice and GIMP are both good examples of programs that can do a lot, and for my purposes, were no different from the high end programs that I could never afford.  The only program I paid for was BookCoverPro.  I wasn't even going to spring for that, but it wasn't that expensive, $30 or so, and it helped when I was doing covers for other people and needed a quick way of inputting dimensions for the book.  It's not necessary though.  You can do all of the dimensions yourself, but if you find yourself having to do a lot of book designs and just want something to take the load off of you, BookCover Pro is great.

So, I had to think long and hard about what I wanted to convey to my reader.  My main book series is "So You Want to Play Go?"  It's a three part primer on the Chinese game of Go.  Go is relatively unknown in the West, but has gained popularity over the past few years.  Still, I figured that since none of my friends or my family knew of it, I'd have to relay a LOT of information in the cover.  I'd have to let the viewer know my book was about a game, what that game looked like, and to also convey whether or not my book was for people who were absolute beginners, or more experienced.  The book series is graduated.  The first book is for people who've never heard of Go, while the third book is for people who have probably been playing for at least a year and were interested in the game.  So I decided to first color code the books.  Green would be for beginners, Blue for intermediate, and Red for expert.  I figured that if in the future I were to come out with supplementary books, I would use the same color coding so that people would know that the book was designed for someone with their skill level.  I also needed images of a Go board and stones, so that there would be a little mystery surrounding the game, and also to make it look fun.

I tried taking pictures of my own go board, but I didn't really have the equipment or the lighting to make it look book cover quality.  I would have to spring some money after all.  There are a lot of great stock photo sites.  It's like hiring a professional photographer and having him take a single picture, then charge you a decent price for it.  I used Istockphotos, which is a user friendly and great site.  They had a decent selection of pics of go boards, and I picked one out.  So, I had the picture and a color code as a theme.  I decided to divide the cover into three parts and used bright colors to convey the book was family friendly.  I added a caption to say that the book was "Level 1: Beginner" and then added 30-20 kyu for people who knew Go terminology.  The cover design is very simple, but it says a lot.  The Chinese character indicates the culture the game is from, China, the picture shows that it's a game and also communicates the pieces used for the game as well as the board, and it's clear the book is for a beginner.  People who first start playing Go get a little intimidated with Go books, because the game can seem complex.  Letting them know that the book is just for them is a way to assuage their fears. 

So, some tips: