I’m not gonna lie, this is probably the step that will take me the most time. My full time job is as a software engineer, and I have a decent bit of experience as a graphic designer from when I was a solo web developer, doing all the graphics for all of my own products.
As such, I feel like I can make the cover myself – but I’m also absolutely sure I’m not the first author to self-publish who believes that, and the current state of the market is such that you can’t fly by with a mediocre, noticeably sub-par book cover. So, I’m taking my time to do market research, see what covers are like in my genre (man, I love local libraries and online bookstores). This provides two benefits – I can see what readers expect a book cover to look like in my genre, and I have base material with which to, as objectively as possible, compare my design efforts to ensure they are up to snuff.
I’m taking this on while my editor is going through the copyedit of my manuscript, and my optimistic self is hoping I can have the cover done (or close) by the time the edit is done at the end of this month.