Well, yes, technically … if you use PowerPoint to create your cover; and if you use Amazon’s “CreateSpace on Demand Publishing” service with its templates and automated features.
On the other hand, there is no editor looking over your book. Nor is there any professional designer using his or her skills and knowledge of typography and marketing to create a unique cover to attract readers and an interior that allows those readers to read your opus in a way that is relaxing and easy on their eyes.
Of course, for a fee, you can have all these missing touches applied.
As a book designer, page compositor, and layout artist, I am naturally aghast that authors who seriously place any value on their work would follow this route to publication. Admittedly, I have a horse in this race, since I professionally design and lay out books.
That all said, I want to be clear that I love books. I am not in favor of people with books that are of limited commercial appeal being denied publication simply because that commercial appeal is limited, without any regard to the quality of the book. But I also find it anathema to suggest everyone, including authors of books that have nothing to say and that say it badly should also be published. That is what such services as CreateSpace allow.
Emphasis added by me.
Previously here:
eBooks: The Issue Of Covers, Again
Writers: Would You Call A Doctor Or A Healer?
Caliban’s End Offers Several Lessons
Free eBook: Password Incorrect
Book Covers: Murder
Book Cover: What?!
eBooks: More About Covers
eBooks: A Cover Test
Writer 2.0: Professional Editing Blog
They Don’t Write These Anymore
Globalizing Copyediting
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