Everyone likes an underdog story. Show me a person who doesn’t love Cool Runnings and I’ll show you a liar. But while comparisons to Jamaican bobsled teams may be tenuous, damonza.com did start out similarly modest and unassuming. Founded by Damon Freeman in 2012 as nothing more than a side project, Damonza has since grown into a trailblazer in book cover design, formatting and marketing. Having built an incredibly talented and passionate team, Damonza has produced thousands of book covers for a multitude of authors since its foundation, including many New York Times and USA Today bestsellers.
Fourteen years on, we still measure a cover by one thing: whether it makes the right reader stop scrolling. That means knowing what your book is up against in its category, getting it right at thumbnail size, and telling you when a concept isn’t doing your book any favors. Most of our work comes from authors who came back or who sent someone else our way, and that’s the number we actually watch.
FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR
After nearly two decades in the design and advertising industries and launching several successful businesses along the way, Damon Freeman stumbled into book cover design in 2011 as a part-time experiment. His timing couldn’t have been better: the self-publishing boom hit, and what began as a side project quickly became a thriving business.
By 2012, Damon left the world of agency deadlines and client pitches behind to focus on building Damonza full-time. He soon discovered that despite his best efforts, he wasn’t in fact a sleepless cyborg capable of running two careers at once, and chose to pour everything into his new venture.
As Damonza’s founder and Creative Director, Damon focuses on making sure every project that leaves the studio gives an author’s book its strongest shot at success. He leads a team of talented designers, pushes the work to meet consistently high standards, and keeps an eye on new trends while staying grounded in what matters most: helping every book reach its full potential.
Benjamin’s design and marketing career began in 2000, and before joining Damonza he’d been involved in the development of three very successful businesses in the field. Since answering Damon’s call in 2012 Benjamin has become an absolutely invaluable member of the team, and is now responsible for the delivery of everything that happens inside the book. His creative talent combined with his eye for detail ensure that every book that Damonza is involved with has the greatest possible chance of success. Just don’t forget us little people when you make it big.
Every Damonza project is run by a project manager, and they are who you will deal with from the first touch to the final files. They take your brief, translate it into something the design team can work from, run the revision rounds, and handle the trim sizes, file specs and print requirements so you never have to learn any of it. One person, one thread, start to finish. No ticket numbers, no getting passed around.
Robynne and the project management team have shepherded thousands of books through the studio, which means very little about a book project surprises them anymore. Late manuscript. Retitled series. A publisher who needs the file in a format nobody has heard of. They have seen it all.
They also know the design side well enough to be useful rather than just relay messages. If a concept is fighting your genre, or the title is too long for the treatment you have picked, they will say so early instead of letting you find out in the last round. And they will push back on us when they need to. Their job is your book, not our schedule.
We’re super grateful to all the authors and publishers who’ve taken the time to pay us a compliment or write a testimonial.
Send us an email below and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Bear in mind we’re based in New Zealand.
All prices quoted on this website are in US dollars.
Damonza.com is a division of Booknack Limited.
PHYSICAL ADDRESS:
Ground Floor
229 Dairy Flat Highway
Albany, Auckland
0632
New Zealand
MAILING ADDRESS:
59 Maka Terrace
Orewa, Auckland
0931
New Zealand
E-MAIL:
contact@damonza.com
Damonza is a proud member of The Authors Guild and The Alliance of Independent Authors
