You may have an exceptional eBook, but if your book lacks a book cover or has a boring one, chances are it won’t attract customers. Of course you can always hire a professional to design your book cover, but it’s to cheaper to design your own cover. Before creating your book cover, study book covers, such as on Amazon’s Bestselling Digital Books site and note those features that contribute to a cover being exceptional.
Know eBook Cover Requirements
Covers should be in a portrait rather than a landscape format. Different self-publishing companies have various requirements. For example, book covers for Amazon Kindle eBooks require JPEG or TIF images with pixel requirements of a horizontal minimum of 500 pixels and a vertical minimum of 1280 pixels. Save inside pictures at 72 dpi (dots per inch) for optimal web viewing.
Smashwords book cover requirements are images that are JPEG, GIF or PNG files that are at least 600 pixels tall. The maximum file size is 20 MB.
Barnes and Noble’s Pubit publishing platform takes JPG files between 5 KB and 2 MB, with sides ranging between 750 pixels and 2000 pixels long.
Choosing a Color for Your eBook Cover
Because color affects how potential customers respond to your eBooks, choosing the right color for your cover is critical. First consider your audience. For example, if your eBook is targeted for men, then you’ll want bold, strong colors.
On the other hand, if it’s intended for women, then choose soft pastels. Children relate to bright primary colors of red, yellow and blue. If you’re not using a photograph, limit your colors to two or three.
Feelings Associated with Colors
Red is a good color for an action book, but can also stand for romance. Pink, a soft red, is also linked with romance and love, and attracts females.
Use orange to depict characteristics such as courage, confidence, vitality, youthfulness or health. Orange also relates to books about the earth, just as green does. Covers with yellow themes are excellent for books conveying energy, warmth and happiness. Yellow also emits a feeling of lightheartedness or can exhibit feelings of heaven, as depicted on the cover of Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo and Sonja Burpo—a New York Times bestseller.
Blue is often chosen for books revolving around travel, truth, professionalism, power, wealth and freedom. It gives a feeling of serenity and can be associated with the sea or the sky. Purple goes well with a book with topics of sophistication, dignity, mystery and spirituality and is also linked with royalty; but use lavender for romantic or nostalgic books.
Green represents topics such as prosperity, health, nature and food and has a fresh, soothing affect. This color can also stand for renewal and fertility. The earthy color of brown gives feelings of credibility and is ideal for books of home and earth. This neutral color can represent the earth or books pertaining to the outdoors.
Use black for a book that’s dramatic, classy, powerful or sophisticated. Black would also work well for books about space or mysteries of the night. The conservative color of grey stands for security and reliability.
Software for Designing Book Covers
Many eBook authors use Photoshop, which has a variety of graphics. With Photoshop authors can create a 3-D effect, as well as use other features to make their covers even more realistic. Adobe Illustrator is another good software program to use.
Paint, which is included as software in most computers, is a good graphics program that can render professional-looking covers, although it doesn’t have as many features as Photoshop. I use Paint for most of my eBook covers by simply importing my own photographs into the software. Then, after adjusting the cover to the proper size, I add the name of the book and author.
Choosing a Font for a Book Cover
When choosing a font for your book cover, consider those that are easy to read rather than fancy fonts. Make sure the font is bold and is large enough so your readers won’t have any trouble reading your title. Don’t use more than two types of fonts.
Finally, don’t forget to have fun designing your book cover and be as creative as possible. The quality of your eBook cover represents the quality of the book you’re trying to sell, so you’ll want to put as much effort and creativity into designing it as you do in writing your book.
Sources
Amazon: Bestsellers Digital (date accessed 7-15-2011)
Amazon: Self-publishing Help (date accessed 7-15-2011)
The Book Designer; Top 8 Cover Design Tips for Self-Publishers; Joel Friedlander; June 9, 2010 (date accessed 7-15-2011)
Ask Tony Brown: How to Choose Colors for Your Ebook Cover (date accessed 7-15-2011)
Amazon; Heaven is for Real; Todd and Sonja Burpo; Thomas Nelson; 2010 (date accessed 7-15-2011)
Venice Kichura - Venice Kichura is a freelance writer who writes on a variety of subjects. She holds a special passion for topics relating to art and ...
