No matter if you have a book agent or are self publishing it is important that your book covers look professional. If your ecover looks cheaply made this will reflect in your sales – or lack of.
The internet is extremely visual so any photos or images, including your ecovers, need to catch someone’s eye. Remember too that people don’t spend hours looking at each website in detail. They scan web pages quickly, so your ecover needs to attract attention quickly.
Try this out for yourself, pop on over to Amazon and see how many book covers you click on. Think about what it is that draws your eye to the cover and make a note of these things.
Another important aspect of ecovers is that they are displayed as thumbnail images. This is a fairly small size so it is even harder for people to really see what your cover looks like.
Below you will find some good ecover creation tips that will help you in designing a professional ecover for your next book.
Title – this is such an important aspect. Your title should always be easy to read and clear, even at the thumbnail size. To make your title stand out make it a different color to your background. This can be a shade darker than the color of your background. Another way to make your title stand out is to use a drop shadow on it.
Images – to catch the eye of a potential buyer you may want to use a professional quality photo on your cover. This can be more enticing than just a plain color on the background. When choosing a professional photo it needs to have a resolution of 300 dpi, this stands for dots per inch. Photographs come with copyright laws so ensure that you have permission to use the photo.
Branding – take this into consideration when creating your ecovers. You may want to use a style that compliments the branding you already have in place. You might have a website or blog so branding your books to this may be a good choice for you. To brand your book you could just use the same colors and fonts, or your logo. If you don’t have a brand now might be a good time to put one in place.
It takes time to create a good ecover for your book. While there are lots of great looking templates that you can edit easily, these may not be a good choice. If too many people use that template then it can throw off your book and make it look like a cheap imitation of another ecover.
By putting some time and effort into your design you can easily create a professional cover that is branded to you!
