This series discusses how you can format, e-publish, and sell a book on Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (Nook).
The two most important factors determining whether someone purchases your e-book are:
E-Book Description
E-Book Cover
I'll discuss next week some tips for writing the description. This entry will discuss how to get a beautiful e-book cover.
The e-book cover gives a “finishing touch” to your e-book. The cover is not only at the front of the downloaded book, but also is displayed as a thumbnail graphic for your book listing on e-bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Before you start, study e-book covers of similar books to yours on Amazon and other sites. Determine what sorts of covers you like, and why.
You can hire people to design e-book covers. Some inexpensive sources are:
www.fiverr.com -- the most inexpensive site.
www.vworker.com and www.guru.com -- these sites hold payment in escrow until you’re happy. If you use one of these sites, don’t offer/pay more than about $25-$30 for the cover.
If you’re good with graphics you may want to design your own cover.
The simplest cover is just text with a colored background. More complex covers use one or more graphics/images with text.
Study, study, study before you purchase or develop your own cover.
For your e-cover make sure that the graphics/images are in the free domain, or you have the rights or a license to use them. If you purchase or use graphics/images, check carefully how you are able to use them. For example, there may be restrictions on circulation (how widely distributed is your document) or time limits. Determine how you are allowed to modify the graphics/images.
DO NOT just copy a graphic/image you like from the internet. You don’t want to steal. Always investigate rights.
Some sites with free or low-cost images are:
www.bigstockphoto.com
www.clipart.com
www.freedigitalphotos.net
www.freefoto.com
www.istockphoto.com
www.photobucket.com
www.photoshopsupport.com/resources/stock-photos.html
www.sxc.hu
If you use a white background for your cover, make sure that you include a border so that the cover doesn’t “float” on the white web page listing site.
The cover jpeg should have a dpi resolution (dots per inch) of 300, and not have fewer than 500 pixels on the longest side.
The recommended e-book cover size is about 600 x 900 pixels.
Text conversion programs like Calibre and Mobipocket work well for converting a Word document into .mobi or .ePub formats. However, for this series of articles we will use the Amazon and Barnes&Noble DTP (Digital Text Platform) to convert your e-book.
Next week I'll discuss how to e-publish your book on Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.
Copyright 2012 by Amy Deardon. All rights reserved.
check out www.ebooklistingservices.com
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