Contrary to popular belief, it remains a fact that books are most often judged by their covers. A good cover urges a reader to open it and find out what’s inside. It’s very easy to ignore and walk past shoddy covers without even taking a peek into its contents. A microsecond glance at your book’s cover might be the only chance you have to persuade a potential reader to buy your book. Hence, designing a good cover requires a lot of thought and planning.

The cover of your book should be a visual, strategic and emotional glance into its contents. It should also be able to peak curiosity and provide the readers with the right amount of information without having to flip through pages.

Here are a few tips to help you create a professional eBook cover and help in your ebook marketing efforts:

Get inspiration
Before you begin, grab some inspiration. You can browse through the eBooks that are already published online, or walk into a bookstore and take a look at those books that instantly grab your attention. You can make a list of what you like about those covers and what you don’t like. You can take into account various things like the image style, colors used, the typography, the negative spaces and the information provided on the cover. It’s a good idea to study the books that don’t instantly grab your attention too. You can learn a lot from them. You can even use Pinterest to make a board of covers or pictures that catch your eye.

Size of the cover
For an eBook cover, there are many things that you need to consider such as the aspect ratio, the file size, and the resolution. Make sure that your cover is optimized according to the various platforms that are available. Keep an editable copy with you so that you can make changes as and when required in the future.

The right images
When it comes to choosing images for the cover, make sure that you avoid the cheesy, cliché stock images. They will make your book look like ‘just another corny book.’ Secondly, don’t make the images so literal that they leave no space for interpretation. The images should set the mood, portray a feeling or emotion rather than tell the reader what to imagine or think.

Typography
Typography is the art and science of using the right typefaces. Avoid too much creativity in typefaces. Some amount of readability is lost if you use too much of 3D typography, drop shadows, stretching or any other text decorations. Keep it as clear and readable as possible.

Simplicity
Simplicity is the key. Do not cram too many things on the cover. Keep only the elements that evoke curiosity.

Use the right tools
Use the right editing tools to create a professional book cover. Photoshop or other graphics software could be perfect for this purpose. Check out a few tutorials online if need be. Here’s one example. Make sure you understand how to make your own eBook cover. If you don’t have any design experience there are many book cover designers online which will create a professional, affordable cover for you as well. Just takes a little digging and research.

Hire professionals if need be
Sometimes it’s best to hire book publicity services so that you get everything that you require to publish your eBook in one place.

The cover of your book is by far the most important part of your book when it comes to marketing it correctly. If it looks ‘right’ – it will sell.

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