HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING EBOOKS
How I Make Ebook Covers
How much does it cost to make an ebook cover?
Your book’s cover design will tell potential readers if your book is professionally made and worth their time.
I know many of you use Canva right now. It’s free and you can create an ebook within a few seconds. That’s all right. But there are other ways to do it as well in case you need more unique elements in your cover.
… which is not possible with Canva, of course. that’s the reason why Ebook cover designers still charge $100 per cover.
What is your cover telling readers?
Whenever I hit publish on Amazon I always make sure that my ebook cover sends a clear message to my readers and answers the following few reader’s questions —
- What genre is this book?
- Is this book fiction or nonfiction?
- What age category is this book?
- What is this book about, generally speaking?
- What is the tone of this book?
- Is this book professionally made or thrown together?
Something to avoid — I have bought several books with dragons on it.. later realizing that there are no dragons at all! doing so the author must have increased sales for a few months but that has triggered countless negative reviews. And of course angry readers as well! Your ebook should contain elements of your story to attract the right readers.
Can you design your own book cover?
Absolutely yes. I make my own covers!
There are so many options now for authors on a tight budget. It doesn’t matter if you know design or not.
Still, I’ll suggest if you have a budget hire someone from Fiverr. This will save you a lot of time as well.
8 Steps To Design a Book Cover
Some people think that designing a book is easy. It can be, it can be not.
Remember Twilight’s ebook cover?
See the first one. It has an apple and a hand holding it. Simply representing the forbidden fruit. Do you remember Eve and the Forbidden Fruit story? If you have read or watched the story then you’ll know what I am trying to say here.
The cover designer has to go through the entire story to come up with this final design.
Again, the cover is not simply an image with the title and author’s name. It’s even more than that!
Here’s how to design a book cover:
- Look for book cover inspiration — What’s the best place to do that? Amazon KDP top sellers in your genre and Pinterest! I mostly go with Amazon’s bestseller list for inspiration.
- Choose your book design software or designer — Either hire someone if you have a budget. Fiverr is best for that. Or simply do it yourself. Use Canva, Adobe, Placeit, and Photoshop for that. I use Photoshop.
- Select your cover dimensions — JPEG works everywhere. My cover choice is 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. Ideal ratio of 1.6:1. If you are using Canva then go for the default format. No need to change anything.
- Find images for the book cover — If you are using Unsplash I warn you. You need permission before using it. I mostly go for Depositphotos as they are cheap now. I used to use Shutterstock before. Many options but expensive.
- Pick your colors — Have you read romance books before? I am sure you must have seen the combination of grey, white or black a lot. For non-fiction mostly money genre, you must have seen golden color a lot. Colors matter a lot. Simply search color pallets online in case you are confused.
- Pick your font — I keep the same font throughout my ebooks. One font for everything. Avoid italics. The title should be bold and clear. If I use fancy fonts for my title then I keep the author’s name in simple format.
- Test your book cover — Reviews are necessary. I use a secret tool for this. I’ll write an article on it later. For now, you can simply share it with your audience.
- Create a mockup — Placeit is the best place to do that. Lots of free mockups for your ebooks. Mockups are 2D or 3D. 2D for self-publishing platforms. 3D for your marketing platforms. Simple.
Conclusion
There are a few more tricks but I’ll better keep it for future articles.
I think this is it for now. Enough to work with in case you are just starting out or have a small backlist already.
A simple change to your book cover design could increase your sales… by a lot. The truth is, people do judge a book by its cover.
Use this article as your checklist before launching your next hit!
See you soon!
If you want to learn how to make a living writing short ebooks then do check out my ebooks — Small Ebooks, Big Income
