Saturday, January 16, 2016

Creating Your Own E-book Covers

If you are like me, you can recognize an attractive, well designed book cover. I have no idea what elements of design are involved, I simply know Book Cover A looks better and is more eye-catching than Book Cover B. The odds are most authors are also like me in regards to ability to design a book cover that will sell books. In other words, you can't.

Whether your book is traditional published or self-published, the cover is one of the most important marketing tools you will have to sell your book. Many indie or self-published authors, particularly those just starting out, must do so on an extremely limited budget, limiting their options for paying for a quality cover.

This leaves the author with the choice of doing it themselves or using a template design offered for free by companies such as Amazon's CreateSpace or KDP. At best, these are a stopgap to allow the book to get into print and will need to be replaced as quickly as possible.

Recently, I came across a reasonable priced software program that allows me to produce both 3D and 2D covers for my ebooks. It will also create a variety of other items such as boxes, book covers, DVD disc artwork, etc. The name of this software is Cover Genie Pro. I purchased access for $47 and have been happy with the results.

First, the learning curve was not impossible. I have the option of using pre-designed templates I can modify (yes, I complained about those made available by CreateSpace and KDP) that have produced much better looking covers for many of my ebooks.





Above you can see the newest cover I designed for this short ebook. Below is the old cover (please excuse the blurry image, it's a screen shot of the original). The new cover might have issues, but it is light years ahead of the original.



For authors whose sales have fallen or are not doing well initially, one of the most common recommended fixes to make your book more appealing to potential readers is a new cover. The Cover Genie Pro software is allowing me to upgrade the covers for a lot of my older ebooks whose sales have fallen or face stiffer competition in my non-fiction niche.

This software is versatile in the different types of designs it can be used to create. If your business plan calls for DVD as well as books, you can produce the necessary artwork for both using this software. It is also possible to produce cell phone covers, boxes and mock-ups. So far I have only revised ebook covers, but have been very happy with the results.

If you are interested in learning more about this software, just click here. Please note, I am not an affiliate. I won't make a dime of this software. I'm just a happy user who has some much nicer ebook covers I was able to create myself at a very low cost.

It is worth noting Cover Genie Pro works with either a PC or Mac. The software is accessed from an online account with the company. You simply login and go to work.


For more information and to see examples of what can be created using Cover Genie Pro visit their website.


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