Wednesday, March 30, 2011

What Makes a Great Ebook Cover?

What makes a great Ebook cover?  I'm in 'cover' mode for my new Ebook coming out shortly and I was wondering if any and all had some thoughts on the subject of Ebook Covers.  It's our first impression before they've read word one.  What makes them great?  What makes you want to read whats underneath?  Leave your thoughts and your covers and let's discuss.

3 comments:

  1. I think for a lot of readers it has to look like they couldn't create the cover themselves without training.

    Something that has been throwing me off lately is that a lot of new authors are going with glossy fiction covers. I think part of it has to do with the fact that many are using the same cover illustrators and some of those illustrators are not being careful with the images they use.

    I think it also have at least one image that deals exactly with the books material. Sometimes you can't tell what the book is about from the cover.

    Good luck with your cover!

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  2. Paragraph correction: I also think at least one image on the cover should deal with the book's material. Sometimes you can't tell what the book is about from the cover.

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  3. In a word "professional." In another word "relevant." I've been madly researching covers in preparation for publishing four novels and a number of short stories. I just put "mystery novel cover" in Google images search and spent a while perusing. I also looked at a lot of e-book covers on Amazon, then looked up my favorite authors and saw the variety in their covers.

    I'm going to make my own covers (with help from contacts who are artists/designers), so I've been playing with Photoshop. You can see some rough concept results here: http://publishingyourself.blogspot.com/2011/04/coverapalooza.html

    I think whether you're DIY or hiring it out, browse your genre and see what covers grab you or what covers grace high-selling books. I will say, you can usually tell when somebody's taken a shortcut and just thrown something together. Also, when a cover doesn't at all match the story/genre.

    The nice thing about self-publishing, though, is if you find you've muffed your cover or it's just not working the way you wanted, you can put up a new one any time you want.

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