Deciding on an ecover is not always an easy job. It can be hard to come up with a great title, and then you need to decide if you are going to use your own name or write under a pen name. This is before any designing starts.
The choice of using your own name or not is a personal one. If you are writing on one topic all the time then using your own name is great. If you want to publish lots of books in different niches then you may want to use several pen names, basically one for each niche or topic. By using several names your name won’t be confusing for people, especially if you are trying to brand yourself as an expert in any one particular area.
Now that choice is dealt with the next item of your list is to come up with a great title. Don’t forget that you can use a subtitle as well. You want to choose a title that depicts what your book is about. If you are writing about a school
then identify this in the title. Just be certain that you don’t confuse people with your title, all that will do is get you bad reviews and have people asking for a refund.
Your next step is to work on the actual design of the ecover. This can be done in several ways. If you are publishing your book on Amazon you can take advantage of their all new ebook cover creator.
It is still in beta testing but it allows you to create a simple cover inside your Amazon account. The disadvantage to this could be that your ecover may end up looking too similar to other books and that you may have limited choices. It is still an option you may want to consider though.
Design elements which you need to take into account include color and the use of fonts and images. Any image that you use for your ecover needs to have a high resolution, this is so that it displays well. When people click to enlarge your ecover you want the picture to display in the highest quality possible.
When looking for photographs try to buy a larger size and one that has a high resolution. This may cost you more money but it will benefit you in the long run.
When it comes to color you want to choose a color that displays well. Remember your ecover image is going to be displayed as a ‘thumbnail’ size most of the time. So you want a color which attracts attention, looks good, suits your book subject and still looks great when enlarged.
Once you have all of these elements in place your next step is to actually create your ecover. The best way I have found to do this is to use online software. You can see the one I use here: My Ecover Choice
What I like about this is that it is very cost effective and I love the fact that you can create both 2D and 3D images for your book. There are tons of ecover templates so your cover will also be customized for you. Take a look and let me know what you think.