How to Select a Graphic Designer for Your eBook Covers

There are three important considerations that must be satisfied when selecting a designer to create a cover for your ebook, software box, or CD cover: design skill, marketing experience and price.

Obviously, design skill is an important consideration. Samples are the primary way to evaluate a designer’s skills. Look for evidence that the designer has the ability to create quality, professional-looking, effective cover images and knows how to work with fonts, colors and images.

Are the designs effective from a marketing standpoint? Is the designer experienced in Internet marketing? Or is someone knowledgeable about Internet marketing supervising the designs?
Is the designer experienced in designing ebook covers or other images that will be used to sell products on the Internet? Does the designer understand your goal? A cover designer with marketing experience will ask you questions about your goal, audience and web site topic in order to design an effective image.

Check the sample images closely and look for these points that make an ebook cover effective:

• Does the design support your sales message?
• Is the design appropriate to your book’s topic and audience? This includes the choices of fonts, colors, images, and layout.
• Is the title easily readable at the small size displayed on a web page? If there is other important text, is this readable as well?

Testimonials can also give you some insight about the designer. Try to determine how genuinely satisfied the testimonial writer is with the design. You will also want to look for any indication as to how easy it was for the customer to work and communicate with the designer.

Price is the simplest point to evaluate when choosing a designer. If you want to get an effective image, the lowest bidder may not be your best choice. Do not sacrifice quality for the sake of a lower price. Low fees usually indicate that the designer is inexperienced. If you cut costs in the design of your cover, you may be cutting down potential sales. A quality ebook cover will more than pay for itself in increased sales.

By paying attention to the considerations we have mentioned here, you will find the right graphic designer for your project. Good luck!

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com-By: Leva Duell

How to Select Fonts for Your eBook Cover

Choosing the right fonts is an important decision you will have to make when designing a quality ebook cover. You will want to choose a font that is readable and appropriate for your audience.

The following general information about fonts will help you to make the right choice:

Size: An ebook cover image is usually a rather small image. Therefore, you have to be sure that the font you use will be readable on the small image. A lot of fonts just don't work well at very small sizes.

Weight: The term "weight" refers to the thickness of the elements that make up each character in a font. Most fonts have a regular version and a bold version. The bold version has greater weight because the letters are thicker. A bolded font stands out more, even at smaller sizes. Some fonts also offer a "heavy" and a "black" version that is even thicker than the bold version. Arial black, Helvetica black, and Impact are just some examples of popular fonts that are used to create titles and headlines. These fonts also work well for ebook covers.

If you look at book or article titles, you will notice that they tend to be "heavier" and larger in size than any of the other text. This is because the author wants to emphasize the title/subtitle.

Serif vs. Sans Serif: Take a look at the letters in the Helvetica font and Times New Roman font. Helvetica is a sans serif font, while Times New Roman is a serif font. The difference is the extra flourish at the ends of each line in each character in a serif font. The term serif refers to these flourishes. Compare the letter "I" in both of the fonts mentioned above and you will easily see the difference.

Sans serif fonts tend to be more readable when used in titles, subtitles, captions and headlines. They also tend to be more readable at the smaller font sizes. Serif fonts, on the other hand work better where there is a large amount of text (a paragraph or more).

Appropriateness: It's important that you choose a font that is appropriate for your audience. For instance, if your book is targeted for women, choose a more feminine font. If your book’s focus is children, then it would be appropriate to choose a font that conveys a sense of playfulness. However, regardless of age and gender, if your subject is serious then you would want a font that conveys a serious tone.

Keep in mind that there are no hard and fast rules in this area of font selection. What seems appropriate for a masculine subject in one situation may not be so in another situation. The point here is simply to pay attention to what message and feeling you're communicating with your selected font.

Here are some more font tips for ebook covers:

• Use one or two fonts. Never use more than three different fonts. Better yet, use different weights of the same font. For example, use Arial Black for the title and Arial Bold for the subtitle.

• Don't use too much text on your cover. It won't be readable anyway. The less text you use, the larger and more readable your text will be. You may want to consider using a shortened version of your actual book title for the cover image.

• Use the largest, boldest font for the book title, a smaller size for the subtitle, and even smaller sizes for author name and any additional text.

• Use text colors that contrast with your background to make your title stand out. However, make sure that the color of your text does not clash with the background color. Depending on your background colors, red, white and yellow often work well.

• You can bold, italicize, or underline words and phrases for emphasis. Use italics and underline sparingly. If overdone, you'll loose the affect and reduce the readability.

• You can make your text stand out with special type effects such as drop shadows and outlines, but use these effects sparingly.

• Use capitals only for short headings. Sentences or paragraphs in all capitals letters are hard to read. For longer headings, use upper/lower case.

• Consider placing the author's name and the web site URL as a watermark on the cover graphic to make it harder for people to steal your images.

• Put your book title on the spine of large book and box images.

There are literally thousands of fonts to choose from. Build a small collection of fonts that work well for ebook cover design. This collection will probably include the standards like Impact, Arial Black, Arial Bold, Helvetica Black, Helvetica Bold, Times New Roman, Garamond and other fonts you like that are readable and practical in smaller sizes.

Like just about all rules, most font rules can be broken. The bottom line is, if your prospects can not read your book title, or if your ebook cover conveys a message that is not appropriate to your subject, then your choice of font can result in a loss of sales (or free downloads).

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com - By: Leva Duell

How to Choose Colors for Your eBook Cover

Color can have a profound impact on your prospective buyers. The wrong colors can negatively impact your sales, while the right colors can trigger positive emotions motivating your visitors to buy from you.
Color can affect how we feel and influence what we think. In general, bright bold colors tend to stir us up, while the softer pastel colors calm and relax us. Responses to colors can vary by age, gender and cultural background.
Colors will affect how a potential buyer reacts to your ebook. Carefully select your color scheme for your ebook cover. Here are some guidelines to help you make good color choices. Bear in mind that these are guidelines, and that there are no hard and fast rules. Just use common sense.
• Consider your audience. For example, if your ebook primarily targets men, then you will want to use strong, bold colors. If your target audience is women, then choose soft, pastel colors. If your focus is on children, choose bright, vibrant colors.
• Choose colors that are appropriate for your book's topic. For example, green may work well for books about starting a home business, making money, and reducing debt.
• Use colors that match or complement the color scheme of your web site.
• Keep the number of colors down to two or three, and no more. This does not include photographs which can have a whole range of colors.
• When using photographs on your ebook cover, use colors that complement the primary color in the picture.
• Make sure that all of the colors you use work well together and do not clash.
• Communicate your message with easy-to-read text. Use colors for your text that contrast with the background color so your text is readable. For example, a dark font on a light background is easy to read.
• Consider the mood you want to create. Remember that emotions trigger sales. People buy what they want - not what they need. The list below will show you how colors can affect us in different ways.
Red – Action, energy, strength, passion, fire, heat, power, attention-getting. Can also mean love and romance. A strong masculine color. Red is a good color for a call-to-action. Red is cheerfulness, excitement, and warmth. Pink is a soft version of red. It is most associated with romance, calming affect; a feminine color.
Blue – Confidence, travel, freedom, truth, professionalism, wealth and power. Also tranquility, dependable, acceptance, patience, understanding, cooperation, comfort, loyalty and security. It is one of the most calming colors and is associated with the sky and the sea, intelligence, reassurance, and trust. Blue has also been known to be an appetite suppressant, so it would not be good for cookbooks or recipes but you can consider it for diet books.
Green – Money, wealth, prosperity, calm, health, food, nature, hope, growth, freshness, soothing, sharing, and responsiveness. Green symbolizes spring, renewal, and fertility.
Orange – Health and vitality, autumn, youthfulness, fire, steadfastness, courage, confidence, friendliness, cheerfulness, warmth, excitement and energy. Has been known to stimulate the appetite. Vibrant and warm, orange is associated with autumn and the earth.
Yellow – Light, purity, understanding, caution, brightness, intelligence, joy, organization, Spring. Yellow often represents sunshine, warmth, light, energy and happiness.
Purple – Dignity, sophistication, creativity, spirituality and mystery. Deep purple is associated with royalty and richness, while lavender is associated with romance and nostalgia.
Brown – Credibility, stability, the hearth, home, the earth, wood, comfort and strength. Brown can be used as a neutral or a warm color.
Black – Space, night, authority, dramatic, classy, committed, serious, power, elegance, and sophistication.
White – Purity, peace, perfection, fresh, easy, cleanliness, goodness, and spirituality. Worth noting here, white represents life and marriage in Western cultures, but it represents death and sorrow in Eastern cultures.
Grey – A conservative color, symbolizing security, maturity and reliability.
Take advantage of the impact color can have on your ebook sales and choose colors that will create positive responses.
Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com-By: Leva Duell