How not to design a cover.

8 Hilariously Misleading Covers Slapped on Classic Books
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It’s $75 digitally illustrated cover time again! And more Thanksgiving specials:

This offer is now closed

For all your support this year I give thanks with some Great New Thanksgiving deals

Custom Digitally Painted Covers For E-Books:

For the basic custom E-Book cover Normal Price  $250
Special limited time offer

One cover only: $75 US

Three covers only $195 US

The prices all include free typographic design.

Size 1400px wide.
I will supply kindle format and  Any other format you request
Actual size Samples here.
Not suitable for printing. 

Check out the rest here

 

E-Book cover sizes.

Tags

Apple iBook, Barnes and Nobel, Book Baby, book cover, composition, Cover Art, Cover design, Keith Draws, kindle, Kobo, Lulu, Smash Words

I’ve noticed that finding the correct format for an e-book cover is not exactly easy. Even if you manage to find a guide on the publishing website you intend to use you soon find the documents are are filled with jargon and useless information that serves only to confuse. So what I’ve done is break it down to the essential information. Please remember though that some of these formats are  quite different from each other and I’d recommend you tweak your cover layout somewhat for each one. If I have missed any format out please let me know and I’ll add it. So in no particular order here is the only information you actually need:

Barnes and Noble (for Nook)

Aspect ratio:1.2

Image size: 600 pixels wide 730 pixels high.
DPI: 100
File size limit: 2 MB
Format: JPG (Maximum quality should not take the file size over the limit)

Kindle and Book Baby

Aspect ratio:1.6

Image size: 2820 x 4500 pixels (previously 1563 x 2500 pixels)
DPI: 72
File size limit: no limit specified
Format: JPG (Maximum quality should not take the file size over the limit)

Smash Words and Kobo

Aspect ratio:1.5

Image size: 1600 pixels wide x 2400 pixels high
DPI: 72
File size limit: 2MB
Format: JPG (Maximum quality should not take the file size over the limit)

LULU

Aspect ratio:1.3

Image size: 612 pixels wide x 792 pixels high
DPI: 72
File size limit: 2 million pixels
Format: JPG (Maximum quality should not take the file size over the limit)

Apple iBook

You need two covers for Apple.

1. Sales image:

Aspect ratio:1.6

Image size: 1563 pixels wide x 2500 pixels high.
DPI: 72
File size limit: none
Format: JPG (Maximum quality should not take the file size over the limit)

2. Internal cover (you can just reduce the sales image by 70% for this)

Aspect ratio:1.6

Image size: 1094 pixels wide x 1750 pixels high.
DPI: 72
File size limit: 2 million pixels
Format: JPG (Maximum quality should not take the file size over the limit)

If anybody finds anything to be incorrect please let me know in the comments. As far as I am aware these sizes are correct but it wont hurt to double check for yourself.

Of course this may seem a bit daunting so it may be worth remembering that I only charge $10 per format to tweak your cover layout and provide a suitable file.

How to mask hair in PS5

Tags

book cover, Cover Art, hair, Keith Draws, masking, Photo compositiing, Photoshop

This is a great video tutorial on creating a cut out mask for hair.

And this is even better:

How to get sales from Blogging

Tags

Keith Draws, kindle, sales, selling books, selling CDs, selling music

I just posted this in kindle forums but I thought it might interest my followers.

Most people  don’t blog content that will interest their potential Audience.

Without that content, no amount of blogging in the world will transmit to new sales!. And after all Sales are why you are blogging aren’t they?

So here is the secret:

Don’t blog about yourself, your writing and books and under no circumstances blog about your private life.  NO….Blog about your genre.

How is this going to help? I can hear you asking. Well it’s like this:

If you are a well known established writer then everybody wants to know all about you. But well known established writers don’t need to blog to get sales, they do it for fun.

If you are an unknown then nobody (outside of family and friends) cares a jot about you, what you do, or what you have written; so it’s extremely unlikely that they will read your blog, even if they find it filling their screen after a random click. Their next click is guaranteed to be “close tab”.

You have to change that and you do that by Targeting Your potential Audience. In your case the people who read in your genre. So you fill your blog with information related to that genre. Book reviews, film reviews, discussion, you tube videos, reading lists, top tens, top 100´s and so on, anything you can think of that relates to your specific genre.

Once you do that your blog will start to appear in searches related to your genre. This will lead to people deliberately visiting your blog and when they get there they will find content that interests them.

The only place you mention what you do is in the “About me”  section of your blog. Here you post links to your books and  have a decent bio.

Don’t forget that it is worth making a facebook page that mirrors your content. Each time you get a “facebook like” your posts appear in the feed of the person who clicked “like” and in the feed of all their friends and followers.. Also Tweet  links to the content and  if you can make You tube video’s about your genre and mirror them on your blog and social media.

How will this help your sales?

At first it wont. Its going to take some time to build an audience. Lets say at least six months  but its more likely to take over a year, perhaps  even two, it all depends on how often you blog  and genre interesting it is.

But once you have a few hundred followers you will start to see results. Your sales will increase, because now people trust your judgement. They come to your blog/facebook for info on your genre. While there they notice your “about me” page, and they think well this person knows what they are talking about…their books must be good, they follow your links and buy.

That’s how to get sales from blogging.

Anything else is a waste of your time.

Free Photoshop 6 video tutorials

Tags

book cover, cd cover, Cover Art, Keith Draws, Photo compositiing

I’m sure this link will be very helpful to all who want to work on photo compositing.

3D Buzz is happy to announce that the Photoshop CS6 Fundamentals class that was made freely available to the general public is now available for download… free to all!

You can find the download links here:

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?193870

I’ll be going through these, you can never know enough.

Hello world!

As you can see this is a new blog, but I’m hoping to achieve something, and that would be to help the cause of self publishing in some small way.

I’ve worked as a commercial artist for over 30 years now. In that time I’ve been very involved in everything to do with getting a product attention which then converts to sales and so I’m certain that I know how to do it, and I’m also able to recognize good advice when I see it.

With that in mind, I’ve made this blog in order to help you get the best possible cover for your Book, CD, DVD or anything else you need a cover for. Whether you create a cover yourself or have it produced for you, the advice you will find here will help you get the best possible cover for your needs.

I’ll also occasionally be offering advice, first and second hand, about self publishing in general if I think its of particular value.

I’ll be blogging advice on a regular basis and I’ll try to answer any questions  or address any subjects you want to put to me in the comments. I’ll also take your advice if I need it (and I’m certain I do) so feel free to let me know where I’m not delivering. For instance, I’m wondering if its worth creating specific categories, such as Horror, Sci -Fi, detective, rock music, pop, and so on. Right now It doesn’t seem so but Perhaps I should just start creating categories as I meet them? What do you think?

At this point I’ll plug myself, (we all have to earn a crust). As a Commercial Artist, I am also in the business of creating covers. Normally I charge $350 US per custom designed cover but right now I’m running a limited time offer and all custom designed covers cost only $250, which you can check out here and you pay only $150 US for pre-designed covers which you can see and order here.

I hope you enjoy this blog, and if you do please let your friends and colleges in the publishing  world know about it to.