They say you
should never judge a book by its cover. While this maybe true in
the book world in the eBook world it is a different story.
Especially when selling your eBooks on eBay.
When you create
your eBook it is important you make it the best you can, taking
care to avoid spelling mistakes and grammar errors is extremely
important. But what you may not realise is your eBook cover is
almost as important as the eBook itself. This is because on eBay
the 1st thing any potential customer sees is the free image eBay
provides with every listing. And they will usually make a
decision to keep reading your sales page within 3 seconds of
viewing your eBook cover.
So always have an
eBook cover created for each eBook you write. And always use
this as the 1st image on your eBay listing. As this will be the
1st thing any potential buyer sees it is extremely important
that your cover looks the part.
While there is
software available that will enable you to create your own
covers I would recommend if you can afford it to invest a few
dollars and get your cover professionally created by someone
else. There are many professional cover artists that will create
a cover for you and a simple google search will bring up a ton
of results. The cost can be anything from $10 onwards. I always
use
Planet Divinity for all my graphics needs.
Here are a few
tips to creating a quality cover that will help sell your eBook.
1. If you are
getting your cover professionally created by someone else ask to
see their work or when viewing their website look for a
portfolio of their work. Almost all professional cover artists
will provide this information. If you don't like what you see
look elsewhere.
2. Use your own
graphics or have them created from scratch. Don't steal your
images from another website. This could land you in extremely
hot water and you could find yourself getting your listings
ended by eBay or even worse, legal action being taken against
you. So make sure your images/graphics are original. If your
cover is getting created for you by someone else make sure they
understand this.
3. Include the
title of your eBook on the cover. This sounds obvious but I have
seen a ton of covers with no title. Your cover sells your eBook
and in my opinion must include the title.
4. If your eBook
has resale rights include as many different variations of your
cover as possible. You should include different sizes, colours
and angles. Give your re-sellers as much as they need to sell
your eBook on. They may want to include images on their blogs,
newsletters, websites and more and they may struggle if you only
provide one image.
5. Include your
cover at least once in your sales page. What I find works best
is a large cover on the left of the page with text to the right
explaining the benefits of your eBook.
Just remember,
people do judge an eBook by its cover and if you don't have a
cover for your eBook and are struggling with sales on eBay a
professionally made cover could make all the difference.