People say, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” But most people do. A quick look through Amazon Kindle’s ebook store, or any of the popular ebook stores, and you will clearly see that an attractive ebook cover will certainly help. So what does that mean for self publishers? I means something great, that if your book is well written,  an attractive cover can help you compete with the big dogs. This is exciting because an ebook cover that can compete, is not out of range. This something that’s actually quite easy and not as costly as you might think.

So what what makes a good ebook cover? Here are some rules:

• Try not to use fonts that are difficult to read.
• Remember “contrast.” People need to be able to see what your book is about in a split-second. If they can’t tell what the picture is, or what the title of your book is, they won’t click on it. Make sure that you can see everything clearly against the background.
• Make sure all of your elements are aligned. Choose an alignment and stick with it.
• Read up about “proximity.”  The goal is to group like things together. Like your book description and title, for instance. Here is a great explanation from Smashing Magazine.
• Pay attention to visual hierarchy The goal is to lead the reader’s eye. For example you may want the reader to see the title first, the authors name second, and the book description last. To accomplish this you could make the title text large, the author’s name medium, and the book description small (but that’s just one way). Take a look at this link for a great description of visual hierarchy.

Some Resources:

• The Non-Designer’s Design Book at Amazon.com
• GIMP for Windows, and GIMP for Mac. A free open-source photo editor.
• Stock Exchange, free stock photos (read the licenses carefully, some may require attribution or have restrictions, when in doubt ask the photographer)