E-Book Cover Graphics
By Sunil Tanna
E-Book covers (sometimes known as "virtual covers" or "ecovers" are graphical images depicting a 3D representation of a book, report, folder or binder, in other words how an information product might look if it were an actual physical product. However, it needs to be noted that such images are normally used not for actual physical products (where actual pictures of the product would be used), but instead for intangible ("virtual") information products, such as e-books, downloadable reports, membership sites, or ezines.
If you regularly visit marketing discussion forums, you may once in a while encounter a person who will vociferously claim that e-book cover graphics can be in someway misleading. Their argument is usually concerned with the use of such graphics on web sites (which of course isn't there only use), and goes something like this: "Yes I know that they're just graphics and would never be fooled by them, but some other people might think that they represent the actual product". Personally I think this is to vastly underestimate the public, after all everyone who has used a computer is very familiar with the fact that graphics and icons on the screen don't necessarily represent actual physical objects. However, I certainly wouldn't want to mislead anybody (and I'm sure you wouldn't either), so I always include a clear and prominent notice on my web sites saying something like "3D cover images do not represent the actual products which are delivered as electronic downloads".
E-Book covers can certainly look attractive, even beautiful, but what would use them for? Here are some ideas:
- You could your covers in advertising materials (e.g. banner adverts).
- You could use them as illustrations on your web site.
- You could use them to help users navigate through your site. For example, if you had several products, you set up the main page of your web site to show different e-book cover graphics (perhaps with a brief description by each one), and visitors could navigate to a specific product's page by clicking on the corresponding graphic.
- You could use your covers within the product itself. When I create an e-book, I often like to put the e-book cover graphic in the splash screen (the graphic that is shown when the program is loading), and/or in the Introduction or "About" pages (the latter being the page containing publisher, version and copyright information).
By S. Tanna. Easy-to-use and affordable software for creating your own book shots and e-book covers - http://www.coverfactory.com/ - Why pay somebody else, when this software lets you create as many box shots and e-book covers as you want.
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