This is the most exciting part of the series, as it opens infinity of possibilities.

Starting point: book cover doesn’t have to be rectangular any more. In this post I’ll explain why.

I’ve designed a cover for Water’s Edge by Robert Whitlow to show my point of view. The jpeg image placed into the post is square, but you don’t see the edges. This image doesn’t seem to be rectangular.

The cover of a print book is determined – and limited – by the edges of the physical object a print book is. The cover on a screen is determined by the edges of the screen. The thing is that the book cover rarely fills the screen completely. It grabs only a part of a space, it’s usually surrounded by other elements of the web page or ereading application.

When somebody makes an ebook version of a print book cover, there is not that much to invent. But if you design a cover specifically for ebook – don’t put yourself into a rectangular box, if you don’t have to.

There are three values to play with: background, visualization and transparency.

Background

Select for your ebook cover the background color of the destination web page and you’ll get rid of the rectangular border. Let me show you the example. Most of ebookstores use white background. Below there is a mock-up design of the book cover. On the left you see it placed against white background. On the right it’s visualized on a paper book.

As you see, if there are no indications of the border, you see a round image. Circle – this is the shape of your ebook. It’s different in print. What you see is a round design on a rectangular cover of the book.

Circle is just one of billions of two-dimensional shapes you could imagine – if you only borrow a background from a destination web page. It’s as easy as that.

We have to be aware of the additional elements of the ebookstores’ web pages, which can bring the feel of the border. For instance, in Kindle Store they are placed on top (Look Inside arrow) and bottom (Kindle Edition bar).

2D shape is a part of the story, as there are also visualizations.

Visualization

Visualizations are popular already. They are designed to resemble paper book, or more precisely – a physical object the print book is. Many readers are looking for tangible proofs they made a good choice by purchasing the ebook. They need a proof that ebook is a book. It’s hard to imagine a file, backed up at Amazon servers, right?

Unfortunately, most of the visualizations are not good. And sometimes you just don’t need them, especially if they contradict the idea of the cover. I wouldn’t do a print visualization of Water’s Edge. The idea is to show that there are no borders, edges and limits and that water flows freely. Print book visualization would kill this idea.

Visualizations of print books are just one of directions to follow. If we miss the tangible look of the ebook, why don’t we make visualizations on a screen of a device this ebook is designed to be read?

Next idea: playing with context. The context is the screen and its content. You can visualize an object hanging above it, you can show a damaged screen, you can play with other elements of the web page.

There are a lot of beautiful examples of print books covers playing with context. There are absolutely no barriers to do the same with ebook covers.

Transparency

Transparency is different from background, although it can be used the same way.

First a simple tip how to make a transparent file. You can save it as png, instead of jpg or gif. If in your design there is no background, usually the website’s background will fill the space.

One more step forward is using transparency in advanced, iTunes-like interfaces, sliders and carousels. Such interface, a slide animation of book covers from your library was used in Stanza application. The carousel is also one of the most prominent elements of the user interface of Kindle Fire.

It’s worth checking the possibilities transparency creates, because it can bring amazing results. Here is how our circle cover would look in Stanza’s slider (and now imagine how would it look like if the cover was a visualization of a broken dark glass):

Transparent covers in unlimited number of shapes, in view of popularity of Amazon tablets may become a totally new form of art. I wish it happened. What covers need to show is that the same old good books are now refreshed for the challenges of the digital environment.

* * *

It’s a very important issue whether the lack of classic, rectangular shape will move associations away from a book.

I think we do not need frames for everything. I don’t feel neither better nor safer when I see a rectangle, bordered cover of something which should be limitless. If the border doesn’t help the idea of openness come through, we don’t have to limit ourselves and use it.

When you leave the rectangular shape, when you stop thinking of 6″ x 9″ standard cover proportions, you’ll feel like leaving the box. Leave the box – it’s what books teach us.

* * *

There are three more posts in a series: color, animation and finally, some examples (it’s good to visualize what I write about). Stay tuned, get free updates here – and share what you think in the comments.

Images used in this post: Water – by Irochka/Fotolia, Book cover – by Mckee/Fotolia

Related posts

• 09.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions
• 22.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #2 – Size and Resolution
• 15.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #1 – Context
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 06.04.2011 -- E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look

"Ebook Specific Cover Design: #4 – Shape" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

A cover of Joel Friedlander's ebook is a great example of maximizing the use of space in a product image field

In a third post about ebook cover design I’d like to focus on proportions.

A digital book is immaterial. It’s a file, not an object. If you open it on your device, it would most probably fit to the proportions of the screen.

So, what proportions should the ebook cover have? The simple answer to inspire your imagination is: “every possible proportions”.

Ebook cover is a screen area which represents a book. It’s a visualization of what the book is about. It’s not wrapping a physical object, so it doesn’t need to have proportions of that object.

But going creative is just one of few possible directions to follow. Actually the more I think about the topic, the more challenging it is. It’s not about picking up one of popular print book formats, not any more. It’s about making well thought decisions.

You should think of where you are going to publish a book, on which devices it will be read and how you plan to promote it.

Let’s discuss four factors which can influence proportions of the ebook cover.

1. Product image field

Just as print book is placed on a shelf in a bookstore (the fact it’s tall should be good for shelf space, right?), the ebook’s cover image is placed on a page of the online shop. That’s why it’s reasonable to maximize the pixel area your cover can use.

Most of online shops use square proportions for product images. This is self-explanatory – both tall and wide products are given similar chances. So, you’ll get maximum exposure for your book if you design a square cover – as Joel Friedlander did for his great guide for writers, A Self-Publisher’s Companion.

Check below how this book is highlighted in a list view at Kindle Store. In a previous post from a series I discussed size. People see thumbnail covers when they make decisions about which book to click. Having that in mind, the square is also a good move. In a list view your cover takes 100% of given space – that is 115 px by 115 px.

Use square proportions to maximize the impact of the cover when displayed in thumbnail size

The factor to keep in mind is that proportions may be affected by elements added to cover image by the ebookstore itself. For instance in Kindle Store there are the Kindle Edition bar at the bottom and, recently added, Click to Look Inside! arrow on top of the cover.

2. Screen of the device

Another direction is to consider destination devices of your ebook. As you see in a table below, in different devices there are different height/width ratios. The most common one is 4:3, but choosing 4:3 just because of that is not enough.

I’d suggest to pick-up a proportion of the device, if you’re publishing a book on a specific platform. Obviously I’m thinking about iOS. If your book is going to be sold via iBookstore or as an app via AppStore, use iPhone or iPad proportions. In an app you can have both. The 4:3 cover could load on the iPad, 3:2 on iPhone or iPod Touch. In other words: it’s really bad if you design a book application specifically for the iPad and the moment one opens it the cover does not perfectly fit the screen.

So, which one, iPhone or iPad? Think of what device you’ll use to visualize your book. For instance, I’m devoted to reach mobile phone users with my geek fiction stories, so I use iPhone visualizations since I self-published my first book in October 2008.

Cover visualization on a device screen is something you should pay a lot of attention. What people miss in an electronic book is materiality. This materiality, the width, height, depth, is conveyed by the device – and that’s why so many people still confuse ebooks with ereaders.

It’s always worth making visualizations on color screens of tablets and smartphones. They make the book looking highly attractive, but most importantly, potential readers won’t see only a cover. They’ll see a book on a screen of their own device.

Screen sizes and proportions

3. Popular web formats

When thinking of the cover of your ebook, you can also keep in mind how would it fit into one of popular web formats – like banners, widgets or application icons.

You may think it’s too far, but if you’ll be promoting your book by exchanging links with other bloggers, you may want to give them a cover in a format and size which fits into one of slots they already use.

Google AdSense offers many sizes, including 200×200 px or 250×250 px – which may be another reason to choose square proportions.

4. Creative approach

The dimensions of a screen are a completely different world than the ones of a print book. For the latter one, if the book is 6″ by 9″ that means the cover is 6″ by 9″ and you can’t change it. If your device is 800px by 600px it doesn’t mean your cover can’t be any bigger. On the screen two very important factors join the game: scroll and zoom. They open a lot of opportunities to create unusual, provocative and creative covers.

Imagine you can design the cover the same way as Internet infographics – like this one. It’s extremely long, but it doesn’t matter as you can scroll along it. It’s just an idea, but I’d like to stress that such a cover, which is extremely long or extremely wide, is still viewable. You can use it as a teaser of your book, or make it a form of a prologue.

How to use creative covers? You can always place them on your blog. Versions with typical proportions can be used everywhere else. But don’t do it just for the sake of being first. You’ll need to have a reason for that. Let’s say your book is about the history of written word. Your book cover could show the detailed timeline and it could be as long as it needs.

If technology allows for viewing images with extreme proportion ratios, why not benefit from it?

* * *

Major issue with unusual proportions you may have is whether readers will decode images as books covers. For instance a square cover is more resembling a CD than a book.

Non-book proportions are not an issue for me. If you’re on a book’s page you know it’s the book as there are title and description next to the cover. The places where ebook covers are defenseless are image search engines, but you can always fix the issue by properly naming your files (example: yourbooktitle_novel_cover.jpg).

Most importantly, however, is how the cover is designed. If you do it properly, the cover itself will be saying: “you are looking at the book”.

Next post in a series is about shape. Stay tuned, get free updates.

Related posts

• 30.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #4 – Shape
• 22.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #2 – Size and Resolution
• 15.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #1 – Context
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 06.04.2011 -- E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look

"Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

A picture from Sarah E Melville's self-published book "Beautiful Things That Happen to Ugly People"

I’m honored to share an interview with Sarah E Melville. Sarah is an extremely talented graphic designer and award-winning artist.

Recently she launched a new site, Your Cover Uncovered, where you can submit your book’s cover for review – as well as learn from reviews of other books.

Designing covers specifically for ebooks is a challenge and the more we talk about it the better. Here’s what Sarah tells us. Enjoy!

Is the role of a book cover changing in digital times? In which direction?

It definitely is changing. With the advent and increasing popularity of ebooks, cover design has been pared down significantly. A lot of work I do is for front covers only–back covers, spines, and French flaps are all extras now, which is a pity, I think, as they allow the design of the front cover to carry on and get played around with.  And it goes without saying that you lose the tactile elements with ebook covers–no more glossy vs. matte, no embossing, foiling, inlays.

The actual design style has changed a bit, too, with ebooks, as they’re so often viewed at a thumbnail size.  There’s a greater emphasis on readability, and nuances, fine details, get swept aside.

Designing covers for print books and e-books – what differences should designers be aware of?

Print or ebook, your cover should be a very strong piece of art, but I think there’s more pressure on ebook covers for this. Print covers have back covers and spines to continue working on the design theme, creating more of a concentration of images instead of a stand-alone piece, and in the end, a lot of covers just look better in print. There’s something about a velvety, matte book jacket that enhances a cover design–it can fool you, making a design look more sophisticated than it really is.

Because the tactile aspect is gone from ebook covers, flat colour and design that looks really two-dimensional isn’t very successful. Subtle textures are important to include, to give them the depth we’re used to having with a real book.

How would you assess the general level of the cover design of self-published ebooks?

Overall, the design seen in self-published ebooks isn’t where it should be. Because book covers are an art form, they need to be handled by professionals. It’s a shame to see people putting so much work into their novel and then not having a suitable image to represent it. Spending money on a good cover is the best investment you can make–it’ll do more for you, especially in the long-run, than blog tours, endless tweeting and re-tweeting, and whatever other marketing ploy out there. People like nice-looking things, and they’re always ready to assume that if the cover is good, the book will be too.

What advice would you give to self-publishers, who would want to create a book cover on their own?

You need to know your book very well, and have the ability to look at it in themes and metaphors, at big picture stuff. Forget specific scenes and characters. You need to figure out first what it’s really about, what’s lurking under the surface. That is what you put on your cover. Your typefaces, images, colours all have to work under this central theme. Don’t try and show two sides to the same novel; it won’t work. You can only have one subject, theme, idea. If you try to put too much of the small-picture stuff on the cover, it won’t work.

As for actually using this info and making it into that alluring, must-buy cover, you need to be familiar with art and design theory.  Look online for rules of composition and how to combine typefaces (remember, Comic Sans, Papyrus, Party LET and Bleeding Cowboys are never, ever acceptable typefaces). Look into basic colour theory, which colours and colour combinations elicit different moods. Familiarise yourself with design theory and use what you’ve learned. Find blogs and tumblrs dedicated to book cover design and find out what everyone’s drooling over.

The advice could go on, but the bottom line is–work with one idea. Don’t overcomplicate it. Try to stay away from using stock photos, and don’t be afraid of thinking outside the box!

Your Cover Uncovered is a fantastic example of a service authors and designers can use to improve their books. What tips would you give to them before they submit a cover for your professional review?

Read some of the critiques that have already been posted and see if your cover is repeating any of the same mistakes (if it is, change it!). Make sure it’s in top form–really, as excellent and amazing as your two little hands can make it. Read the submission requirements carefully, and make sure to send me info I ask for.  And, as a little luxury for me and the readers, give us an elevator pitch so smart you could brush your teeth with it.

One sentence tip for book designers?

Keep it simple.

Sarah E Melville is an artist, graphic designer, author, and all around creative-type from California. She’s an award-winning fine artist, and had her first design commission at the age of fifteen. Her writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, most recently in Sex Scene: An Anthology (she also made its book trailer), and she has done readings on both sides of the Atlantic. She is the self-published author of Beautiful Things that Happen to Ugly People, a synthesis of art and literature, a modern-day illuminated manuscript, about a simple soul named Paulie.  She is currently seeking representation for her fifth completed work, This is Paulie, a novella about two people who do not fall in love.

She tweets @sarahemelville and blogs at S-Melville. She is twenty-one years old.

Related posts

• 30.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #4 – Shape
• 09.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions
• 22.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #2 – Size and Resolution
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 15.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #1 – Context

"Ebook Design: Interview with Sarah E Melville" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

In digital environment the book's cover rarely fills the display (cover image from "Robocalypse" by Daniel H. Wilson)

When you make a decision to publish your book only in digital format, you are also making essential change in how you approach cover design. You no longer have to deal with dots per inch in a high-quality print.

The goal is not 9 × 6 inch, 300 dpi any more. It’s 1024 x 600 px, 118 ppi of a typical netbook’s screen or 800 x 600 px, 167 ppi of a Kindle 3 display.

We also have to keep in mind that the readers very seldom will have a chance to see the cover in full screen. If yes, it’s going to be after the book is purchased.

Resolution of electronic screens as well as sizes of images displayed on them are changing the way we should look at book covers. It’s limiting on one side, but it’s good to focus on finding benefits – and that’s what I’m trying to do with this series of posts.

Size

People judge books by their covers. It’s still true, but while designing for the web we have to switch the perspective. In my opinion: totally.

Let’s use the example. Someone wants to buy a technothriller. In a bookstore, when you look at the shelves, you just see the covers, nothing else. The cover is using 100% of space devoted to a book – because this is a book.

Things change dramatically when you browse for the same book on the web. Check the screenshot below from Kindle Store. The cover of a single book has an average size of 80 x 115 pixels! This is the size of the book at a very important moment – the moment when the reader makes a decision which book to click and possibly buy.

Typical search page in a Kindle Store

If we treat browser window as a bookstore’s shelf, the four book covers you see above take no more than 5% of the total display space.

Obviously, this applies not only to ebooks but to print books as well. It’s a pity that you spend long hours to design a beautiful cover, worked out and retouched in every tiny detail and afterwards what you see is 80 x 115 px thumb.

It gets a bit better when you open a page with a single book. A size of the book cover area is set to 300 x 300 px – and this includes the margin and Kindle bar at the bottom. That makes 9% of the display – at best.

A book cover takes up to 9% of the total space devoted to a book

Not looking good, right? What can we do about, then?

There are a couple of solutions.

1. Make it look good when it’s small

One thing every cover artist has to keep in mind, is that a book cover should look good not only when it’s enlarged, but also when it’s reduced. Before finding a general concept it’s good to have in mind that a cover could be communicative also when it’s in a thumbnail size.

Think of what is the most important part of the cover – and try to make it more visible. What would be seen as dirt when a cover is small? Try to remove it.

2. Remove some elements of the cover

As I wrote in an previous post, all elements of the cover which convey text information are duplicated by other parts of the web page, so it’s not mandatory to keep them in the layout. Instead, it would be great to focus on finding a relevant, convincing key visual, which works well in both big and small size.

3. Test check different sizes

When designing a cover you can check from time to time how it looks in a medium size (f.e. 300 px in height) and a thumbnail size (100 px in height).

4. Optimize the cover for a specific destination

This is the thing you can always do. If you want the cover to be displayed at your blog and the width of the post area is 500 px, save your cover specifically with that width. While doing so, you’ll have opportunity to enhance and adjust the elements which don’t look good enough at this size.

Another example: if you plan to publish a book only at a certain self-publishing platform and this platform is optimizing the look of the covers to specific size and proportions – prepare a version exactly with the maximum dimensions of both width and height.

5. Think of a cut-out area

When you’ll plan the layout it’s good to think of what you could cut out of the cover that would represent most of its values. Think of a square area like a title or a main illustration, which you can use at web sites which display small book covers. Why square? Because it’s the proportions many web stores use to display their products. Both vertical and horizontal images have chances to be equally visible.

Check below how the cover I’ve already used in this post, J.A. Konrath’s Origin, looks when displayed in 115 px height: regular vs. cut-out:

Resolution

Designing for screen means designing in smaller resolution – and this is a big opportunity. You don’t need to have a super powerful desktop computer to create the ebook cover. It’s very probable that a laptop you own can do the job. Additionally, you don’t have to use dtp programs like Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. You can create everything in a photo editing application.

The maximum resolution to think of could be the one of displays used for reading. As I wrote above, before the purchase the chances to see a full size are small. Assuming that the image would exactly fit the screen, the cover tailored for iPad should have 1024 x 768 pixels at 132 ppi.

There is another opportunity – you can use a camera in your smartphone to shoot pictures to be used in a cover. A photo taken with an iPhone has a resolution of 2592 x 1936 px. This is especially exciting as you can design a cool cover solely on the smartphone using one or a few applications. Take Instagram. You can apply one of cool vintage filters to your photo. If you’re using the app frequently, just think of it as a tool to grab ideas for your next book covers.

If you want to add a title, you can use another great app, Picture Show. It allows you not only to apply several filters and effects, but offers a simple type tool. You can design the whole cover just with this one application.

If you write a non-fiction book, you can get a professional look by using a Phoster application. It provides as much as 72 design templates and they all are fabulous. Read more about this fantastic app here.

Smaller resolution means also that you’ll have to spend less money for images. Many services, naming only iStockphoto ot Fotolia, charge different fees depending on the file size.

For example for this vintage photo from Fotolia you’ll have to pay:
- $0.75 if you buy a 375 x 320 px file with 72 dpi resolution
- $6 if you buy 3124 x 2664 px file with 300 dpi resolution

* * *

The issue of a size applies also to print books as it comes with a question where for a first time we get in touch with a book or/and make a decision to buy it. Is it a bookstore where I can take in my hands a beautifully printed copy of a book – or is it a web site, where the book is represented by 80 x 115 px part of a screen?

Make it look good on a screen and when it’s small – this is my general advice on size and resolution.

Related posts

• 30.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #4 – Shape
• 09.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions
• 15.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #1 – Context
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 06.04.2011 -- E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look

"Ebook Specific Cover Design: #2 – Size and Resolution" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Phoster offers 72 free design templates to choose from

Phoster is a fantastic application for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, perfect to create posters, cards, invitations and, yes, ebook covers.

I’ve used the word “create” instead of “design” because it better describes what you’ll be doing.

You don’t need to design a layout, it’s already done by the developers of the application, folks from Bucket Labs – Phoster comes equipped with as much as 72 layout templates. All of them are top-level design. Thanks to that the application can be a very powerful tool to create professionally looking ebook covers.

Below I’ll show you how easy it is to create a cover. The general advise is to keep things simple and not to change the layouts too much. They are perfect as they are and there is no need to improve them.

4 steps of creating a cover with Phoster

I’ll create a cover for a book about mobile natives (I hope one day I’ll write this book).

1. Choose a template

I’m sure you’ll find a template which is closest to your needs. Layouts differ in selection of fonts, position of text boxes and a general style. For each of the template, in a next step you can add a picture. You can also leave a background as it is or just change its color – this would make a nice non-fiction book cover.

When you’ll be selecting a template just keep in mind that you can’t add any more text boxes. So, pick up the template, which is closest to what you want and has enough number of text fields positioned where you want them to be.

For my book I’ve chosen the template below. I like simple design and I want to use a picture which will work best with the title aligned to right. I also need only three text boxes – two for the title and one for the author.

After choosing a template, tap on a Next button at the bottom right.

2. Insert a photo or choose a color of the background

Use an icon of a camera to add a picture, either directly taken or from a photo library. You can make basic color adjustments within the application (brightness, contrast and saturation) by tapping on a slider icon.

Remember, you can always use one of the photo applications, which can give a stylish look to your picture. I’m sure you have one of them: Instagram, PictureShow, Camera+ or Hipstamatic.

Second option is not to add a picture, but only change a background’s color. To do that, tap again on a slider icon – you’ll see at the top a set of predefined colors to pick up from.

I’ll be using for my cover a photo previously edited in PictureShow (by the way, you can see a #1picstory made with it). As you see it’s dark enough to use against white letters and there is a lot of space in the upper right corner. That’s where I’ll place the title.

3. Type the text

To change text tap on a “T” icon. An edit box will appear, where you can replace the existing text with your own title. Use Previous and Next buttons to switch between text boxes. Alternatively you can open the edit box if you quickly tap on the text.

You can change the color, the size and the font style of the text. There is a plenty of typefaces to choose from, but I recommend to keep the predefined style. Any major change may break the original design idea of the template.

If you want to move a text box, tap and hold it until you see a shadow.

I moved the title a bit to the right and higher. As you see, I didn’t change anything else.

4. Choose the effect

After you’re finished with texts and pictures, tap Next to move to the last step – applying the effect.

This is the most enjoyable part of the work. There are 19 style available. You can select one of the vintage styles, including paper and dust textures, or you can decide to use color stripes or patterns (see picture below).

I’ve selected a simple pattern and the cover looks like this. What do you think?

Although Phoster is positioned as a tool to create posters, cards, invitations, I think it’s an awesome way to create professionally looking ebook covers. It’s one of those mobile applications which redefine our approach to creation. You can focus solely on finding a concept and big picture, leaving the craft to the application itself.

Phoster costs $1.99 (iTunes link). Consider it as a money spent for a professional cover artist, who gives you 72 proposals of the layout.

Remember to include credits to Phoster in your ebook. Write down a link to both the application at iTunes and the developer’s webpage: http://www.bucketlabs.net.

Read also about another great tool, Wordle. You can use it to create great-looking covers based on a word cloud from your book.

Related posts

• 03.06.2011 -- How to Effectively Publish and Promote Books to iPad and iPhone Users
• 22.01.2011 -- How You Can Sell E-books to Mobile Twitter Users
• 25.07.2011 -- 6 Tips and Tricks to Use Kindle for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
• 02.02.2011 -- Use Mobile Twitter to Discover and Instantly Buy Kindle E-books
• 23.01.2011 -- What Are Enhanced E-books and How to Find Them?

"How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

On a web page a book's cover is surrounded by information it used to convey itself - like title and author

There are three approaches to covers:
- ebook cover is a copy of a print edition,
- one cover is designed for both print and digital edition,
- a cover is designed for ebook only.

I’d like to focus on the last one as it creates much more possibilities than you would originally think of. And all this can happen if you just switch the perspective.

A different approach, free from constrains typical for print production – and taking into consideration circumstances typical for digital environment – can bring unexpected and stunning results.

In this post you’ll find tips on how to benefit from a context of the ebook. In the next posts you’ll find tips on how to play with resolution, proportions, colors, shape and animation.

Context

The context can be created by a web page where a book is displayed. It can an ebookstore or your blog. Another dimension is a presence of devices used to read ebooks.

Web page

When you’re going between bookshelves in a bookstore, you need information about books you see. This information is provided by the covers. It’s the book’s cover to make you reach for it and open.

This is different if you browse for a book on the Internet. The image of a cover is usually small and in many cases the text is not readable until you enlarge the picture. Most importantly though is that information about the book is provided by other elements of a web page. That means that the cover itself is not the only source of essential info about the book. In fact, it doesn’t have to be.

On a typical book page in an ebookstore, next to the book cover you see the title, subtitle, author, price, discounted price, book description, editorial reviews, customer reviews, similar books and many more. A content of a web page conveys much more information than front and back covers of a print book altogether.

The opportunity to catch on is that you can remove all written information from the cover. Having in mind that image of the cover is usually small, you can decide to make room for a main visual and remove all other elements which will be the less and less useful if the cover will be smaller and smaller.

From now on you can focus on the main idea of a cover, which will have more room to convey the topic and genre of the book.

A great example of the simple and powerful cover, which is designed to deliver a unique picture is Seth Godin’s Poke the Box. You see the cover once and since that time you’ll easily associate it with the book. No author or title is needed – you know it.

Take also into consideration that if you browse for a book within the ebookstore, you’ll have a list of results with a thumbnail of a cover plus a title, author and price. A thumbnail of a crowded cover can be a mess. Why should it repeat information delivered next to it if it can be a clear and memorable visual, decoded even from a 100 x 100 px thumbnail?

Covers without book title or author are going to be more popular as more and more purchases, also of print books are made through the Internet. Internet is the place we’ll see a book for a first time. If we don’t buy it from Barnes & Noble website right away and go to one of the its bookstores later on, the cover will be familiar already. In many cases a cover of a print book doesn’t have to be self-explanatory any more.

Device

The next big thing is a context created by a device devoted to read it. It can be an ereader, tablet or smartphone.

We’ve seen many wonderful ideas of print books’ covers playing with dimensions as well as a paper texture. The same thing can be done for electronic books. It’s surprising that there are so few examples of ebook covers referring to specific surrounding created by the device.

Imagine the reader opening your book on a tablet. The space to use and play with is the screen. Here are some ideas to inspire you:

1. The device as an object
Play with the depth of a device; a cover can create a feeling that the tablet is thicker/thinner than it actually is or that is has an infinite depth. Let the cover become the part of the device – imagine it’s the back of it, for example.

2. Elements of the user interface
This is what I’m actually doing with most of my ebook covers. See a picture on the right – I’m using elements of an e-reading application (as well as exact screen proportions) to make it look good on a smartphone or a tablet.

3. Realistic effects on a screen
Imagine you have as a cover an image of a broken tablet screen (how would it look if a bullet went through it?). Or imagine you have a detective story with a cover looking like someone left fingerprints on a screen. Screen and pixels are the same material to play with as paper and paint in print books. The rest is your imagination.

* * *

In my opinion, opportunities and inspiration will come to you as soon as you stop thinking of a book cover of a physical print book and start to think of it as a part of digital environment.

And it’s not only applying to expensive multimedia book applications developed by the best designers in the world. You can also come up with a fresh idea, if you just start thinking of what to do with a 500 x 750 px blank space.

Stay tuned, a next post about resolution and proportions is coming in two weeks.

Related posts

• 30.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #4 – Shape
• 09.09.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #3 – Proportions
• 22.07.2011 -- Ebook Specific Cover Design: #2 – Size and Resolution
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 06.04.2011 -- E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look

"Ebook Specific Cover Design: #1 – Context" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Current tag cloud of Password Incorrect | by Wordle.net

Are you planning to redesign a blog? If you are looking for advice based on a personal experience, you may find this post interesting. I’d like to share tips in reference to recent changes at Password Incorrect blog.

First, and probably the most important tip: don’t start with looking for a new theme. It’ll give you a false feeling of a job well done. What’s more, bloggers usually waste too much time to fix formatting issues, while more important things – listed below – are left untouched.

What you should really start with is an analysis of your blog’s current performance. List what is good and bad, what you want to change, what you don’t want to change. At every single point ask yourself a question: why.

Why do I want to change the color of a header? Is that more important than “I just can’t stand this pale green any more”? Did anyone say that this color is not relevant to the topic of your blog?

Second step is where you want to go. There are four major areas, listed below, you can dig into when thinking of how to move your blog forward. And one more thing: before you do anything, make a backup of your blog.

Improving Blog’s Profile

Some blogs have clear profiles – advice for writers or html tips and hacks. Most of blogs are, however, a reflection of their authors’ diverse interests which are not as simple as “discovering WordPress plugins”.

You have to choose a path you want to follow. Option one: be general (and join a large group of those who already do it). Option two: be specific and own a niche (and work hard to make your message as clear as possible).

There are four levels, where you can define the profile of your blog:
- domain
- blog’s name
- blog’s description
- pages

The replacement of “just another WordPress blog”, its description, is the hardest thing to do, and you can change it not only at the time of a blog redesign. Every day, with every new blog post written you define yourself and improve. Let the blog’s description reflect it.

I’ve found that my passion to technology combined with a problem-solving nature is the best I can give. That’s why a new tagline of Password Incorrect is “struggling with technology to help readers and writers”, which is also the best explanation of blog’s title.

You can be more detailed in pages available from a navigation bar. Read again all of them. Is there anything which needs to be rewritten? If yes, don’t hesitate to do it.

When you find a clear and appealing claim, think back. Are there any blog posts which are in contradiction with the improved profile? Are they important? Can you remove them?

This is important not only when you use a related posts plugin. It’s how your blog is seen by search engines.

Improving Blog’s Performance

Optimizing a blog for search engines is extremely important. If you want to stay strong as sci-fi writer but most often you post reviews of books you’ve read, search engines will place you higher as a reviewer rather than a writer.

So, when you nailed a better description of what you blog about, review your posts and pages. Is there anything you can remove? Remember, they are not lost forever. You’ve got a copy of your blog.

I got rid of anything which is not related to how technology can enhance reading and writing. All my literary experiments will no longer be posted here and all irrelevant posts published so far are removed. Thanks to that Password Incorrect is stronger with such keywords: Kindle, self-publishing, mobile, reading, e-books.

What is also worth doing is to clean up tags. Remove those irrelevant or those used once. Take a look at your tag cloud and match it with your desired profile. Is there a tag you don’t want to be associated with any longer? When writing any new post – think forward. Will you be using the tag in any of the future posts? If not, don’t place it at all.

Blog’s performance is also about its loading time in a browser. Generally the less plugins you have the better. Remove the ones you don’t use. You can replace others with the combo plugins – those serving many purposes. The plugins I recommend for WordPress self-hosted blogs are WordPress SEO by Yoast and Jetpack. I installed those two and was able to get rid of 10 previously used.

As there is a growing number of users reaching a blogosphere from mobile devices – tablets, smartphones and browser-enabled e-readers – it’s also good to make a one time go to make your blog mobile friendly.

Better Readability

Some analysts predict that blogging is dead. I don’t think so, but it needs to evolve. My opinion is that as social media networks are a huge source of distraction, blogs could promise the opposite: a distraction-free experience.

That’s why, especially if you use a blog to drive attention to your books, it’s good to think how to help the reader focus on what you write. Yes, there is a contradiction between the blog’s content and the way you want to monetize it, but have second thoughts about it. How much you really earn from Google AdSense?

Following a good example of Ebook Friendly I redesigned a blog to make it easier to read. The header is changed as well as a color code. All that to calm down the previously overwhelming and intense design. Also, the number of ad slots and sidebar links is limited to reduce possible distractions.

A simple way to reduce a feeling of cluttered space is to use a power bar like Wibya. It’s placed at the bottom of a web page and gives access to many features, even those you wouldn’t be able to place in a sidebar. This will give you a chance to limit the number of  sidebar widgets to most important ones, like the links to your books.

If you don’t want to simplify your sidebar, you can always use a Readability button. It will turn your blog into a beautiful book interface. Read how to install Readability on your blog.

Better Subscription and Sharing Options

It’s good to keep up with what’s cooking in content sharing tools. It’s changing fast. Digg is not digging any more. Google recently introduced +1 button and it should be available for embedding soon. Facebook now gives a Send button. What to do with all of them? Which ones are most important?

I’ve used many bookmarking and sharing tools, but in the end decided to select only Twitter and Facebook buttons. It’s where most users share content. Other networks are much less important, unless you’re not using them personally.

Subscription. Most bloggers, including me, offer only subscription via RSS feed. After reading this great article at Copyblogger I quickly created ways to get free updates of Password Incorrect by e-mail.

Apart from a sidebar widget it’s good to create a special Free Updates page.

More Relevant Design

The last part of a blog redesign is a design itself. As I wrote in the beginning, don’t start with it. But it’s good to come back to it, when you have a clear vision of where your blog is coming.

If you want to be the sci-fi writer, the dark, futuristic theme you are probably using, may work very well and you don’t have to change anything. But if you decided that there is more of the reviewer in you, think of making a blog looking more like a book. Sometimes changing of the color code within a theme can serve a purpose. You don’t have to pick up a new theme at all.

This is what happened with Password Incorrect. The theme is the same, the colors are calmed down and the header is not that geeky as before. All that to make you reading this blog with greater pleasure.

* * *

I’d love to hear your feedback. Is there anything missing? What is your experience? Don’t hesitate to ask questions in the comments.

Related posts

• 17.06.2011 -- 4 Ways Writers Can Use Readability
• 11.06.2011 -- Simple Tip to Embed All Readability Buttons on Your Blog
• 04.06.2011 -- Readability Adds Kindle Support – Great News for Readers and Writers
• 25.05.2011 -- Jetpack – a Single Plugin Which Is Making Writer’s Life Easier
• 29.03.2011 -- Why It’s Good to Install Readability Button on Your Blog – and How to Do It

"Things to Consider When You Redesign a Blog" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Picture: © Janaka Dharmasena

This post is designed to give you a concise, yet comprehensive preview of most important free tools you can pick up to publish and promote your e-books. I hope it will help you discover the ones, which in a best possible way fit your author profile and personal needs.

I’ll update the list frequently. It’s planned to be a one-stop place with all what’s available for free and worth getting your attention. For info about updates of this post, please follow or add me to a list on Twitter.

The most obvious choices, like blogging platforms or social media networks, are not included. I wanted to focus on less popular tools. Even so, I’m aware the list is not complete, as new tools take off every day. Please share your tips, ideas and feedback either on Twitter or in the comment section below.

To prepare this post I’ve been using information found on the following blogs: The Bubble Cow, Marketing Tips for Authors, The Creative Penn, The Book Designer, Publetariat, Authors Tools Blog, Author Tech Tips, Inkygirl and The Bookwright.

Use links below to quickly jump to the section you’re most interested in.

Writing and editing – tools, which can help you better write and edit your book
Design – how to easily prepare a cover of a book; it’s actually easier than you think
Formats and conversion – tools to convert and prepare books in desired file formats
Publishing – a list of the most popular self-publishing platforms
Online presence – what you need to effectively promote and sell your books
Reader engagement – tools to engage your readers in your books and writing
Analytics – analyze effectiveness of your online activity

Writing and editing

Google Docs
Popular office toolbox you can use any time from your Google accounts dashboard. Text editor is basic, but you can share documents online for real time editing and feedback. Download as txt, doc, pdf, odt and html. You can access your documents from any device with a web browser, by logging in to your Google account.

OpenOffice
Open-source, multilingual productivity suite, available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. It’s compatible with all other office suites, including Microsoft Office.

Evernote
Powerful note-taking working in the cloud. Advanced functions to capture and save ideas, good search. Access from many devices via applications (for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile).

TextRoom
Full screen text editor developed with writers in mind. Works on Windows, Linux and MacOS. You can export documents to Google Docs.

WriteRoom / DarmRoom
If you need a distraction-free editors you have to try WriteRoom (Mac) or DarkRoom (Windows). They get your computer out of the way, so that you can completely focus on your work.

Bite-Size Edits
An online service where you can submit a text and users will edit it for you. A very engaging way to not only make your text better, but also meet writers and readers.

PaperRater
Paste the text and it will be analyzed in real time. Title checker, plagiarism detection as well as spelling, grammar and word choice suggestions. The service also offers a Vocabulary Builder.

Design

Gimp
Image manipulation program for both Windows and MacOS platforms. Great companion if you want to design a book cover. Includes painting tools,  advanced image retouching and text editing.

Wordle
A very well designed word-generating tool. If you insert proper words, it can produce for you a nicely looking book cover. More details in this post.

MyEcoverMaker
A service in which you can easily create e-book covers stunningly visualized in 3D.

Formats and conversion

Calibre
One-stop solution for all your e-book management needs, both as a reader and writer. It converts files from and to many digital formats. Use it to add e-book metadata.

Sigil
A well-thought editor for epub files. Includes editors of metadata and multi-level table of content. You can add pictures, SVG images are supported.

2epub
Online tool which allows you to convert files in different formats. Input: doc, epub, fb2, html, lit, lrf, mobi, odt, pdb, pdf, prc, rtf, txt. Output: epub, fb2, lit, lrf, mobi.

Epub2Go
A simple online pdf-to-epub converter.

Publishing

Amazon KDP
Kindle Store’s self-publishing dashboard. Your book will be offered in the largest e-book catalog, available on many devices for users in over 100 countries.

Smashwords
A true multi-channel digital publishing solution. Publish a book at Smashwords and it will be available at Barnes&Noble, Kobo, Sony eBookstore, Diesel and iBookstore. More than 40,000 books were published so far.

PubIt!
Self-publishing platform of Barnes&Noble.

iTunes Connect
Use this extended procedure to get published exclusively in Apple’s iBookstore.

Lulu
An easier, more friendly alternative to get published in iBookstore.

Feedbooks
Although you can only offer free books at Feedbooks, you can use it to check great stats feature as well as the easiest possible way to have a book published. No file is required for upload. You just copy&paste a text into an HTML editor.

Goodreads
The popular online community of readers lets authors also upload e-book files, so they can be read right after they are discovered.

Scribd
Also called “YouTube for documents” – the largest reading social network lets you share book files in pdf or txt formats and send to many mobile devices.

XinXii
Europe based marketplace for all kinds of written work. You can upload content in 15 filetypes. More than 10,000 titles were published so far.

Online presence

Hootsuite
One stop solution for most of your online needs. You can send status updates to Twitter or Facebook and even write posts for WordPress.com blog. The Hootsuite ecosystem consists of web-based dashboard, mobile apps, bookmarklet, url shorteners, RSS feed manager and social activity analytics.

TweetDeck
Popular, powerful social media dashboard connecting you with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and many more. Recently a new feature was introduced, Deck.ly, allowing you to send tweets longer than 140 characters.

SocialOomph
A powerful dashboard designed to boost your social media productivity. Schedule tweets, track keywords, automate welcome DMs, vet new followers and more.

Twitterfeed
Manage your blog feeds in a smart way: add prefixes or suffixes as well as hashtags. You can send updates to Twitter and Facebook and track your feeds.

Dlvr.it
The most advanced content manager available. Publish your content from many feeds to many social accounts, filter messages, replace&remove text, get engagement stats and intelligently route your content.

WordPress SEO by Yoast
The ultimate plugin to manage the SEO of your self-hosted WordPress blog. Control and adjust titles, internal links, breadcrumbs, RSS feeds and more.

Jetpack
The powerful WordPress plugin which can replace several single-purpose plugins. Available modules are: WordPress.com stats, Twitter widget, wp.me shortlinks, shortcode multimedia embeds, After the Deadline and Sharedaddy.

Reader engagement

PollDaddy
The most powerful online survey&quiz software. Responses are collected via different channels, including your blog, Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. Free account allows for 100 survey responses per month.

Quora
An online knowledge market and social network. You can use it not only to ask quick questions, but also give answers and this way become an expert in a field you specialize in.

Kindle for the Web
Tool to read first chapters of books sold at Amazon – without leaving a browser. No installation is needed, the preview works in almost any web browser. You can embed such a preview on your blog and earn additional money from Amazon associate referral fees.

Readability
Turns any webpage into a distraction-free reading mode. An innovative remuneration model – 70% of all subscription fees go directly to content providers. For more information read those articles.

Protagonize
Collaborative story and creative fiction writing community with almost 16,000 members from around the world. Great place to discover exciting narrative forms and find new readers.

Audioboo
Mobile and web platform that effortlessly allows you to record 3-minute sound clips. Let your readers hear your voice!

Broadcastr
An exciting social media platform for location-based stories. Invite readers to your stories in a way they never experienced before.

Analytics

Google Analytics
A powerful service which generates detailed statistics about the visitors of your blog. Among many features, you can track which posts are most popular, what search phrases bring most traffic and which countries your visitors come from.

Bit.ly
A popular url shortener combined with advanced real-time link tracking. You can check how many times your links were clicked (with split to tweets and Facebook shares), referring sites and country split.

Tweriod
The service delivers a comprehensive analysis of your daily Twitter activity. You’ll see what time of day and day of week your followers are online and your tweets get most exposure.

TweetReach
Type your Twitter username, phrase or hashtag and you’ll see the impact the tweets make. The report lists tweet types, exposure and impressions of the last 50 tweets.

TweetStats
Enter your Twitter username to see a report including tweet timeline (by hour, day and month) as well as replies and retweets.

Related posts

• 27.05.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Learn and Improve
• 20.05.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Sell Globally
• 13.05.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Innovate
• 06.05.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Build Better Relations
• 29.04.2011 -- Self-Publishing: How You Can Reduce Costs

"40+ Free Tools for Authors" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Why did I choose such a positioning? Because reading is all about being focused, opposite to Internet – which is all about being distracted.

Reader friendly interface is one side of a story, as the site is designed to help both readers and authors.

As a self-publisher I also want to make this site a place where great books from self-published authors can be easily discovered. There is no better way to do it than help the reader focus on what the author wants to say about his book.

On the average Kindle Store page there are some 150 links, which can easily distract user’s attention. That’s why I removed or hid all other information, which usually accompanies – or dominates – the book’s blurb. This is killing when it comes to search engine optimization, and that’s why I very much count on the traffic brought by authors themselves.

Technically, Ebook Friendly is using Amazon Astore module (associate tag ebookfriendly-20) – and this is actually the biggest benefit. Authors don’t have to register and upload a book to a new site. Ebook Friendly is a selective directory leading to authors’ books in Kindle Store. The essential advantage is that you can drive traffic to a place where your book is more prominent.

Ebook Friendly can be used by authors in two major ways: online book previews and book directory.

Online book previews

Book previews are nothing else but Amazon’s Kindle for the Web technology, thanks to which users can read first chapters of books for free, but also embed previews on their sites and share them with friends.

You can find previews under Read Online tab or check one of the books right now.

I fully optimized the interface to ideally display Kindle for the Web embeds on our site. The goal was to achieve the look and feel of an e-reading application. All this to make two decisions happen at the same time: “I feel like reading a book” and “I want to read this book“.

Why would you want it? There are four reasons.

1. When you use a blog platform (f.e. WordPress.com) which doesn’t allow to embed html scripts.
2. If your blog theme has a narrow post area and it’ll be difficult to display a book preview in an encouraging way.
3. Your book preview will be placed where readers come to browse and read free chapters online.
4. I can link to your book’s Amazon page with your Amazon associate tag (if you have it), so that you can earn more money if the user buys it.

If you’re interested in adding your book to Read Online directory, please send an e-mail to info [at] ebookfriend [dot] ly with:

- the link to your print book (it’s where Kindle for the Web previews are available); important: the book has to be published at Amazon US,
- your Twitter account, so that I can refer to you as soon as the preview is published as well as include you in a Twitter list of ebook friendly authors,
- your Amazon associate tag, if you have one (otherwise I’ll use ebookfriendly-20).

Book directory

Ebook Friendly is not intended to be a review site. The major goal is to be a friendly and useful directory of valuable books from Kindle Store – with a special focus on self-published ones.

There are three levels of extra exposure Ebook Friendly can give to your book.

1. Our catalog – which is different from Amazon’s Kindle Store. The catalog is much smaller, therefore your book will be easier to find.
2. A list of Staff Picks – where we add books especially worth recommending.
3. Front page bookshelf – absolute top of the tops from Ebook Friendly – and a good promotional tool for you to use.

Briefly, Ebook Friendly is a top layer of Kindle Store which could help readers focus on your book. There are many great books from talented self-publishers which deserve to be much better exposed than being a part of Kindle Store’s long tail.

If you have any questions or suggestions please either leave a comment or send an e-mail to the address mentioned above. Ebook Friendly is growing, any feedback is welcomed!

Related posts

• 04.02.2011 -- Ebook Discovery Site Designed to Help Users Focus on Reading
• 06.04.2011 -- E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look
• 22.01.2011 -- How You Can Sell E-books to Mobile Twitter Users
• 25.07.2011 -- 6 Tips and Tricks to Use Kindle for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
• 03.06.2011 -- How to Effectively Publish and Promote Books to iPad and iPhone Users

"Free Tools for Authors Offered by Ebook Friendly: First Chapter Previews and Book Directory" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.

Here are the covers of the new collection of short stories in Polish entitled E-opowiadania (E-stories), planned to be published only as e-books. Actually I’m not interested in printing any book, any more. I want to reach people, who are tech geeks and who want to get into reading using new, digital channels.

Check also the covers for the other series, Geek Fiction Stories. They use the interface of mobile applications – with some tiny little details which explain a lot about what the stories are about.

Related posts

• 12.04.2011 -- Free Tools for Authors Offered by Ebook Friendly: First Chapter Previews and Book Directory
• 20.07.2011 -- How to Create Ebook Covers with Phoster Application
• 04.02.2011 -- Ebook Discovery Site Designed to Help Users Focus on Reading
• 22.01.2011 -- How You Can Sell E-books to Mobile Twitter Users
• 27.08.2010 -- A geeky banner to Amazon Kindle Store which deserves its own blog post

"E-book Covers With E-reading Application Look" is a post from Password Incorrect Blog.