10 Tips on Creating Better Book Covers for KDP
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
- It doesn’t matter how good your interior content is. If your book cover isn’t grabbing the attention of Amazon customers in search, then no one’s gonna be clicking on your listing. And without that first initial click, no one’s even gonna be seeing your books product page, let alone your amazing interior content.
So what you need to do, is create a book cover that’s not only gonna make an impression on Amazon customers right out of the gate, but that’s also gonna make your book stand out from all books in that niche.
And in this video, I’m gonna show you how to do just that.
0:00 - Why your KDP low content books may not be selling.
1:01 - Animated intro.
1:12 - What to expect from this video.
1:29 - Tip 1: Why you must use a KDP cover template.
4:20 - Tip 2: Why you should create your print covers in CMYK.
9:01 - Tip 3: How graphical elements can make your cover look more professional.
10:02 - Tip 4: Why you should never leave open transparencies in you document.
12:34 - Tip 5: Why you should never use borders on you book cover.
14:24 - Tip 6: Why you should create your cover text in hierarchies.
15:14 - Tip 7: Why your book’s title should have a unique font style.
16:34 - Tip 8: How to use graphics to visually define your book’s content.
18:01 - Tip 9: What you should be promoting on the back of your book cover.
19:30 - Tip 10: The text that you absolutely must put on the spine of your book.
23:55 - Closing thoughts.
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Video Links:
Pantone Color Chart
Amazon: amzn.to/3r7LdX4
KDP Book Cover Template Creator
kdp.amazon.com/cover-calculator
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#KDP #bookcovers #bookcoverdesign - Jak na to + styl
As mentioned in the video, you can learn how to promote your low content books in my video "10 Tips on How to Promote Your Low Content Books for FREE".
You can watch that video here: czcams.com/video/PTGSBGr2PU4/video.html
Your videos are some of the best I’ve ever seen from CZcamsrs for KDP. I learned so much from each one and they are so unique. Thank you for taking the time to make your videos for us we really appreciate it.
I really appreciate you saying that Judy. Thank you for watching them.
Thanks so much Craig. This is THE video. What particularly helped me was 1)open with instead of pasting the template 2) CMYK..had no idea about this and cover printed green instead of blue during testing 3) no opacity...printed areas completely black in pdf 4) graphic as background to look professional 5) text hierarchy 6) book cover is graphic not text document ...
Mine came out very eye catching!
I'm glad my video helped.
Glad it was helpful!
Sooo many good tips here! Thank you 🙏
You're quite welcome.
Some really great ideas here. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Very informative. Tons of useful tips. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for all the great tips!
You're welcome Jennifer.
Thank you this video really helps. I am going to revisit two of my book covers.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks Craig! A very timely tutorial. I’m just starting my first cover!
I hope it helps.
Great tips, thanks
No problem!
Great ! Thanks 🌟🔝
You're welcome!
Thank you 🙏 + Thank you 🙏 + Thank you 🙏 AMAZING Tips...
You're welcome + welcome + welcome Tatiana.
Really enjoyed this video. Learned something new today.
Glad to hear it!
Great tips...thanks
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much!🎉❤
Any time!
Craig, I'm becoming a big fan of yours! I like the way you explain and your voice. I hope I'll improve the quality of my books and my sales following your tips
I'm glad that you enjoy the videos Anca.
🙏🙏🙏❤️💖 one of the best videos I’ve come across. 🙏
I'm glad you liked it Hamant.
Great video, great tips, I have made note of them. I love the marketing part of creating a custom url that diverts to your Amazon author page - perfect, I am subscribing to your channel. You have given the best of the best book publishing guidance that I have seen in the last year. Thank you.
Glad you like them!
dude, tripla A content! I just love your channel and the no bullshit nature of your videos!
I appreciate that.
Wow very useful. I still have a long way to go...
Hello Craig, I found your channel yesterday. I have subscribed. Thank you you. Your direction is giving me the encouragement and confidence to get started. I'm working through Book Bolt. I'm an RN outta work trying to get my puzzle books and such completed. It is intimidating. I'm from a time that PC's weren't required. I have had to learn from the very basics of working a personal computer. Im excited. Thanks again. I understand your teaching style. Have a blessed day.
The whole self publishing process can be a little over whelming at first, but I promise that it will get easier over time. If you were able to understand the complexity of the human body as an RN, graphic design should be a cake walk for you! Best of luck.
@@CraigBabin that is my sentiment exactly. years working many critical care situations and beyond, using what I learned. I agree with you, thank you for the encouragement. Have a great day.
Very helpful! I am doing my own cover for my very first activity book and this video is just what I needed! Thanks so much Craig.
I'm glad it was helpful Nancy, best of luck!
Hi Craig, in addition to your tip about design book cover as a graphic and not as a text document, I also watched your video about the new Book Bolt which I use. You also mentioned in this video about depthness in your design. I went back to my drawing board and did that and sure it changeg the look of my cover design from flat-looking! Thanks so much again for all your helpful tips in your videos! I am a very satisfied subscriber 👍
@@nancymatus4765 I'm glad to hear that Nancy, it's nice to be reminded every now and then that people are actually getting value from my videos.
Thank you, once again, for another great video. Can I use InDesign for the KDP cover template. I don't have photoshop, etc. Thanks Craig.
You can, but it's not really designed as a graphic software. If you don't have access to Photoshop, you can always use Photopea.com. It's a free Photoshop knock off that you can use right inside of your web browser.
Thank you so much! My cover wasn't horrible, but your video was the first I came across that actually talked about design rather than just how to use Canva etc. I have a question - one of my books is only 84 pages and the spine is very thin. Is there a minimum font size where anything smaller would make it unreadable? (Bakerville Old Face is the font I'm using if that matters.) I've got it on there and it's REALLY tiny.
I think as long as you stay above 10pt you should be fine. I usually use between 10 to 14pt fonts for my spine text. I wouldn't go lower than 8pt, that would be pushing it.
@@CraigBabin Thanks! 😁
yeah I have baskerville on one of my books---go and get the bold version, it will show up better
Great video as always, I wonder if CMYK colors can be perfected in Canva.
I don't know, I've never used Canva before.
Cmyk is only available for print download in canva if you have pro version.
unfortunately inkscape does not support cmyk, but I made a cover using rgb and the print looked very nice anyway
I'm using Linux so the only real alternative is Viva Designer that I still need to test
When it comes to KDP RGB is fine. The CMYK tip was more for when you're using other print houses.
Hi I finally finish and was able to upload to CSV. However, after the last page, the soluton page does not come up after the last page. Does it matter whether you use a mac laptop? I even created a ticket twice and no avail.
When you upload the CSV, there must be enough blank pages in your book so that each solution can be placed on it's own page. Did you account for that? You can place the solutions 6 to a page after they are created and then just delete the extra blank pages. So if you are creating 50 puzzles, you need to make sure that you have at least 100 blank pages.
Also, on the puzzle generator page, make sure you have checked the box to add the solutions.
Hey Craig, you talk about straight lines along the edges of the book, and advise not to have borders running parallel to the edges. But what about the spine! What about having ‘an edge’ along the spine? Is that a no, no? I can see in your example that you only have text running down the spin, but no edges. What happens if your front cover is different from your back cover! Is that to be avoided too?
Straight lines paralleling the spine, are not as much of an issue. The book cover is cropped around the outside edges, so as long as you keep those straight lines along the spine only, you should be okay.
As for the front and back cover being different, if you're going to do that, just make sure that there is some type of divider on the spine (like a solid color), to hide the transition from one image to the other. The one thing you don't want to do, is try and line up an image, with the very edge of the spine. The odds of it coming out perfectly every print, are not very high.
@@CraigBabin thanks Craig. I’m going to run with what I’ve done. I’ll see if it passes inspection!
Awesome training, how do you add the spine title and website on bookbolt?
At the moment, it's not possible, but I'm working on getting them to change that. For now, you'll have to create the text in a free photo editing software like Photopea.com, rotate it and size it to how you want it, and then just export it out of the software as a PNG with transparency. Then upload the image to Book Bolt and place it on your cover.
@@CraigBabin Thank you, are you planning to do a short video on that?
@@lavelclaytorsProjectswPurpose Hopefully, by the next time I do my next Book Bolt video, the rotation feature for text will be available. But if I do a Photoshop video in the mean time, I'll be sure to include it.
@@lavelclaytorsProjectswPurpose Actually Lavel, I just realized that you can rotate the text in Book Bolt. When choosing a text style, choose headline (don't use multi line), then if you want to rotate it, just grab the little white ball at the very top of the control box and rotate the text which ever way you want.
Like this: gyazo.com/8e3db909ce4f588ba2b55ab0c1b37d52
@@CraigBabin thank you very much
Craig, can I ask a question? When working out page count, is ONE page two sides? Like a spread, or is that counted as two pages. I’m a bit confused with that. I have 262 pages in InDesign, is that 131 pages for the book cover spine width calculation?
When it comes to the book cover calculation, 1 page is just a single side of a page, so the front of the page and the back of the page together, make up 2 pages. Just think of it as numbered pages in a book ... both the front and back of the page each have their own individual number assigned to them.
So if you were to place a number on every page of your book, starting from the very first page (and beginning with the number 1), the total number of pages in your book, would be the same as the number on the very last page of your book. So your book would have 262 pages in it, as far as the cover calculator is concerned.
On a side note, your total page count for a book has to be a multiple of 4. Each page spread has 4 pages to it, 2 front and 2 back. So your book's page count should actually be 264 pages. If you uploaded your interior as 262 pages, KDP would add 2 blank pages to your book when they printed it.
I hope that makes sense.
@@CraigBabin Thanks. Yes that did help.
Awesome answer Craig. I had been searching for this answer as well. Thanks for providing a detailed answer to that question. Made my day as I had been not wanting excess blank pages at the end of my book. ❤
Can u expand on your tip "create depth on your cover"? How does one do that?
Use layers of graphics with different mode and opacity settings. The idea is to make your background appear to be going off into the distance. I give a better demonstration in this video here: czcams.com/video/F67S8K41dKM/video.htmlsi=eF3TzWHQQEItA-yp
@@CraigBabin Seriously. I really like your covers. It really shows that you are an expert in this.
@@SvenGeorgiev Thank you, I do my best!
I think there's a mistake about the printing process.
Amazon use a digital printing for our kdp books and not a CMYK "Offset" machine, because the first process is used for the pod, and the second one is used only when we need to print a thousands of books. So, are you sure they use a CMYK printing process for a unique digital print ?
This is straight from KDP's cover formatting guidelines under the heading "Adding Images":
"Image color, size, and quality. Images should be in CMYK color to ensure your cover looks good in print. All images should be sized at 100%, flattened to one layer, and placed in your document at a minimum resolution of 300 DPI (dots per inch)."
See for yourself: kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201953020
But I agree that cover results do look better when you use more colors (at least that's been my experience anyway). And that's why in the video I recommend using colors from the Pantone Solid Coated (RGB) swatches, instead of CMYK. But your cover document should still be saved out in a CMYK profile.
Only your ebook needs to be saved out in an RGB color profile.
@@CraigBabin yes i Saw and read the Amazon kdp guidelines. But I still don't understand how they could use a CMYK color process in a POD printing, that's nonsense. What kind of machine do they use ? The CMYK color needs an insulated plates for each color, and print each color in one pass, in an additive process, only used for printing large quantities of books, unlike digital printing wich is used in POD, and wich is subtractive ! I really can't figure out this particular "mystery", apparently unique to Amazon
@@chaila311boualem5 I have no idea what type of machines they are using, I'm just going by their guidelines.
Once you publish your book through KDP is it possible to change the back page after it is already active? If not, what is your suggestion?
You can change both the cover and interior even after it's active. You just can't change the book's title or author.
@@CraigBabin awesome, I have learned so much from your videos. Thank you so much for sharing.
@@CraigBabin If you've had a book up for some time can you still change the cover and interior or do you have to put on the cover it is a revised edition?
@@taniayager3361 You can change the cover and interior at any time, just as long as you're not deviating away from what the original title and description of the book are about (ie you can't change a word search book about cars, to a coloring book about puppies).
I am having such a hard time creating a cover for a word search.
Watch this video: czcams.com/video/U4D04_AOMP4/video.htmlsi=lAz_o4uc74qM03LC
Craig, I outsourced the interior puzzle content to a guy on fiverr and he sent me the PDF file with the project. My question is, can I open this file up in BookBolt or should I just put it directly into KDP? There are still some things I need to add to the interior so I would like to upload it to BookBolt, but can't figure out how. Any advice? Thanks.
If there's more work you still want to add to the book interior and you plan on doing that work in Book Bolt, then just upload the PDF file to the file library in the Book Bolt Studio. It will separate each page individually so that you can reassemble the interior pages the way you want inside the Book Bolt Studio.
@@CraigBabin Thanks for the response. The only option I have from the File menu is "Load from file (JSON) and it says that my PDF is in the wrong format. So what I did is I uploaded it to the Image section, and it did what you said; it separated the file into the individual pages. So from THERE, do I have to import each individual page into my book, or is there a way that I can import the whole file into my book so I don't have to do it page by page? Thanks for your assistance.
@@mellowmoods8393 I wasn't talking about the file menu, I was referring to the file library (where your images are stored). And yes, you now have to apply them to to your interior pages one by one.
@@CraigBabin Ok, that's what I figured. Yes, I misinterpreted what you meant when you said "file library" as being the File menu on the left side. Ok, got it. Thanks for your assistance.
@@CraigBabin Craig, upon adding several pages to your book after the fact and your content is bouncing all over the margins as a result, is there a way to center all the text on all of the pages at once, or do you need to manually do this page by page to get the content back in the center of the page again? Thanks for your help.
I'm a professional book cover designer
It's important work, because whether we should or not, we do judge books by their covers!