How to create a professional looking book mockup
Book mockup, a perfect way to display your ebook in 3D!
Creating a book mockup is a great way to present your ebook on the web. It makes it stand out from the page thus making it more compelling for potential readers to check it out, or even buy it if you are selling your book!
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So, if you worked hard to create your ebook, and now you want to know how to present it well, read on!
Why present your ebook in 3D
Here are some benefits for presenting your ebook in 3D
It makes the ebook look real even if it is only in electronic format and not in printed form. People will relate to your product easier and in a more natural way. Instantly grabs attention. Since most of the things on the web are flat, 3D objects instantly "pop out" from the screen and demand attention! Quality mockup gives whole web page a more professional look, which again increases chances to offer your book to potential readers.How to create a book cover that grabs attention
We do judge a book by it´s cover!
If you are not a professional designer, but you still want to design a simple book cover yourself, here is a couple of tips which can help you out.
1. Keep your design simple
Pictures of books on webpages are usually small (especially if you intend to sell your book on Amazon and similar sites), this is why it is important to keep your book cover as simple as possible. Simplicity is key!
Book title, author name (or any other element you think is important), should ideally be readable even at very small size.
Take a look at this book covers from Amazon for example, here are some exact sizes they use. Which book cover in your opinion has a greater chance of being clicked?
Simple, focused book covers simply create more eye attraction. Human eye tends to gravitate toward things that are clear, not toward complex and unrecognizable content that demands extra effort.
2. Don´t have too many focal points
It is very tempting to show and tell too many things at once, we want to highlight all the good things in our book. Resist! Choose ONE good image that connects to story well and than build around that!
Stay away from multiple pictures, texts and other elements which don´t communicate clearly and at the end create confusion. Again, keep it simple. Let eye stop at one thing to make an instant connection.
3. Use proper typography
Fonts that we use should be readable even at small sizes. Fancy fonts may look great when we have a large picture in front of us, but when the picture is small, they can easily become unreadable.
Connect typography with the books content and try not to use too many fonts at once. Use one or two, that should suffice.
Interestingly, if author name is written in larger size, it can give more sense of authority! This can be especially important for authors that are not yet well established.
On picture you can see, how even typography alone can be used as your design!
Simple example of book cover design
How to make your covers look great!
Here is a simple process with a couple of design tricks if you decide to make cover on your own.
1. Find the picture you want to use with your book.
Choosing a good photo or illustration is really important to make a good book cover. You can use free photos (still be shure to check restrictions on a per-image basis) or you can purchase your photo through some of professional sites. For resources check links at the bottom of the lens.
2. Design your cover
Place your chosen image on the cover and insert texts. Than connect colors of your text to the cover picture. Use eyedropper tool to do this.
This way you will always find the "correct" colors for your design! See example bellow (Source of photo iStockPhoto).
Create your very own 3D book cover
Next step, placing cover art into book mockup!
Now when you have designed your cover, it´s time to place it into a mockup! In the following example I have used this book mockup: Book Mockup LARGE Pack.
This is how finished book mockup looks like!
How to create a book mockup - VIDEO - A simple way to present your book in 3D!
Final tip
And finally, if your design skills are not that good, consider hiring a professional designer. You might have to pay a little, but since writing and creating a book is a lot of work, it would be a shame to ruin all that effort and chances for success with a bad cover.
Again, we do judge a book by its cover!
Find out more! - A couple of links to further explore this topic
If you are interested to learn more on this topic, visit the following links that are a quality reference on this topic.
- Book Mockup LARGE Pack
Quality photoshop file for creating your own book mockup. - Ebook Cover Design Awards
Lots of ideas for book cover design. - The Book Designer
Secrets to ebook cover design success. - Patrick Samphire Blog
Seven tips for designing ebook cover.
Professional stock sites and some free resources - Free and other resource sites
- PhotoDune
Lower priced stock photography, still with lots of great photos. - Depositphotos
Another lower priced stock photo site, with lots of photos to choose from. - iStockPhoto
Most established stock photography site, a bit higher priced photos and graphics. - Stock.xchng
Popular resource for FREE images. - MorgueFile
Great collection of FREE photos you can use in commercial projects, no attribution needed (still check restrictions). - FlickrCC
Another huge resource of Creative Commons section photos you can use.