Simple cover creator software with powerful 3D editing mode.

The Bad

The anti-aliasing of the 3D cover does not create a truly straight line.

Bottom Line

Easy to create cover. Need some fine tuning to achieve smooth 3D look like the cover shown on their homepage. The problem with anti-aliasing can be compensated by shrinking the output ecover slightly before using.

Reviewer’s Comment

When using this software, remember that you will need to ’scroll’ the editing menu on the right hand side to see the full option of the 3D mode menu.

Features/Benefits

• Choice of Box, Book, CD, Books-in-Box, Magazine, Special Report covers etc.
• Wide variety of graphics template to choose from.
• 3D rotate function to achieve the desired effect.
• 7 days money back guarantee.
• Works in Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, or XP.

Price

$89.90

Homepage

Visit Virtual Cover Creator

The Bad
There is not too much option for creating custom boxes. Also, the function of the built in image editor is comparable only to Windows Paint.

Bottom Line
If you are into easy step by step eCover design software, without the hassle of having to use Photoshop, this would be the software to choose. This software however, is somewhat rigid in terms of custom functions.

Features/Benefits

• Ability to create a standard box, ebook cover, thin box, wide box, custom box, CD/DVD Case, ebook, spiral notebook, wide spiral notebook, box with 2 books, Box with 3 books, Box with 4 books, magazine
• Improved camera rotation / movement(compared to previous version). Now users can rotate the camera along its X, Y and Z axis relative to the center of the eCover
• Improved light source rotation / movement(compared to previous version). Now users can rotate the camera along its X, Y and Z axis relative to the center of the eCover
• Ability to select between speed and quality
• Ability to specify the light color, which will affect the look of the eCover
• Ability to show the X, Y, Z axes, which helps to a better positioning of the light source and camera
• Multi language support: English, French, German, Brazilian, Russian, Romanian, Japanese

Sample

Price

$38

Homepage

Download eCover Engineer Free Trial

Cover Factory is cheap and only costs $39.95. Cover Factory includes an integrated graphics editing program allowing you to draw shapes, add gradients and textures, redo/undo, rotate/align, different types of binding and positioning of objects, shadow and lighting, reflections, variable observer positions, and more.

The Bad
From the point of view of a newbie, it has more setting/parameter to play with and this is definitely beneficial to those who enjoys editing.

The Bottom Line
Cover Factory would be recommended to those who love self-editing without burning a big hole in the pocket.

Benefits/Features:

• Creates images of books, books with CD-ROMs, binders, binders with CD-ROMs, boxes, boxes with CD-ROMs, Floppy Disks, Zip Disks, CD-ROMs.
• Gradient, Pattern, Texture and Solid Color fills for sides and background.
• 10-steps Undo/Redo.
• Draw on top of sides using vector objects, including: lines, barcodes, text, rectangles, circles/ellipses, pictures, polygons, polylines, margins.
• Cut, Copy and Paste vector objects.
• Move, Rotate, Align, Change Ordering, Delete or Edit Properties of vectors.
• Supports comb and spiral binding styles on binders
• Choice of CD-ROM position options on binders, books and boxes.
• Special effects include gray scale, lens flare, buttonize, color balancing, brightness, contrast, and more.
• Set up shadows using multiple lights from an array of 25.
• Add reflections.
• Edit almost any property of your object at any time.
• Rotate your object around all 3 axes
• Render your final image to a file (JPEG, PNG, BMP) or the Windows Clipboard.
• FREE access to ecover libraries of 200+ photographic images (spectacular skies, beautiful landscapes, animals, plants and more)

Sample Cover

Price
$39.95

Homepage
Visit Cover Factory

The Good

Easy step by step wizard that will guide you through the process of creating a professional eCover in minutes.

The Bad

Too much choice of settings requires user to take some time to familiarize with the tools. Would prefer to have a video tutorial on how to use eCover Studio instead of few pages of tutorials.

Bottom Line

Once you are familiar with the tools, you can create your next eCovers easily. If you are looking for easy eCover creation tool that can help you create your eCover by going through some easy tutorials, then this software will work well for you.

Features/Benefits

• Choice of Box, Book, CD, DVD, Cassette, VHS or Ezine covers, etc.
• High-quality graphics output.
• You can rotate freely to to achieve the desired effect.
• Offers templates and presets bonus.
• Works in Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, or XP.

Sample

Price

$97

Homepage

Visit eCover Studio

1. Raytracing, photorealistic result, highest quality. The only software that uses it.
2. Skydome lighting, soft realistic shadows.
3. Complex shapes (like books stack).

The Bad

1. Long rendering time (because of using raytracing)

The Bottom Line

Box Shot 3D is the ultimate solution for virtual 3D cover design. With Box Shot 3D high-quality software box, ebook cover or 3d screenshot can be created in just a few mouse clicks.

System Requirement

Pentium4 2GHz or better
256 MB RAM
Microsoft Windows 2000/XP Operating System
No hardware acceleration is required

Features/Benefits

• Boxshot 3D uses raytracing . The use of raytracing leads to “realistic” shadows.

• Boxshot also Calculating skylight (or atmospheric light) - light emitted by sky.

• Box Shot 3D use many tricks for fast and efficient antialiasing to make sure you have smooth edges in the image created.

• You can fully control the box reflection, transparency and depth on the floor and adjust them with sliders to see result in realtime.

• If you want to use the rendered image in a complex project, you can easily output your image with transparent backgrounds (PNG format) for use in your favorite graphics editor.

• Box Shot 3D contains many different shapes that can be used for rendering boxes, dvd- and cd-cases, screenshots, books with soft and hard covers or stacks of books.

Sample Cover

Price

$50

(Note: You may download a demo-version absolutely free)

Homepage

Visit Boxshot 3D

When it comes to marketing a book, the book cover is a book’s primary direct selling tool. It speaks out to a potential buyer and reflects the quality of the content within. The fact is that we all buy books to read it afterward, and thus hardly have any ideas on the value of the content contained within. If a book cover design is creative, relevant, attractive and interesting, readers would at least browse through the content. What can you do for a book cover to make it interesting?

1. Use keywords that appeal
Your title has to hit the nail on its head. It should jump off the book cover and appeal to your buyers. It should solve a problem that the buyer is facing. To do this, you’ve got to conduct a research on what people like and want. What are the words that draw attention well? For example, if you are writing a book on Internet Marketing, words like “make money online”, “riches” or “wealth”, will appeal to the entrepreneurial target market. Set up a focus group, or ask a few friends on their opinion of the title options you have. You may be surprised at what great ideas others may have for you.

2. Relevant design elements
The design of your book cover needs to call out to the reader. It needs magnetism and relevance to your target market. Visually appealing book covers, with color combinations that match well and even photography, are often effective. The more outstanding your book is, the better its chances of being browsed.

3. Get creative help
Get the services of a graphic designer to work on your book cover. Review past work to get a feel of his or her style, against your personal preferences. While creative designers do an excellent job of making your cover outstanding, they may run the risk of getting off-track in the message of your book. Run samples provided through friends and associates before making a decision on the right cover to use.

4. The spine – of great importance but often neglected
Is your book too thin? Can the words be read when the book is displayed on its side on the bookshelf? The thickness of your book goes hand in hand with the internal book layout design. It is ideal that your book should not be too thin, as this would also lower the perceived value of your book. However, you shouldn’t enlarge the font of your content in an effort to thicken your book either. As for the spine, it speaks to the book browser when the front can’t be seen. Therefore it has to creative and communicative as well. Make sure that the font used on the spine is readable, and that the browser does not have to try to hard to read the text.

5. The back of the book
Much of book marketing involves making the best of your resources. There are many authors who fail to utilize the back of the book to their advantage. Have you ever picked up a book that does not say a thing about the content on its cover? Do you realize that many people turn the book around to its back to get a synopsis of it’s content? If you can’t do it yourself, hire a copywriter to work on your back cover. As a rule of thumb, try to include the core messages within your book, who needs to read the book, and also your personal credentials.

Finally, if you want to market a book properly, you probably need to put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Only then would you be able to identify the best ways to get through to them, through your book.

Samantha Tang, previously a Managing Editor for a publishing company, published 7 books within a short span of 2 years. An avid marketer, she ran events and implemented intensive book marketing strategies to get these books to the local bestseller list several times in a row. She now shares her experiences at Market-a-book.com, a book marketing strategy resource site. Discover ingenious ways to sell your e-book online here, and even get it published! Learn how you can author a book professionally, even if you don’t write well. This article is an excerpt from a downloadable FREE e-book entitled Write Your Own E-book. Get this e-book now and learn practical ways on how you can make big bucks by selling your OWN ebook!

Creating eBook covers for internet marketers is big business on the internet. If you sell downloadable products online then you must have a graphic representation of that e-product.

The graphic representation or “e-Cover” is the only thing on your website that makes your product real. It is the only thing that makes your product unique.

You can describe your product all you want but if you want your visitors to buy it, they have to see it visually.Contrary to public opinion, creating an ebook cover is really easy.Only two step and you’re done!

Step 1 – You need a template

I see templates being sold online for up to $99.00 and I can’t believe people are paying for it.

Maybe they don’t know about the Amazing Box Cover Tutorial – http://www.AmazingBoxCovers.com – a tutorial that takes you step-by-step and through the ebook cover creation process.

Do not make the mistake of buying pre-designed blank JPEG ebook cover templates. You will never get a beautiful ebook cover out of it.

What you need is the original file that created the JPEG eBook cover template.Download the Amazing Box Cover Tutorial – http://www.AmazingBoxCovers.com and you will get 12 pre-designed templates that you can use over and over again.

Step 2 – You need a flat file

The flat file is just a regular graphic design of your ebook cover. This is the easy part and almost anyone can do it. The amazing box cover tutorial show you how to do it step-by-step.

The complicated part is to merge the template and the flat file together. And make it look “amazing”.All little tips and tricks you need to create flawless ebook covers are available on the amazing Box Cover tutorial.

All the beautiful ebook covers you see online are nothing but a 3D illusion that fools your eyes into thinking that you are looking at a book cover.

This 3D illusion can cost you quite a few bucks if you don’t know how to do it.

Once you have your template, it’s just a matter of laying your flat file on top of it.You can create your own ebook covers in 5 minutes flat once you get the hang of it.

You can use the same flat file to create your header graphic as well, it is good idea to have a matching header  graphic and ebook cover. It makes you site look really professional.

Here is the best advice I can give you.

Before you go out and spend your money on expensive eBook Cover design programs and expensive templates that overcharge and “under deliver“, you owe to yourself to at least find out how it’s done.

I promise you, you will never pay anyone to do it for you ever again once you read the 30-page Amazing Box Cover Tutorial.SP, Woodring is an internet marketer, and author of the Amazing Box Cover Tutorial.If you want to discover how to create amazing eBook Covers,Box Covers, Cd Covers, even Header Graphics for your site, then please visit his website at http://www.AmazingBoxCovers.com

Ebook covers are make or break.

If your ebook cover looks cheap, your readers will think that your product is cheap quality and they will be less likely to buy it.

You could cut corners and design your ebook cover yourself. But it will probably show through in the design and ultimately in your sales (or lack of them).

And let’s face it, most of us flunked art when we at school. So a home-made ebook cover design will show up as exactly that.

That’s fine if your whole site looks like it was put together by your 7 year old child.

But I’m assuming that you want your ebook cover graphic to look good. That you want it to look professional. Something that you’d be proud to have on the cover of a real book.

There are software programs available that claim to help you create professional ebook cover graphics. The ones I’ve tried might live up to that claim in the hands of an experienced user. But in the hands of a casual user like me… All I did was waste a few hours.

So for most people, it will be a case of getting a professional ebook cover created professionally.

In the scheme of things, this is a one off cost from as little as $30 on a freelance site, up to $100 or so from a professional graphic designer. So a few dollars and a few days later, you’ll have your ebook cover created so that you stand the best chance of getting sales for your masterpiece.

Don’t let yourself or your product down - make sure that you give it the best possible chance of selling by getting the best possible cover designed for your money.

Check out my review of the ebook cover creation service that I use when I want my ebooks to look the best they can.

“E-Cover is as much important as the content of your product”

When making a statement like the above, it’s always debatable. Some marketers will say that they can write a thousand words without a single graphic and make tons of money.

It’s undeniable that it can be done, but what I want to add here is that if you have an e-cover to your digital product, a few things will happen.

1. People will visualize your product better even if you know that your product is digital and it can’t be hold in hand.

For example, your ebook will just be another ebook if it’s in pdf format, but if you have a beautiful graphic of the ebook, people will associate the product with the picture, text, color and size of the graphic of your ebook.

2. People will remember your product much longer.

When people see the e-cover, they’ll say, “oh! that’s Online Profits Made Simple ebook” because I’ve seen it before.

Compare that to reading in between lines of sea of words. You might get lost and still can’t find the title of the ebook.

3. People will be more interested in the product, and that helps sales.

Imagine creating a CD e-cover to your video product professionally. The CD cover looks nice and it seems so real that only professionals can produce quality product such as what you have.

Now, you know that your online video could be a simple Camtasia recording and uploaded to your web server. It’s like most marketers are doing out there.

But, because of the graphic, your potential buyers will see that your product is much more professionally done and they are willing to buy the products with high quality.

Of course, at the same time, your product really has to be high quality product.

The next question that you want to ask is where to get these e-covers done. Obviously, not everyone (including me) is creative enough and has the expertise to design an ecover.

The answer is to hire graphic designers to do the ecover for you.

If you think hiring a graphic designer for your e-cover is expensive, then do your research on the internet again and you’d be surprised to see some designers are willing to design an ecover for less than $50.

Zamri Nanyan believes that anyone can make money online successfully, provided they have proper business mindset and persistent action. For more great business tips, go to http://www.zamrinanyan.com and subscribe to his “Online Profit” e-course for FREE.

You have already spent the time putting together an ebook or software package that you want to market on the Internet. You have chosen the right words for your title and any other text you might use on the book cover.

Now you have to carefully design your cover to best represent your book or software. You have to find the right graphic(s) that will support the title and enhance the perceived value of your ebook.

There are two common forms of graphics: clip art and stock photos.  Take some time exploring sites providing stock photos and clip art. It can be a lot of fun.  First of all, what is clip art? There are many differing opinions out there. Some call it “ready-made art” because sometimes clip art can include photos, pictures, or complete illustrations. But, for the sake of this article, we are defining clip art to mean: All ready-made pieces of digital art, such as illustrations, borders and line drawings that are used as graphic elements in a document. They can be either raster images (jpeg, tiff, bmp, gif) or vector images (eps, wmf, ai). They can be black and white, or color.

Regardless of what you call it, clip art should be used sparingly in quality ebook covers or software boxes. The fact is, clip art can range in quality from rough drawings to refined images. But, clip art is never mistaken for high quality paintings or photos. It is not intended to be the only or the primary image in a larger work (like an ebook cover).

Perhaps the best rule of thumb is: If you are not sure if you should use a piece of clip art in your document (ebook cover, box cover), don’t use it. If you are not careful, the wrong choice of clip art can imply a lack of quality.

The above statements notwithstanding, clip art can, if used properly, be an effective element in a quality ebook cover. Where do you find graphics? Without a doubt, there are many sites where you can get images and photos you can use. There are literally hundreds of Web sites where you can find clip art of all types and quality. Just search online for “free clip art”, “free images”, or “free graphics.”  Some may require that you sign up for a free membership.

Just be sure that you are allowed to use any clip art you find, and that it is of high quality.  It is very important that you carefully read the “Terms of Use” before using any image. Some sites may only allow use of their images for personal use. Others allow commercial use. Still other sites let each contributor of the images determine what kinds of usage will be allowed. When paying a fee for an image, the fee usually grants you permission to use the image freely in any way that you wish.

When using an image for your ebook cover, make sure it is okay to use in a commercial situation, and check to see if you have to pay for that use, or if there are other requirements like giving the author/photographer credit for the image. You can also purchase large collections of clip art on CD sets in computer stores or on the Internet.

Good luck in your search for the right images. Finding the right picture will make your efforts worthwhile. It will increase sales of your ebook or software. If you find yourself a little lost trying to find the right images and design of your cover, then perhaps  you should consider hiring an experienced graphic designer to produce the cover for you.

Boost your ebook sales with quality 3D ebook covers!FREE 34+ clipart and photo resources.Quality custom design of Web graphics http://www.QualityEbookCovers.com.