Go to the file menu and choose new. Remember the size of the of the previous book. Use the square icon on the left hand side and create a rectangle which is higher than it is long. Make the box red. Click on the skew icon and you will notice the surrounding border changes. If you don’t remember which icons to use you can move your mouse cursor over them and they should say what they are. For resizing the toggles will be solid whereas for skewing they will change to clear.

By clicking on the middle toggles of the side or the top you can now skew the rectangle that will give you the foundation for your cover. If you're not very good at judging sizes then just copy and paste a template and put it on one side for reference. You will mainly skew using the right hand toggle.

The spine we do the same way but just a narrower version and skewed in the opposite direction. Use the arrows on your keyboard to move the spine close to the cover so you can make sure the bottom and top line up. To make the spine longer or shorter simply move your mouse over the blue squares till you see an arrow appear. You then click and hold while you drag to make it shorter or longer. There is an example on the next page.

The back of the book can be done in one of two ways. I just copy and paste the front cover which then gives me two identical front covers. I move one to the back and a little to the left. You could just make a small version like in the flat book covers but I find the two identical copies the best. I also change the colour of the back panel while I am working on the project just for ease of seeing it.

Creating the pages is a little more difficult as it needs a little bit of finessing to get it right. First create a long rectangle just a little larger in width to your spine and a little shorter than the width of your front cover.

Change the colour to grey.

You can skew it so it is in the same angle as your cover. the best way to do this is move it over your cover and skew it using your cover as a sort of ruler. (Step1) You now need the shape tool. It is important to get used to this tool as we will be using it to make the text and other elements fit later. When you click on the shape tool you will notice the border of the element graphic changes again. You need to put your cursor over one of the corners and click and drag. (Step 2) Again use the spine this time to get the angle right.

The stage 1 graphic will become the stage 2. What I am trying to say here is that you will only have one grey element not two.

It is now just a matter of arranging the different elements to make the book. Do it in this sequence to start and once you get used to it you can use your own system. Firstly I attach the spine to the back page. I then move the front page into position. I then place the pages, the grey section, into position.

To hide the excess I then go to the menu and choose Object. In the Object drop down menu you will see the word Arrange with an arrow next to it. Make sure you have clicked on the front page.  Bring to front and send to back are visible. Click on the Bring to front. and you will see the front cover now hides most of the grey. To hide the excess use either the shape or the arrow to reduce the size of the grey portion until it is hidden behind the rest of the red section.

It might take a little bit of moving and juggling till you get the desired effect. Just remember that if you make a mistake you can use the undo button. Click on the front cover and add a drop shadow. You can now save this as a template to add all sorts of things to it later.

Alternative Video Site

You will find all sorts of effects you can do with text and graphics in this program and we will just do a simple tutorial to give you the basics.

When you went to the program to download your evaluation copy you would have noticed there are some extra graphics you can download. Vector graphics are very clean and worth the download.

You can copy and paste a picture and reseize it to fit on the book cover as we mentioned before. It must be a JPEG format as the program does not support gifs.

In the following example I took a picture of my family and used the copy and paste function to paste the image into the program. I then used the skew tool to create the angle so it fitted onto the page. I could have also used a drop shadow to add some effect.

Make sure you use pictures that are not copyright protected. There are plenty of sites around that will let you use their custom pictures for free. You could also use any of the custom clipart supplied. I have used some in the templates on the site you have access to.

Obviously the more time you put into each design the better you can make it look. By playing with the shape tool you can get even better perspective. Remember the secret is to keep it simple.

Create the front cover by using the box tool and create the cover. Find the picture on your hard drive and copy and paste into the program. This can be a little difficult sometimes. The simplest way is to double click on the picture file and it will open in your preferred graphics browser. Copy and paste.

We can now manipulate this graphic to fit into the style we want to produce. Click on the picture and drag the boxes on the top, middle or sides so it fits on the side of the book like the example to the right. The small orange boxes are used to drag the image into different sizes. We can now use the transparency tool to create the merge effect.

We will want to do a full transparency so move the button over to the right so all the control bar is red. Next to the word transparent is a radio box, make sure this is ticked. Also you will see a small circle with a handle. Make sure the handle is to the left not the right.

You will see the picture change as you do it and this will help you gauge the merge accurately. You could now add some text and add the other elements, spine etc.

Many people ask how you can get a cut out of a person or object to put onto your e-book cover and using this program it is very simple. First of all try and find a photo that has a relatively consistent background.

Then use the eye dropper at the top of the screen (pictured below) and set the tolerance to about 20. It will take a little fiddling with each photo. Make sure you have selected the photo to activate the toolbar.

Then systematically move the eye dropper over each of the areas you want to delete and it will remove that portion of the colour. To do any minor adjustments use the tool which is the paint transparency and you will be able to remove any little imperfections.

You can now see the image without any background and it can be inserted into your book. Now that the background has been removed we need to match the image with the book.

Use the rectangle tool to create the new front cover and then just move the cut out into position and reseize.

The rest is just a matter of personal preference and minor adjusting. Use the skew tool to match the angle with your cover. Sometimes you may notice the eye dropper will not be activated and this is easily fixed by going to the selector and click on the small wavey section to enable this function to what you see to the left.

When working out the size for your covers there are a few considerations. The most widely used size is in between 100 to 110 pixel’s wide and 140 to 150 high. For example this book cover is 106 wide by 148 high. It fits neatly on a web page yet allows enough room to put the message on clearly. Click on the book cover to download your free copy.

If you do more than one cover try to keep them the same size so that your web page will have consistency. Also try and use the same colour scheme so that customers recognise your quality. Of course this is not a hard and fast rule.

I thought seeing we were using some e-books as examples I would make the link so you could down load them just as an extra little bonus for you. Enjoy. The book at right is a great example of the use of text and graphics. Click to download. It has also incorporated a great flash into. When designing your covers take into consideration that others may also want to sell your products and if they are to large you just might miss out on lots of sales.

The same applies in reverse. If the cover is to small it looses some of its perceived value. See how other marketers design their books and copy what works. By right clicking on a book in a web site you can see the size of the graphic and this will give you a good guide. If you are lucky enough to have Photoshop or one of the more robust graphics programs you can reseize without loosing quality.

Borders are great for transitional effects on your book cover. You can use them to add colour or for adding special text such as author. Draw a box to start with and then copy and paste it. Once you have done this move the top box down and reduce its height till you have the border size you want.

The next step is to skew the first box to the angle you want. Change the colour of the border to the one you want and then using your top box as a guide you can skew the border box.

It is then just a matter of dragging the border over the front page to produce the effect.

The spine border is a little more difficult as it usually requires you to adjust the perspective with the shape tool and because it is such a small graphic it can be quite difficult. The secret here is just to try and follow the same instructions as for the front but skew it the opposite way.

To do a top border just follow the same instructions for the bottom but position it at the top. You can change the colour easily for a more striking effect. Obviously the more time you spend finessing your graphic will produce a better effect. 

Tip: Another tip here is to create each of your elements in different colours so you can move the elements easily and see how it looks. Once you are happy with the positioning just change the colours of each element to the desired colour and save the project.

Adding text to your cover is probably one of the simplest and hardest procedures to perform. It is simple because all you do is choose the text tool and type your information. Skew it to the right perspective and add your effects like drop shadow etc.

It is also quite difficult because you also have to choose the right text. Your heading is critical and it is worth spending some time to get it just right.

Here is a good example of a cover with a great headline which tells you exactly what you are getting. By clever use of text and graphics the book looks inviting and has all the basic information. Also notice the use of complementing colours.

Here is a good example of a cover with a great headline which tells you exactly what you are getting. By clever use of text and graphics the book looks inviting and has all the basic information.

Also notice the use of complementing colours.

Video Tutorials

If your just a beginner I have made a very simple to follow beginners video for you covering some of the basics. I did this for my wife on a Sunday afternoon so you see my mistakes, hear the traffic etc but they will show you the basics and get you up and running quickly.

Click here to watch the video.

Here is the action script for the ebook covers I used in the above tutorial Download here. (zip file 117kb)

If you prefer reading here is a great pdf that will also take you through the basics.