If you are going to publish your first ebook (or have plans to do so), good for you. Self-publishing ebooks is opening up a lot of doors for many an aspiring author, trying to make a name in the genre of their choice.
One of the biggest problems these writers will face is discoverability of their work. You first need to get people to notice your ebook before they would be interested to get a copy. Aside from the marketing and promotional work you can pour into getting your book out there, there is also the need for a great ebook cover design.
Fortunately there are plenty of tutorials to help you get started. We also have plenty of tools and Photoshop actions to help you create 3D ebook cover images for both hardcover and paperback. Make your work stand out from the crowd with a little help from Photoshop.
Recommended Reading: Beginner’s Guide To Book Cover Design
Here are the shortcuts for your quick reference:
Ebook Cover Design Tools
If you don’t have Photoshop, or want a quick and easy way to create a 3D ebook cover image, here are four tools that will do most of the work for you.
3D Box Shot Maker. Select your spine and cover images and tweak the parameters (box size, shadow and reflection) to your liking.
3D-Box Maker. Just choose your front and back covers, and spine image, then click Create 3d-box.
Free Ebook Cover Creator. This tool offers you a choice of four templates. Once you’ve selected a template, just upload a flat image of your book cover and select a background color, and you’re done.
MyEcoverMaker. Unlike the previous tools, this one provides a number of background images (or you can opt for your own), fonts and text design options to choose from when designing your cover.
Ebook Cover Design Tutorials
Prefer to have more leeway in the design of your ebook cover? If you have and use Photoshop, here are 9 tutorials to check out and follow.
Photo Album Cover – How to make a photo album-styled cover from a template image.
Design An Ebook Cover In Photoshop Using Action – Design a cover and turn it into a 3D ebook cover using Photoshop actions.
Make A Professional Ebook Cover In 5 Minutes – How to use Photoshop actions to create a professional-looking 3D ebook cover.
How To Create A Digital Ebook Cover – Design and create a 3D ebook cover from scratch.
E-Book Cover Tutorial – How to turn a pre-existing flat cover image into a realistic 3D ebook cover.
How To Create An Ebook Cover In Photoshop – How to turn a flat cover image into a 3D ebook cover, complete with shadow.
How To Create An Ebook Cover With Photoshop – How to create a simple 3D ebook cover image using a template.
How To Create Ebook Cover Tutorial With Photoshop – How to create a 3D ebook cover from scratch.
How To Make A 3D Ebook Cover Image – How to make a slightly different style of 3D ebook cover.
Ebook Cover Design Photoshop Actions
There is also the option to automate some of these actions and you can do that by running some actions in Photoshop. Here are 9 links to action files that you can try out.
E-Cover Action Script 2 – Turn your flat cover image into an angled 3D hardback ebook cover.
Hardback Ebook Cover Action Script. Create a 3D hardback ebook cover, complete with shadow.
Free Photoshop Action For Ebook Covers – Turn flat to 3D curved paperback cover with reflection and shadow.
ECover Profile Action – Try a slightly different perspective for your 3D ebook cover.
ECover Reflection PS Action – Like reflections on your cover? Here’s a Photoshop action to help.
ECover Slim Photoshop Action – Go slim with this paperback style cover, plus reflection.
ECoverSuiteElite. The motherload of more than 60 actions designed to create 3D ebook covers in a variety of styles and angles.
Softcover Ebook Cover Photoshop Actions. A large selection of free actions to turn your flat image into 3D soft covers, with a lot of different styles and viewing angles.
Hardcover Ebook Cover Photoshop Actions. A large selection of free actions to turn your cover image into a variety of different 3D hardcover ebook covers.
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