08-30-2013, 01:35 PM | #16 |
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I always try to fix the cover image to 960(w)x1280(h), anyway the dimensions should keep this 3:4 ratio (W x 1.333333 = H)
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08-31-2013, 05:15 AM | #17 | |
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Quote:
In my experience, nobody gives two craps about the cover inside the actual ebook file. Only the authors/publishers, certainly not the buyers. The last time I looked, the Dresden Files series didn't even include the covers with their Kindle editions. Is it nice to provide a cover, so that the book can look good on the various and sundry device's shelves? (E.g., the K-Fire and the iBooks app, the Nook, etc.)? Yes, of course. But what really matters is the thumbnail on the retailer sites. I've seen super covers sell really mediocre books, and I've seen incredibly crappy covers break very, very good books. A bad cover--particularly a white backgrounded-cover with no border--will kill a book's life. Humans are magpies; we pick up bright, pretty shiny things. When a book buyer is browsing the "shelves" at Amazon, s/he is attracted by good covers first, over anything else (assuming all unknown-to-the-buyer authors). The cover gets them to the blurb, which in turn gets them to the LITB, which hopefully gets them to the free sample and then the purchase. Don't worry about how anyone reads an ebook on a device, or whether it's held in landscape or portrait; only worry about how the cover looks on a very busy website. Everything else is just...worry for no reason. The vast majority of books have a SRL (start reading location) set well past the cover; I can't think of a single book I've bought where I've ever flipped back to see the cover, and my random and utterly unscientific polls amongst other ebook buyers say the same thing, by a huge margin. Nobody looks at covers after they buy the book, unless there's some reason to (a clue, for example). Focus on the buyer, not the reader. By the time the reader sees your cover, inside the book, you're 90% of the way home. At that point, the bigger worry is the first 1300 words, not the cover. JMHO, but seriously: think the retail site, not how the cover will look inside the ebook. Hitch |
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08-31-2013, 12:42 PM | #18 |
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I've found that 590 (width) and 830 (height) is a good size to set covers at in Calibre. At least it makes sure there aren't any white areas on either the sides or the bottom when on a Kindle Paperwhite.
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09-07-2013, 03:11 AM | #19 |
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The usual size for early ereader screens was 600x800 pixels.
Amazon ask for 300 dpi resolution, but this usually makes the file too big for the ePub spec, so I stick with 72 dpi Calibre resizes all graphics to 576x768 but by experimenting I have found that on my Sony and Nook anything, except the cover, taller than 740 means the bottom of the picture is obscured. I agree that the marketing thumbnail is the most important aspect, but I do go backwards from the start point to look at the cover and other pages in books that I buy. |
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