How The Heck Do I...

...Make an Ebook Cover
using Cover Factory? - Part 2

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Creating e-book covers with Cover Factory - Part 2

Step 14:

After you click 'FINISH', a whole new screen appears, allowing you to edit the cover of your e-book. (On the right hand side you will see that you can DOUBLE CLICK to edit your front cover image, if you like. You can re-do steps 6 and 7 to choose a whole new image, or change the part of it you use on the cover.)

If you're happy with the picture you chose for the cover, it's time to do a TITLE for your book.

Step 15:

The title tools can be a bit tricky at first, if you're not used to 'paint' style programs. But it's not difficult... you just need to get used to how the tools work. Remember you can delete any title you don't want (just select the box with the words in it and hit the 'delete' key on your keyboard).

You may also find that you need to construct your title in 2 or 3 blocks (or words) and move them to where you want them on your cover - the title doesn't wrap to a second or third line by itself.
 

• FIRST: Click on the TEXT icon (the one with the blue 'A'). A box will pop up for you to create your title.
   

• SECOND: The FACE is the font you will use. I found that the default - the Arial Unicode MS - was the easiest to use. I'd suggest you use this to begin with. The most important thing is that the title is easy to read.
   

• THIRD: Choose a SIZE. I used size 48. You can experiment and change this if you wish. I also checked the box for BOLD.
   

• FOUR: Choose a COLOUR. Pick a colour that will stand out against the picture you have chosen. I found that a WHITE font stood out against the sky in this sunset photo, so I used that.
   

• FIVE: Type in your title in the TEXT BOX. (Remember, you may have to type it in short blocks and move them into place later. You just click the TEXT icon for each extra word you want in the title. In this case, I thought "Beach Holidays" would fit across the cover, so I typed it all at once.

Now click "OK".

Step 16:

You will see your title somewhere on your work space. (It won't be perfectly situated on your cover, so don't worry about that. You have to drag it to where you want it.)

To move the title, you need to make sure you click on the "SELECT OBJECTS" tool - the little white arrow. (If you leave the font tool selected, it will just keep popping up a text box for you to write more words for the title!)

When you click on the "SELECT OBJECTS" tool, then click on your title, a four-headed arrow appears. This indicates that you can drag the object you have selected (i.e. the box with your title in it) to where you want it. My title "Beach Holidays" fits perfectly across the e-book cover, so I'll just leave it there. (You can make your titles smaller or larger by clicking on one of the coloured corners of the text box and holding down the left mouse key while you
re-size it.)

Step 17:

Follow the same steps as above to put the author's name on the book.

In this case, I'm going to choose a different colour for my name - I'll use yellow, because this will stand out against the dark colour at the bottom of the cover.

When you are happy with the title and author's name, click the button that says 'RENDER'.

Step 18:

When you click the 'RENDER' button, a box will pop up asking you if you want to copy this to the clipboard etc. At this stage you click NO - because there is one more thing we want to do yet! (Something that will make a big difference to the way your finished book cover looks.)

When you click "NO", a copy of your book cover (now in 3-D, and starting to look much better!) will appear. On the right-hand side of the screen, you will see the heading Rendering Options.

Under that, there is the option to Soften Edges. Currently, this defaults to NO. You need to change this to YES, because it will stop your e-book cover from having those jagged edges.

To change this to "YES", just double click on where it says "NO". A box with an arrow will appear. Click on the arrow, select "YES", and this time, when you get the "Would you like to copy the rendered image?" question, click on "Yes - Save to File".

You will then see a message advising you about what different file formats mean, and how you should make a decision about in what format to save your cover. Just click on OK and move on. (We're going to use Picasa (downloadable from Google) to change the size of our book cover, and Picasa recognizes both PNG and BMP files.)

Step 19:

In the box that pops up, find the folder you created on "C" drive to save your Cover Factory images. (Remember? The Cover Factory folder contained 2 more folders - one for pictures, the other for finished ebooks.) We're going to double-click the 'Finished ebooks' folder and save our e-book covers in there.

In this case, I will call my ebook "BeachHolidays" (no spaces between the words). Cover Factory will save it as a PNG file unless I choose a different format.

That's it! You have created your book cover. Unless you decided to stick with the 200 X 200 pixel cover, it is a very large size - 800 X 800 pixels, remember? - so our next step will be to reduce the size in a different program.

NOTE: When you try to close the Cover Factory program after creating your e-book cover, it will ask if you want to save the project. This means "Do you want to save this as  COVER FACTORY project?" If you do, click YES. It will then open a box for you to give your file a name. It will give your file an extension that says .cfp, and it will save it in the Cover Factory files area on your computer. If you want to do more work on the cover later, you can find these in Program Files/Cover Factory/projects/

"USING PICASA"
(this program is a free download from Google at http://www.picasa.com/ )

CLICK HERE to see how to use PICASA
to change your e-book image from a very large 800 x 800 pixel size
to a more usable 200X200 size.

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