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The Internet is the focal point for millions of people around the world that would otherwise never have realized the existence of one another. Blogs, e-mails, web pages, servers and a thousand other web words and phrases have entered our languages. With this explosion of human mingling one thing has become very apparent to many people: The Internet can reach millions of people 24 hours each day, if one would market to this volume even at $1 a sale, one would surely never see manual labor again.

How many millions of users worldwide on a DAILY basis?

Asian Europe North America Latin America Africa Middle east Australia

459 338 235 116 044 034 019

(Above numbers represent millions of users)

Total: 1 245 000 000 users (Almost 1.5 billion) daily users. By far the most profitable form of sale on the Internet is Virtual Information (e-books). Many companies have seen this and in preparation have flooded the net with services to write, correct, format, box and market every type of subject under the sun. For people just starting out with very little or no money to invest, there are ways to get around spending money and still come out looking like a professional.

This book has been designed for people with little or no experience in designing a book cover or program box. It is a step-by-step, photo rich manual you may follow as you are actually creating your own cover. Once youve done it once, youll be able to repeat and refine your process until you end up with extremely professional icons and covers customized the way you want it using basic tools your computer came with and free programs you can download off the net.

Suggestion; you may want to save your work each time you add something new under an increasing number (i.e.: title of your book/box 1.jpg, title of your book/box 2.jpg, and so on) This way, if you make a mistake, or would have preferred not to add something, you can re-load a previous version without having to start from scratch.

Yes, there is an UNDO button. It was the method I depended on up until the day that I worked on a book cover for over 5 hours (without saving the results once) and suffered a power loss (of 10 seconds). I lost the entire project and had to start again. Save your work as you go.

Another reason to save often is that you will probably be able to reuse sections of your work for other projects saving you the trouble of re-creating something you had already done.

Assuming you are reading this on your own computer and that you have downloaded this from the net, you obviously have access to a computer and Internet connection. That takes care of the obvious. The programs you will need are already available to you free of charge. One very useful (and seldom mentioned) program comes with Windows Paint. Dont expect to do painting or life like photos with it, but it is the easiest program to use for creating framework and quick cut and run type work. Since Paint does not support many options we will need, we must turn our attention towards more specified freeware programs. One of the best Ive found that can open many file types, save them in many ways and provide a large range of filters, effects and color manipulation is called Photo Filter (see link page). Since boxes and books are images of cubes when displayed in 3 dimensions, many of you may not feel comfortable or ready to produce these cubes. One easy program is often found in Windows; Word (2003 and up). We can use this program to create a cube or box and transfer the image to an image program. You may have similar programs that you already work with. If you prefer WordPerfect and know how to create a cube, use it. If you have a good photo program and know it, use it. The point is using free or already owned technology. Dont go out to buy programs, theres just too many more that adequate free programs out there. If you do decide to hunt the Internet to download a program, make sure you are searching for freeware not shareware. Shareware will let you use something for a predetermined amount of time then (just as you figured out how it works) it stops functioning and you must either buy it or hunt for another program and start over. Dont copy pirated versions of high power programs. For one thing its illegal, for another, its not necessary. You just want to create a professional cover for your own use, not start a business of creating

icons and box cover (if you would, you would want to purchase license copies for business reasons). Get a freeware program, learn it well and create some fantastic covers with no limitations or time remaining and a clear conscious. The next thing you might want to check is your mouse. It may seem odd but if you have a ball type mouse, the rollers can get rather icky as dust collects inside. The result is a mouse pointed that can stick, jump or move in shifting direction even if you have a steady hand. For game playing or just positioning the pointer with your mouse, these effects may not even be noticed but when youre trying to connect 5 pixels together or get a precise line or shape, having your mouse jump as youre drawing can get frustrating. If you have a laser mouse, insure the bottom lens and the mouse area are clean and the surface lets the mouse slide easily. Make sure you have enough storage area on and off your hard drive. I suggest that once you start having many photo files used to create your covers, you may want to save these file to disk, USB storage, flash card or anything to make a duplicate. You dont want to be spending months creating 20 perfect covers and boxes only to have all of your work erased by a power surge, system crash or a virus. You dont really need a printer unless you just want a collection of your work to be a hard copy. Cameras and scanners are not a must either, although they can assist you to use real life photos in your work (thus avoiding any copyright infringement from using a photo from the net). This is not to say you should not purchase large company programs but for most people just starting out, spending $500 just to create a better picture simply it not an option. You need to start somewhere or try a new venture without risking your life savings. Youll need some sort of cover for your e-book or software, do one yourself using these instructions then, if you find yourself successful, you can purchase bigger and better programs to create more complex themes. Armed with the above, with a little patience and creative juices, youll be able to create your own covers and icons in no time following the highly illustrated step by step instruction each carefully created and manipulated to provide you with the most precise view of what your work should appear like.

Open a word with a new blank document Open 2 blank Paint sessions Open a Photo Filter session

In the word file, choose the Rectangle tool.

Your rectangle should resemble the front of a book.

Once we have this basic frontal view, we can change it to a 3D view using the 3D tool in Word. With the rectangle selected, click on the 3D button.

From the pop up menu we need to choose a direction for our cover Click on the button as shown below.

Once youve done your cube, copy the picture by right clicking on the cube and copy it.

Then paste it in a blank Paint session make sure the cube is place on the left hand side of the Paint area.

Return to the word file to create a shadow. Click on the cube and select the shadow tool, from this new pop up, select the shadow style 11.

Word will change your 3D box to a 2D sheet and ad a basic shadow, right click and copy this new photo.

Return to your Paint session and make sure you have enough room to paste the new photo beside the 1st (on the right side). Once you have both pictures side by side, you can close the Word session without saving we will not be using it any longer.

Use the selection tool in Paint to select the cube, the top, right side and bottom does not need to be close but the left side on the selection line needs to hug the left cube side as closely as you can.

Drag the cube to the shadowed sheet connecting the bottom left corner of the cube with the bottom left corner of the sheet.

10

Now that we have our basic cover design, we need to save it so we wont need to create another from scratch save it some place you will be able to find it later. You can call it Blank Box Template so youll know what it is just by looking at the file name.

This template resembles more a software box than a book icon. We will need to create another template to create the illusion of pages between a front and back cover for a book icon.

NOTE: If you are creating a box, you can skip the page line section and move directly to the Front Cover Section (although you may want to skim the page making procedure.

Zoom in to the upper right hand corner of our box using the magnifier tool.

11

This way, you will have a better view to create the back cover and page cut. Using the eraser tool, select an appropriate size and erase the section as seen below.

This will represent your back cover.

Make a second erasure and make a line as close to the position shown below. The line will mark the end of the page section.

12

Un-zoom by clicking on the magnifying glass and clicking on your picture. Still using your line tool, draw a straight line from the edge of the first line you drew to the edge of the spine in a straight line.

If you are not satisfied with the way it looks, you can undo your work and modify it until you are satisfied. Once the page outline looks proportionate to your book, remove the excess at the edge of the pages by zooming in and using the eraser tool make sure not to erase any of the back cover section.

Next we need to color the page part in a color unique to the rest of the cover. In this case RED is used but the choice is yours, as long as you use a unique color.

13

Unique colors are non-variants of each other; dark blue, teal blue and navy have the same base (blue), this will cause problems later as we will identify one part of the case to be modified with one color (to become transparent for example). If you use similar colors, it can cause parts of the picture we want to keep intact to change. Red, blue, green yellow and so on are unique.

Notice each section of the case has a different color. There are two colors that could clash in our photo; the shadow and the background (white background, off-white shadow). We want to keep the shadow off white so well change the background to blue.

14

Next we need to transfer our work to the Photo Filter program. Select the entire picture and copy it to your clipboard (EDIT, SELECT ALL then EDIT, COPY).

Move to a blank section of the Photo Filter work area, hit the right button on your mouse and select PASTE AS NEW OBJECT from the menu.

Once you have successfully transferred your picture, you will not need the paint cover youve just copied and can close without saving. The size of your picture does not matter at this point we will modify it later.

15

You should be left with something similar to the picture below.

Now that we have our basic book, there is one more detail we should add before saving this work under a Book Template heading; a page section (since this will be an e-book cover. At this point you have two options to choose from; use a photo of book pages or create your own pages. This depends on each individuals preference and technological capability. If you have a scanner, you can grab a large book and place it upright on your scanner to be able to digitize a photo of the books pages. Cut the excess away using Paint to leave only page lines.

If you create the lines from scratch, youll see that it does not have to be complicated. Open a new Paint session and choose the rectangle tool from your Paint program.

16

Draw a horizontal rectangle then choose the paint tool.

I suggest you choose the darker generic grey at this point. Once you get a feeling for the results, you may want to modify the base and line colors to suite your taste. Fill the rectangle with dark grey. Next, select the line tool (smallest line thickness) and choose the generic light grey. Use the zoom key to focus on the upper left hand corner then make a line as shown below (notice the grey line is not right under the top of the rectangle black line).

17

Repeat this line until you have about a dozen straight lines. You can then use the selection tool to select the lines youve done so far, copy them and paste them as often as you need to fill the visible section.

When selecting the lines, include the left side on the black rectangle for positioning and stop just above the highest line to avoid leaving gaps. The right side and bottom are less important.

Once youve filled the visible rectangle, un-zoom your work area and select all of the lines you created top and bottom are not important but stop on the left before you reach the black rectangle and cut the lines clean on the right.

18

Paste the selection and connect with the first lines, repeat until you complete the rectangle as seen below.

It does not mater if you do not follow the rectangle, as you will be using only a part of the picture. Select a good portion of the lines with your selection tool and copy to clipboard.

Then past this new object in your Photo Filter program.

19

You can close without saving your lines in the Paint program. Select your book project, right click and choose copy from the pop up menu.

Then paste it as a new object in Photo Filter (so you have 2 identical pictures). Bring up you book lines and copy this photo.

20

Highlight one the copy of the book photo and past the line to cover the area were they should appear.

If your lines are not long enough or wide enough, you can paste the lines picture more than once and connect them together to fill the page area on the book picture.

You can paste the lines in place by right clicking on the lines and choosing validate from the menu. Save the page lines for possible future use then close it. Select the 1st book photo; we will need to change the RED part of the book (the line section) to a transparent section. Click on IMAGE from icon) the top menu and click on TRANSPARENT COLOR (or the and click yes on the pop up question to change the color depth to 256 colors. On the next pop up window, you can choose which color will be transparent. The background color (blue) may be selected as default; you must change the color to red (or whatever your line section is in the picture).

21

The easiest way is to move your cursor to the page section on the book photo (your cursor will change to a dropper) and clicking on the red part.

Hit the OK button to change the Red to Transparent. Right click on the photo and choose copy from the pop up menu.

Move to the photo with the page lines, right click on it and choose past. You will be left with a clean book icon with page lines perfectly cut in.

22

Save the paged book under a name similar to Blank Book. Push the slider from the next screen to maximum for a highest quality photo.

Now that we have our book and box blanks, lets look on how we can dress them up. Keep in mind that there are many different ways of getting the same result; the following is only one of those ways. Hopefully, it will give you ideas on how you can modify and improve your own work.

The procedures for the Front cover are the same for either Book or Box photos. Lets start with a title. Although you can download any font you want from the net (most of the time it will be free), I suggest you start with a basic font to get the feel of the distortion of the photo and the readability of the distorted text.

23

For this example, Paint was used with the writing tool and a title was created.

The colors that we will be using have been chosen for a specific reason; they are not derived from one another. You can use light bleu and dark bleu in your work but make sure you put a high contrasting color to be made transparent or risk ending up with too many parts of your picture with similar colors becoming transparent.

Lets take this name and add a risen effect. 1st select the darker yellow (top colors), click on the line tool and ensure the line thickness is about in the middle, choose the rectangle tool and square off your title.

24

Well change the rectangle to two colors to give an illusion of depth. Zoom in to view the bottom left hand corner. Choose the lighter yellow (second line of colors) with the pen tool and cut the corner.

Move to the upper right hand corner and repeat the process. Click on the paint can tool and flood the top part of the frame.

Next well make the background a unique color (to be made transparent later). Un-zoom to regular view, choose a color (not yellow, white or black) and use the paint can to saturate the entire background.

25

Now that we have our title, lets put it on the book spine (or left side for the box). First we need to orient it standing up. Choose the IMAGE button, then ROTATE BY ANGLE and click the 370 degrees radio button.

Once youve hit the OK button, we can add the depth to fit on the spine. You need to select the entire title, Click on IMAGE then on STRECH AND SKEW.

26

Since the spine (or left box side) is shown on a slant (for depth), we must reflect this in our title to make everything look natural. Find the Vertical: setting and enter -45 in the degrees box thats minus 45.

Tip: All of these functions work with positive and negative values affecting the side of the picture where the arrow appears. In the above picture, you can see the Vertical option has the arrows on the right of the white sheet, If a number entered is positive, this side moves up x degrees, if the number is negative this side moves down x degrees. This holds true for all other options here (in different direction). Using the paint can tool, fill in any white spaces that have appeared.

27

Select the slanted title, right click and copy. Move to your Photo Filter window and paste it beside your opened book template as a new object.

You will notice a percentage indicator and 2 magnifying glasses to the right. These will increase and decrease the VIEW of the photo (not the actual size). Click on one photo then the other, setting the percentage size to be identical and comfortable for you to view them.

Once you have the photos set to the same zoom level, you can easily see the size requirements to match both pictures together. In our example, the title is larger than the box. We could modify the title to fit the box but this cause us to loose quality in the title details. The box/cover on the other hand has no details to it yet (pages dont count) so we will increase the size of the box.

We achieve this by selecting the book photo, clicking on the IMAGE button then on the IMAGE SIZE from the drop down menu.

28

You can see the size of our box photo is 600 pixels wide by 547 pixels height. The preserve aspect ratio should contain a check mark, this toggle will ensure that any size you change will result in the other side automatically changing proportionately - if you increase the width by 10%, the height will also be augmented by 10%, and so on.

Well increase the height to 800. Notice the width changes automatically to preserve the pictures original aspect.

29

You will see that the size of the book/box is now the right size for the title.

We can integrate the title to the box as soon as we get rid of the green background from the title. We do this by rendering the background transparent. Press the transparency icon ( up. ) and click YES on the pop

30

Make sure the green color is selected to become transparent and click OK.

Once the transparency complete, right click on the title and select COPY. Click on the book/box icon and select PASTE. The title should appear in the center of your book/box photo.

31

Use your mouse to move the title in place. Once you are satisfied with its position, right click on the title and select VALIDATE.

If youre creating a book cover, youll want to skip this step and go directly the Front Cover section. If youre creating a box, youll need a box top. Using Paint, create your box top (in our example, well use the title). Follow the procedure to create a title but do not rotate or skew it. We will crop the title but in a different direction. Youll see that the top is slanted in towards the left, we will need to do the same to the title. Click on IMAGE, STRECH AND SKEW but this time we will use the HORIZONTAL setting. Set it to 45 (thats minus 45).

32

Remove the white areas (as previously described here) then select the title, copy and paste it as a new object in Photo Filter. Make the background transparent (how) and make sure the box and title are the right size (how). Paste the top title it in the box photo and place it on the top part.

The following steps are for book and box covers.

Lets do the front next. The easiest way is to copy the cover to Paint (unless you feel comfortable with Photo Filter to perform the next steps its a bit more complicated but very doable). In order to transfer the cover, select all of it, right click and choose COPY.

33

Move to the Paint program and paste it if you are asked to increase the size of the Paint blank to accommodate the paste, choose yes. In order to have a perfect fit, paste the cover (grey) as close to the top and left side as possible (its ok if some gets cut off, then reduce the right side and bottom of your workspace to the grey cover.

Using the writing tool, write the title within the grey area (where it should appear).

34

You can add more writing and choose the entire area, copy it then paste it in the Photo Filter picture, or you can select the title only, copy it and paste it on your book/box icon.

Lets spruce up the cover using some of the power of Photo Filter. In your Paint program, write a sub heading. Select it, copy it and move to the Photo Filter program but this time do not click on the book/box icon. Instead, right click in an empty are of the Photo Filters window and choose paste as new object. Click on the FILTER button and move your cursor down the list to the word COLOR In the sub menu, click on GRADIENT. In the window that appears, the options well use for now will be:

Style: Duotone Direction: Bottom to Top Color 1: your choice of a dark color Color 2: your choice of a light color

35

You can view what these changes will look like before you accept them by pressing the PREVIEW key.

Once you press OK to accept the changes, right click and copy this new image and past it in your book/box photo. Repeat these procedures of copying and pasting until you get the result you desire. Add more photos on your cover until you are satisfied with the look. If youre doing a box, youll want to skip this step. The next step is to change the back cover color. This is not necessary so you dont have to, but some find it helps with the look. The choice is yours.

36

Another choice you have is the background. You can change it to white or add a picture or texture. Tip; At this point, save your photo with the bleu background. If you change it to white and decide to add a texture or photo, making white transparent will also make ALL parts of your book that is white transparent. Lets provide a background texture. I have a nice canvas sample but it is way too small to cover the entire background, it was designed as a Windows background (to be tiled). Heres what I did; I copied the canvas picture in Paint making sure my work area was much larger and kept pasting beside one another (in effect, manually tilling the picture) to end up with a larger canvas photo.

You dont want to just stretch the picture; the result would be a poor quality and rough image. Once completed, I copied the entire photo and pasted it in Photo Filter. Next I made sure this new photo was the same size as my book photo background (the same would apply for a box).

37

I then made the blue background transparent.

After pressing OK, I copied the entire book photo and pasted it on my new background and validated the action.

38

I then selected a closer trim to my book to get rid of excess sides instead of using the select all command.

And pasted it as a new photo in Photo Filter where I saved it.

Once you get comfortable with the way things work, you can get more creative. When you start making a little extra cash, you can purchase bigger and better programs that can provide 3D lettering in a variety of formats and textures.

39

Then you can improve your book and re-release it with the new look. Here are a few examples on what you can do with backgrounds to give a desired effect and help to convey ideas in our case, Independent Entrepreneurs will have more free time once successful. Note that the effect may not be apparent just with the book cover, the idea is to use covers beside tag lines and sales pitches.

Ok, I cheated a bit here. The shadow in the above cover cannot be achieved using the previous procedures (its a heck of a lot easier). To learn how to keep the same background image and change it into a shadow, youll need to read the last section of the SHADOWS chapter.

40

LEARN THE SECRETS THEY DONT WANT YOU TO KNOW.

If youve found this section useful, you absolutely have to get the entire version were youll find even more tips and tricks that will leave you to wonder why would anyone pay to create covers? Here are some examples of what you could easily be creating once youve read the entire manual: Realistic 3D shadows Plain Shadows Software boxes

Covers with sceneries

Covers part of the sceneries

Professional Reflections

And many more effects not shown here. Find out what colors relay what emotions according years of research and surveys and more.

41

OTHER

TITLES IN THE INCLUDES:

U N K N O W N T AL E N T S

E X C L U S I V E AR E A

TRADE SECRETS Think money markets are for the rich? Think again. Learn all the inside secrets and start trading in ways Wall Street can only dream about. The markets are prime; the time to act is now.
VISIT WEB SITE

EXTRA TERRESTRIAL CONTACT Are you ready? Forget what youve seen in movies and books. What would you do if you ever witnessed something not from this world? Get the facts, be prepared.
VISIT WEB SITE

E-BOOKS WITH BITE Unlock your true potential. Take charge of your financial future and start making the money you deserve now. Step by step creation of your own e-book is covered with tips, trick and pit falls to avoid.
VISIT WEB SITE

DIVINE HUMAN INTERVENTION What happens when a single human is thrown in an intergalactic war he knows noting about? Mystery, ingenuity, twisted truths and changing plots are sure to follow. Can one man make a difference? Unpredictable sci-fi adventure fills this soon to be bestseller.
VISIT WEB SITE

42

THIS BOOK WAS DESIGNED FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION BY:

This publication may be freely distributed as long as no parts are altered and remain free of charge. No parts may be copied or duplicated without the written permission from the author. Results found in this book may vary for computer compatibility, user knowledge or other reasons. Unknown Talents, the author and any individual(s) involved in the publication or distribution of this material accept no responsibility for damages or loss of any kind. By reading this material you agree that you are solely responsible for any and all actions you undertake directly or indirectly as a result of this publication. November 2007. All rights reserved.

43

3D COVERS FOR E-BOOKS AND BOX COVERS

CREATE YOUR OWN

$8.95

UNKNOWN TALENTS

44

This book was distributed courtesy of:

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