Bookcreative create your own beautiful book covers start from a blank canvas or jump start with one of our professional templates, import any image, use any font in your system, design in any size, color, for any type of book. Open the image youre using as a background as another layer. A dialog pops up, which asks you to name the new template. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Making a book cover and getting it ready for upload will vary depending upon the service you have chosen to publish your book with, however, some of the most popular self publishing services will use templates to ensure that the size of your design is correct. The create a new image text box will appear on your screen.
Meanwhile, you may be interested in my scriptfu gimp scripts to generate label pages entirely within gimp. If you want help formatting the other parts, see our stepbystep guides for preparing your manuscript in word for windows and mac. I also used a createspace template 5x8 within gimp. Createspace cover template book cover design selfpublish. I have played with the online templates, and they did not impress me. The templates dialog allows you to manage all these templates. Experienced adobe users, however, might have some trouble getting used to the gimp interface and keyboard shortcuts. However, if you didnt create a solid book cover, youll go to gimp and use the color picker tool to obtain the background color for your spine by clicking on the back cover background. These links download the official gimp installer for windows 200 mb. At the very least, i hope that the tutorial above points you in the right direction. This is the only file type they accept for a completed cover. Anyone here created a book cover for kdpcreatespace using. All of our templates are delivered for use with photoshop as well as a free design program you can download at our website.
There were too many limitations, making a createspace cover stand out from the book rack as a cover created with createspace online cover. Go back to the createspace template and just go edit paste. At the end of 20 i put out a package of diy book cover templates in microsoft word and revolutionized publishing with a howto guide to designing amazing book covers in an easy to use program youre already familiar with. Keep in mind that this template will only work when submitting a book to createspace. The files conform to the createspace kdp cover requirements. How to create a book cover for ingram spark and createspace. There are lots of useful psd templates free that can be useful for you, your clients or agency and of course for your special.
Then the template is saved and becomes available in the new image dialog. Normal 100% opacity is set at 255, so try 100 to 150 to see the template too. The gimp program allows you to import your cover templates from places like createspace and smashwords. I couldnt find save as pdf or export to pdf within gimp. So, heres how to make a book cover spine with gimp. You can now manage your createspace content on amazons improved publishing services. Do not move the guide layer, as it is properly aligned for our printing specifications. It is unclear if you have asked ingram for the indesign template or the pdf. The installer contains both 32bit and 64bit versions of gimp, and will automatically use the appropriate one. Then i downloaded the createspace book cover template for my book, 6 x 9, cream, 314 pages. Creating your createspace paperback cover using gimp. The gimp pocket reference explains the numerous features of the gnu image manipulation program and is the essential guide for designers working in a linuxunix environment. Yes, it is the cover of that book that generates great deal of interest in it. Open gimp by doubleclicking on the gimp icon on your desktop.
It saves a ton of cover development time for an ebook cover. For other book printers, youll need to see what they offer. Login to get started with kindle direct publishing, manufacturing on demand, or print on demand for publishers. Gimp offers you a lot of templates and you can create your owns. Basic gimp for cover art hollys writing classes blog. Download disc makers free bluray cd templates and dvd templates to complete your cd or dvd project design. Thanks to placeits userfriendly book cover templates, you can have your book cover done right away. The proof copy i just received looks substantially darker bright yellow is a dark orange. Design your cover in the design layer, using the template pdf or png file as the guide layer. We create pdfs for createspace and kdp and other printondemand services, and kindle files and epubs too. I flattened the layers and used print print to file pdf to get a pdf file. To make a cd cover type a 5 inches wide and 5 inches tall in the dialogue box. How to make a book cover with gimp, i rushed through the process skipping over two very important steps in creating a good paperback book.
Merch by amazon tshirt image prep with gimp kindle edition by betancourt, donna. How to make a pdf cover for your createspace book lit. I generally develop my whole cover with the createspace template, then cut the front cover out for smashwords. Hi marcos, im cant seem to get my head around installing the theme. If the pdf you would need to use the like of gimp to copy the isbn barcode into a separate layer and then try to set that on top of the createspace barcode. Design an ebook catalogue cover in canva using either a template or your own specifications and images. Work out the specifications for a paperback book cover or generate one in createspace, and then design your cover in canva with a little image manipulating in gimp. Pdf is a vector format, png is a raster format, idml is indesign, sla is for scribus, and odg is for. The artwork should extend to the outside edge of the templates pink zone to ensure a white border will not exist within the printed work.
I then merged down the layers and flatten the image, again as directed. The free imageediting program i recommend for this is gimp, which is available here. How to make a createspace book cover in photoshop andrew. Save your time for other tasks like promoting your book by creating your book cover in minutes. It explains the function of every menu item and offers tips for everyday use. Yulia posted on march 03, 2019 in graphic design inspiration. In the bottom, middle, you will see a cover template called the pine which says this design is intended to accommodate your own fullyformatted cover. Design a book cover in seconds with this tool placeit.
We now offer specialized options for your different publishing needs. Make a book cover spine with gimp selfpublishing with dale. This is a tutorial that shows you how to make a book cover in gimp using the createspace templates. Theres a navy blue on a much darker shade of blue that are both so dark they look black. Createspace kdp cover template generator create pdf, png, idml, sla, and odg files. When you create a new image, you can access to the list of existing templates but you cant manage them. To make the layer youre working on seethrough click on the properties box in the bottom right hand corner of your screen and change it. Click on the gimp file that contains your back cover, the flattened one, and go edit, copy. I am still working on my first ingram spark book and not yet ready to order the cover template. You can now manage your createspace content on amazons. To see the hex color code, youll need to go to windows at the top, click on dockable dialogs, and select colors. In this article we discuss about how to create an ebook cover with gimp.
Open source and available for free, its a great alternative to an expensive photoshop license or a creative cloud subscription. How to make a book cover spine with gimp createspace in my video createspace cover template. If you dont have photoshop, you can download a free trial at or you use the free program available in the red box on the right. If you need to design a 3d ebook image cover for your self published work, then this articlel can help.
I downloaded a createspace template for my book size and created a professional design at 3803x2775, 299. Below youll find complete tutorials for completing your cover design. But it took me a while longer to figure out how to customize your front cover into a full print cover for createspace or other pod providers. With the createspace cover template calculator, you fill in the number of pages your of your book, the size of the book, click on a button, and your custom cover template is ready to download. The blank templates have the page size and margins set. Diy book cover templates free book design templates and. Add further text layers for the title, your name, the tagline, the blurb, and the spine title and name.
Put your cursor over the transform option in the dropdown. We can switch to the move tool make sure you have the right layer as selected here, well select that layer and now we can move it around in the template. I make all my covers using powerpoint, so ive never tried to use the downloadable template provided by createspace. Using createspaces formatted templates the formatted interior templates provide a basic layout for your books interior.
I then created my full book cover with the three original images. If you want a professional book cover design, you can achieve this yourself with a little help from placeit. I would say to compare the size of the pdf file to the size of the tiff file gimp can generate and that may help to. They incorporate the cd label shape generator from this page, but not the arclayer plugin. Erase fill with white all the text except the yellow barcode block. Now that you have the template file for your book, you can create your paperback cover using gimp. Converting a book cover for createspace from jpeg to pdf. Lets make gimp look and work like photoshop, with just. The templates with sample content include formatted front matter e. It is a new and improved version of my original tutorial. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading merch by amazon tshirt image prep with gimp. How to make a cover using createspace template diane tibert. Highlight the text then change the font and size in the small bar above your text box. We are open and staying safe during the covid19 crisis to make sure your physical media orders get made, but we are not taking client walkins or pickups at this time.
Gimp tutorial on how to create ebook image boxshot. If you give a name that already exists, gimp generates a unique name. How to create a free print book cover for kdp freedom to. Setting layout for 6x9 createspace book admittedly, ms word is a way cool wordprocessing app, and not a pagelayout app, yet untold numbers of writers use it when writing and designing selfpublished books. Templates are templates for an image format to be created.
Downloading your createspace cover template blue paper. Copy and paste your books content into the template by section, such as the front matter title page, acknowledgements page, etc. The create template command opens the create new template dialog that allows you to create a template with the same dimensions and color space as the current image. This tool creates cover template files in pdf and png, and optionally idml, sla and odg formats. Change the dialogue box to read inches rather than pixels.