I really don't know. I don't think that they help all that much, though if a graphical image helps to create just a couple of extra sales it's got to be worth it - particularly if you can create your own. Using Adobe Photoshop and an ecover action, makes this a really simple job.

My latest ecover effort

I spent 30 minutes creating a cover for my latest mini-product;

It's not so bad, for someone who doesn't do hardly any graphics work these days, eh? It was pretty simple to make. The first thing that I did was sketch out the basic shape I needed, where I wanted the text etc. Then I went in search of decent images.

Istockphoto

I found the blonde girl w/ laptop over at istockphoto - as well, as this I wanted a back ground that signified "html" and looked kinda codelike. Found the perfect image at istockphoto also.

Basically, it was a case of overlaying the whole PS action with the blue background. Then reducing the blonde and cutting out the white background.

Adding the Lines & Text
For some reason, covers always look best when they have some delineation. In this case I used a solid black area at the bottom. Black because I wanted my own name in white text on top of it, this text is usign font called "Bradley Hand ITC".

I then added 2 2px white lines in the top third of the box, between which I placed the text of my product name "Simple Page Generator". The font used for this is called "Phrixus". I stroked this text at 1 pixel, and coloured the stroke bright red to make it stand out a bit.

Bigstockphoto

I then decided that the "side bar" looked a little bare, so I went in search of an image that was long and thin. I found the perfect image at bigstockphoto - it was a picture of a browser bar with some text in it. I pasted this into the side bar area and reduced it's size using Ctrl + T. I then erased the existing text, and in a new layer put in my site URL…

Adding the "The"

I decided that the top area (above the top white line) was a little bare. So I was going to put the word "introducing", but that was a little too long as I wanted the text to slope slightly. In the end I just put "The" again using the Bradley Hand fount, and sloped it slightly, using Ctrl + T. I then amended this layer of text by adding a "stroke" coloured in red and sized to 1 pixel.

Adding the info area

The bit below the laptop looked too bare, so I decided to make a small piece of text and put in there. This is "Trebuchet" font, sized at 6px in white with a 1 pixel black stroke. It didn't stand out as well as I hoped so I made a new layer (Ctrl + J), and used the selection tool to make a box slightly bigger than the text. I then smoothed the selection by 10pixels, filled it in using white, and gave it a 1pixel black border. I then muted this back to about 50%.

Compiling the Action

Once all that was done, I pressed "play" on the compile button and watched the action do it's stuff. Within a few seconds my ecover is ready to save as a .jpg file.

So, how does the Action work?

Well, read all the above, and then imagine doing all that onto a 2d (flat) image. The Action simply changes the 2d artwork into a 3d artwork! Easy as 123, and just as quick as saying 1-2-3…

I use a bunch of actions that I originally paid $97 for, so I have lots and lots of different actions, I think about 35 or 40 in total. I can make anything from software CDs to ebooks, to pamphlets etc. Well worth the cost, I reckon - after all a graphic designer will charge you anything from $30 to $100 for each box…