Just as for regular books, picture book covers do more than hold the book together. A good cover attracts interest so a potential reader will stop and look. It showcases the title and author of the book.
eBook and Print differences
An eBook has only the front cover. This is the same size as the interior pages. It needs to be bold, easy to see as many people look at it on their phones.
A print cover has three parts. One is the front with the title, author, illustrator and image on it.
The back of a picture book varies. It can have text to create interest in the book. Or it can be an image that is either new or a continuation of the front image.
Between the front and back is the spine. Picture books are thin. The spine must be a quarter of an inch or bigger before the title and author can be printed on it. Only hardback books have a spine.
Creating Picture Book Covers
Although there are templates and places to purchase a cover, I prefer to create my own. I use paint shop to do this.
The size is important. Whoever is going to print your picture book will tell you the size for the cover plus bleed or small margin around the cover. Sizes for front, back and spine are given too.
The front, back and spine are created separately. Each is saved separately.
My Method
I create a blank page 300 dpi – 600 dpi the right size for the front and add a background color. This may or may not show very much, but, unless your cover will have lots of white, you want to make sure the page is not white.
The selected front image is resized, same dpi, to fit on the page. Copy and paste as a new layer. Position it. Save it so the layers are left intact, not merged.
Add the title. Experiment with fonts, size, colors, orientation until it’s what you want. Position and save this.
Add the author’s name. This is much the same as for the title. Save this.
Creating the back cover starts with a new page. Add the images and text and save this so the layers are left intact.
The spine is tricky because it is so narrow. I create a page so the spine is horizontal to work with. Put the title and author on it making sure the text is smaller than the spine. Save.
The Final cover
Create a page the size of the full cover including bleed margin. Add the background color.
Go to the front page and merge the layers. Copy and paste it as a new layer on the final cover. Move it into position. (If you save the merged image, do it as a new image.
Repeat to put the back page on the final cover. Rotate the spine to vertical, copy and paste as a new layer. It must be positioned in the exact center of the cover.
I save the final cover with the layers. Then I merge the layers and save it as a merged version. Printing the picture book is the next step.