New Ebook Cover Requirements for High Quality Ereaders

Heads up.  Effective on or about July 15, Smashwords will begin requiring higher pixel counts on ebook cover images.

Why the change?  Starting in August, Apple will require that all new ebook cover images be at least 1,400 pixels wide.  Their previous minimum was 600 pixels. 

Since Smashwords requires vertical rectangle (height greater than width) images, a new recommended ebook cover might be around 1,600 pixels wide by 2,400 pixels tall.  Why 2,400?  2,400 is 1.5 times 1,600. Pull out a ruler and measure just about any print book and you'll get a ratio close to that.  Most good-looking covers have heights that range from approximately 1.3 to 1.6 times your width.  Amazon recommendsa 1.6 width/height ratio, and their recommended height is 2,500 pixels. As you can see, there's flexibility here for personal preference whether you prefer wide or long.  The image above left shows what a 1.5 ratio looks like.  The height is 50% greater than the width.

Why is Apple requiring higher pixel counts?  Most likely, it's because they want to provide ebook customers better covers for their current and future higher resolution iPads, iPhones and MacBooks.  Since we think the Apple and Amazon guidelines are reasonable (they help readers with next-generation screens enjoy your covers in all their glory), we'll adopt Apple's requirements as our new minimum standards for cover images.

What happens next?
Apple's new requirement applies to new ebooks, and new cover updates.  If your book is already in the Apple iBookstore with a smaller cover image, you're grandfathered in, UNLESS you try to update your cover image in the future, in which case they'll reject it.  To help you get ahead of this change, Smashwords will make the 1,400 pixel minimum a Premium Catalog requirement starting on or around July 15.  Like Apple, we'll apply the standard to new titles and cover image updates.   If we previously shipped your smaller cover to retailers, we won't require the new cover image size unless you update your cover image or republish a previously unpublished book. The minimum dimensions do not apply to the images or cover image inside your .epub file.  

The Smashwords FAQ is now updated to reflect the new recommendations and requirements.  I'll update the Smashwords Style Guide in the next day or two so one month from now this won't come as a surprise to people.


How NOT to create a new cover image
Don't use a photo or image editing program to enlarge your current image.  That will cause pixelation (blur).  

How to create your cover image
You'll find some tips in the Smashwords FAQ, though my best recommendation is to hire a professional.  Unless you're a professional graphic artist, it's best to hire a cover image designer. Send an email to list@smashwords.com to obtain my list of low cost cover designers and ebook formatters (they're all freelancers, we don't receive a commission or referral fee). Their rates range from about $40 to $100, a range I consider very reasonable.  Most have online portfolios so you can see if their style matches what  you're looking for.  If they don't match what you want, post a note at the Smashwords Facebook page to ask your fellow authors for references.  There are many great cover designers out there, and most are very affordable.  See my free ebook, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success, for comments on why a professional ebook cover image is so critical to a book's success.

Please share this post with your fellow authors and publishers so everyone has ample advance notice. 


As above, I've posted this for my readers, so you can be aware of this coming change.

Related articles

• New Ebook Cover Image Requirements Coming to Satisfy Higher Resolution E-Reading Devices

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• Formatting Your Ebook for Kindle, Barnes and Noble (or Epub), and Smashwords

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• Smashwords Delivers Faster Shipments to Apple and Kobo

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Sensuous Touches, Now Available on Amazon

This collection of 8 short stories (ranging from 9,000 to 1,000 words, so plenty of variety in length) features alpha males and stunning females in exciting pairings. These tales will excite both genders. There are thrills spiced with lust and desire, fantasy love affairs, an adult fairy tale and an example of bondage for those who like their fantasy sex a little out there.

Written for enjoyment, these stories will stimulate, entice, tease, entertain, arouse, amuse, and ultimately satisfy. Read alone or with the special someone you want to share yourself with. But, most of all, enjoy. Life is too short to miss the pleasures available.

The new anthology of erotic stories is now available to be viewed and bought on Amazon UK here priced at £2.01 and on Amazon USA here at a cost of $3.09 (I imagine it's at $2.99 for USA buyers, but Amazon knows I'm in the UK, so adds a bit to the price).

For those purchasing from Europe, the cost is €2.60 via your own versions of Amazon.

If you'd like a free copy so you can review it, have a look at the post below and follow the simple instructions.

The book is also available via Smashwords, using this link. 

A Wordle composite formed from the words most commonly used in the book.

What Do You Love and Hate About Self-publishing?

That’s a question to which you’ll need to supply the answers, of course. To get you started, here are my own views.

So, do I get the 'hates' out of the way first, or inspire with the 'loves'?

Let's make it a 'love' sandwich.

I love the freedom self-publishing gives me as a writer, allowing me to select all aspects of my books, so that they really are my products in as many ways as possible. I have the final say over the text, the content, the layout, font, length and the cover illustration. I can choose my titles and not have some marketing accountant interfere because he thinks another would sound more enticing.

And that's the real issue, I suppose. I get to publish what I want, not the mish-mash that some bean counters would have me publish. Because, make no mistake, in traditional publishing the accountants are the ones who have the final say about what is and is not published. And this, in spite of the fact that they have frequently rejected books that have later gone on to be best sellers. Men who care more about profits than about artistic honesty and integrity are not the people I want dictating how my books should look and what they should contain. Publishing has grown to be too much like modern football: all about profit and very little to do with the activity itself.

So, what do I hate? Marketing. I don't want to spend my time as a salesman. It's not a natural role for me. And I speak as one who has sold for a living on more than one occasion. I worked as a shop manager for a few years and I worked as representative for a company selling photographic printing services to shops for a year. That year almost killed me. The whole process requires a level of dishonesty I'm incapable of sustaining, even should I wish. I was selling a product that was sub-standard and I had no faith in it. It was a role I left as soon as I found an alternative method of earning my daily bread.

Of course, selling one's own work is a different matter, in that one has faith in the product. But, that apart, the actual process of selling is something alien to my personality and philosophy. It isn't that I have some subconscious problem with making money from my work. That isn't the issue. We all tend to judge others by our own standards and habits. For me, shopping for anything is a matter of discovering which product suits my needs and then finding a place that I trust where I can obtain it for a reasonable price. I'm not an average shopper, as I find the whole process of buying things something of a necessary evil. It's definitely not a social activity for me. I don't enjoy the process. And the aspect of shopping I most dislike is having some sales assistant trying to sell me something I don't want.

As a result of these feelings, I find myself reluctant to 'force' my work onto others. I'd prefer them to discover for themselves the delights to be had between the covers. I know that this is not practical or even wise if I'm to maximise my income from my books. So, I compromise in ways that I'm able. I place my books on sites that people visit frequently, I write this blog on matters that I hope will attract attention, I use the social networks to increase my 'visibility'. And I offer my work free from time to time so that readers can sample my writing and hopefully feel inspired to write reviews. Reviews sell more indie books than almost anything else.

What I'm not prepared to do is spend my precious writing time on marketing the work. I hope people will enjoy my books and, over time, will spread the word. Unrealistic? Possibly. But it's how I am. In the good old days of traditional publishing it was actually possible for an author to remain entirely hidden and for his writing to be the only thing known about him by his readers. That situation no longer obtains and, as in so many other aspects of life, I have compromised in order to attract some attention. But there is a limit to what I'll do in this regard and, if that means I don't make the best-seller lists, so be it. I'm not about to sell my soul in order to gain more readers.

The other real advantage of self-publishing, the other aspect I love about it, is the freedom it gives the writer to choose the subject matter and style of writing; what is generally termed 'genre' in the trade. With traditional publishing, the agent and the editor tend to confine the writer to a specific area of writing. So, you become known and labelled as a 'crime writer', a 'fantasy writer', a 'romance writer' and traditional publishing does everything in its power to restrict authors and prevent them straying from the field of activity they see as suitable for the writer. In reality, the field they expect to make the most money from.

Well, I have many subjects I wish to explore and many different types of story I wish to tell. If I wish to write a romance and then follow that with a science fiction thriller and then an epic fantasy, I'm free to do that as a self-publishing writer. I have the freedom of choice.

For me, that freedom is paramount. I’m a creative artist and I don't intend to allow the false restrictions of the perceived market place and the Great God Profit to confine my creative spirit and strangle my individuality by forcing me to write in any particular vein. I accept that I will not make as much money as I might under the guidance and governance of a publisher and agent, but I will remain artistically true to my own standards and interests. That's my choice as an author. I have no responsibility to anyone but myself and my readers.

In the end, it comes down to what the individual regards as success. For the majority, that quality is measured in cash returns. For me, it’s measured in the work itself. I write the best I can and leave it to readers to decide whether they like that work enough to recommend it to others. It's a slow and uncertain process of growth in an overcrowded field full of poor and generic work hyped for the consumption of the majority. But it's my choice. Not the imposed direction of some accountant. And that's why I love self-publishing.

Does that mean I would reject any offer from an agent or a tradition publisher? Not necessarily. I’d examine what was on offer and if it suited my way of doing things, I’d consider it. But if it involved me in what I consider unreasonable and harmful restrictions, I'd turn it down, regardless of the amount of money on offer. I realise that makes me a fool in the eyes of many, if not most, but it's how I feel about the whole business.

I am, first and foremost, a creator. I'm not some sort of profit generator to be moulded and distorted by the needs of the market place.

My position is that readers either like my work and buy it or they don't. That's their choice and I'm willing to live by that ideal.

So, how do you feel? What are your loves and hates about self-publishing? The comment space below is easy to use to make a contribution, so let’s have your words, please.