They say you should never judge a book by its cover. While this maybe true in the book world in the eBook world it is a different story. Especially when selling your eBooks on eBay.

When you create your eBook it is important you make it the best you can, taking care to avoid spelling mistakes and grammar errors is extremely important. But what you may not realise is your eBook cover is almost as important as the eBook itself. This is because on eBay the 1st thing any potential customer sees is the free image eBay provides with every listing. And they will usually make a decision to keep reading your sales page within 3 seconds of viewing your eBook cover.

So always have an eBook cover created for each eBook you write. And always use this as the 1st image on your eBay listing. As this will be the 1st thing any potential buyer sees it is extremely important that your cover looks the part.

While there is software available that will enable you to create your own covers I would recommend if you can afford it to invest a few dollars and get your cover professionally created by someone else. There are many professional cover artists that will create a cover for you and a simple google search will bring up a ton of results. The cost can be anything from $10 onwards.

Here are a few tips to creating a quality cover that will help sell your eBook.

1. If you are getting your cover professionally created by someone else ask to see their work or when viewing their website look for a portfolio of their work. Almost all professional cover artists will provide this information. If you don't like what you see look elsewhere.

2. Use your own graphics or have them created from scratch. Don't steal your images from another website. This could land you in extremely hot water and you could find yourself getting your listings ended by eBay or even worse, legal action being taken against you. So make sure your images/graphics are original. If your cover is getting created for you by someone else make sure they understand this.

3. Include the title of your eBook on the cover. This sounds obvious but I have seen a ton of covers with no title. Your cover sells your eBook and in my opinion must include the title.

4. If your eBook has resale rights include as many different variations of your cover as possible. You should include different sizes, colours and angles. Give your re-sellers as much as they need to sell your eBook on. They may want to include images on their blogs, newsletters, websites and more and they may struggle if you only provide one image.

5. Include your cover at least once in your sales page. What I find works best is a large cover on the left of the page with text to the right explaining the benefits of your eBook.

Just remember, people do judge an eBook by its cover and if you don't have a cover for your eBook and are struggling with sales on eBay a professionally made cover could make all the difference.