- Do you wanna know how to use the KDP Print cover template?
Well, in this video, I'm gonna show you how
to use the cover template for KDP Print using GIMP.
Stayed tuned.
(distorted guitar strums)
Welcome to Self-Publishing with Dale,
where you'll learn how to publish books that sell
and build an unstoppable brand.
Today, we're gonna discuss how to use the cover template
for KDP Print books.
But first, there's a few items that you're gonna need,
and it's going to be your ebook cover,
GIMP, also known as GNU Image Manipulation Program,
your book description, and this an optional thing,
get your biography ready for the book.
Let's get right to it.
Alright, I've already downloaded GIMP,
I'm just gonna go ahead and open it up with double-clicking.
Alright, now that we've got GIMP open,
I wanna go ahead, and we're just gonna do just a very simple
Google search, and it's gonna be KDP Print cover template,
and we're gonna go right on to kdp.amazon.com.
Okay, so I know right away that my trim size
is six by nine.
I'm gonna select an option.
We're gonna choose six by nine.
I have 232 pages in my book.
Now, based on paper color,
it's either white, cream, or color.
It's not a full-color book.
I actually selected white when I printed this out.
This is gonna vary based on the project
that you're going with.
We're just gonna go and hit Download Cover Template.
Let's go ahead, we're gonna unzip this file,
gonna Extract All, just gonna keep it right
in the Downloads folder, let's double-click and open that.
I just need the PNG file, so here's what we're gonna do,
is we're gonna minimize all the other windows,
then we're gonna just drag-and-drop
that over on to the surface.
Keep same as before, we're just gonna drag
and drop it on to the surface.
Gonna keep.
Alright, so we're gonna take the Alignment tool.
This is perfectly fit for nine inches high.
I'm gonna select the Alignment tool,
we're gonna point it right at the cover.
Let's go over into the Tool Options,
and we're gonna move it all the way over to the right.
Now in the event that when you drag
and dropped it into place, it was out of position,
we're just gonna go ahead and center it with the cover,
and then we'll right-align it.
Now, here's a little tricky part.
We're just gonna grab the Move tool,
we're gonna left-click, just left-click once on the cover.
We don't wanna move it at all.
And with your arrow key, we're just gonna press over
to the left until we get
right to that dotted line at the spine.
Now the next thing we're gonna want to do,
is I wanna color pick.
We're gonna grab the Color Picker tool,
gonna come over to the cover again,
and I'm gonna grab one of these dark ones
'cause I wanna make sure we blend it really nicely.
So we've selected that,
it's already picked that black color there.
Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna keep this template here,
and I'm gonna duplicate that.
We're gonna select and Duplicate Layer.
I'm just gonna shut that layer, the bottom layer off.
Now for this top one, what we're gonna do is,
since we have the foreground color with that Color Pick tool
we're just gonna go ahead and press Control + Comma.
We're gonna shut this off just for right now,
'cause we're gonna need to see where the bleed lines are at.
Our next step, let's see about putting
all the information on the back cover.
So now that you've got your book description,
we're just gonna go ahead and,
I'm just gonna click it right into there.
I like Bebas Neue, it's probably one of my favorite ones.
It matches the fonts there,
so the very first thing is, let's get that headline,
that hook, Control + C.
Okay, we're gonna hit Control + V.
Now, don't worry about formatting it just now.
We're gonna come back to that in just a moment.
We're gonna create another box.
Now, let's drop that bio in there.
Now the bio is not mandatory,
and if you find that you're hard-pressed
for room on your back cover, you can probably go without it,
but I think it's a nice touch,
and especially if you're the type of person
that goes to networking meetings, you can hand that out,
and that bio being on the back cover,
it makes it easy for people to kinda go,
oh, okay, this guy's pretty important.
I'm gonna go ahead and, in order to change out the font,
what we can do is, the very first thing we wanna do,
is I wanna select our hook,
we're gonna come up to Tool Options.
I wanna center that,
and then we're gonna make that just a little bit bigger,
so you see at the very top of this, right there,
we're gonna go ahead and just kinda make it big.
In the event that we want the box
to kind of stick with the text itself,
we're gonna hit Dynamic.
Now, I won't use that for the larger portion
of the description.
Again, we're gonna go ahead and select the next box.
Select all, Control + A.
Right, I need something a little bit more subtle,
probably something a little closer to like, Sans Serif.
Now, in order to kinda check this out, what we'll do
is from time to time, we can probably turn on our background
but you'll notice that since it's a black background,
it's not gonna quite work out in our favor.
Here we go, let's do this.
I'm gonna grab the Shape tool.
Click and drag over the area within the bleed,
so that way I know where I wanna be.
We're gonna select the layer there,
we're gonna hit Transparent, hit OK, awesome.
Now, let's just go ahead and fill it with white.
Nothing spectacular here,
this is just to kinda help us out.
We're gonna hit Control + Period.
Now, you'll notice some of the text is down here,
and let's just, we're gonna just drag this open
just a little bit more.
I wanna make sure that it is lined up with that bleed,
there we go.
Awesome, 'cause we don't write on top of the bleed,
because that means that it's in danger
of going either on the spine or being cut,
so we don't wanna bother with that.
I keep a little bit of wiggle room.
Alright, same thing, let's go ahead, we're gonna select all,
and let's just keep it right in theme with everything else.
Sans Serif.
Okay, right away you can notice that
we've got a lot of, we've got probably too much things
going on here, so what we're gonna do,
is we're gonna take this,
and I wanna kick down the size just a bit.
We're gonna hit 35, Enter.
Not bad.
Not bad, I'm very happy with this.
But in the same instance, this kinda looks
a little bit out of place, so here's what I'm gonna do,
is I'm gonna just italicize this.
Yeah, there we go.
And since this is all italicized, that's the title,
we're gonna go ahead and bold that title.
Okay, let's just drag this box,
kinda like the one we did above.
Spread it out a little bit.
So it looks like we have just a little bit of space,
and from a graphic design standpoint,
I'm sure people are probably flipping out,
like, oh my gosh, that's way, way too big,
way too small compared to the other ones,
so all we're gonna do is we're just gonna try
to stretch this out, oops, undo.
Now let's go ahead and select our closing line here.
I'm gonna do the same thing like I did with the hook.
I'm gonna make it Dynamic.
And we're gonna go ahead
and let's make it about the same size, 106.
And we're gonna highlight the whole thing.
106, Enter, okay, that's a little bit too big for my liking.
So we're probably just gonna just squeeze it right on down.
Alright, so now all we gotta do,
is we're gonna just scoot this on up.
I wanna get the bio kinda formatted,
so let's kill this layer here,
I wanna see where that bar code's at.
Again, I'm gonna go ahead and select all this,
and we're gonna go Sans Serif
so we can match the other font.
Look at that, that works almost perfectly.
And let's go ahead, and let's do it the same size
as the other one, should be 48, okay, awesome.
And I'm gonna put a little bit of emphasis
on the author name.
Gonna go a little bigger.
I wanna take up a good amount of real estate
right about there.
We're gonna scoot it over, there we go.
If we just turn this on, we'll see,
like, the layout looks alright,
I'm gonna adjust a few things,
so we're just gonna get the Move tool.
Okay, now that we have everything laid out,
the real challenge is going to be making it look good.
We're gonna get the Color Picker tool.
Let's go back to that front cover,
and I'm just gonna pick aqua blue color, there we go.
Now we're gonna switch this,
I'm gonna go ahead and we're just gonna grab
just a little bit of that lighter aqua blue.
We're gonna grab headline,
and let's make it that aqua blue color,
so we're gonna just pick that again here.
Boom, okay.
Awesome, looks good.
Let's go ahead, and we're gonna do
the rest of this in white for right now.
It's all gonna disappear real briefly,
but then we'll have it pop back up.
And let's just, for the fun of it,
we're gonna grab this line, we're gonna right-click on it,
Alpha to Selection, let's grab the Gradient tool.
And now, where we drag it,
it's gonna start with the foreground color,
and then it'll go into the background color,
so watch this, we're gonna just click and drag this on up.
Okay, Control + Shift + A.
Ah, that's much better, much, much, much better.
I'm gonna select just this area, let's make it white.
And then I'm gonna select my name,
and let's make it that dominant color there.
Okay, so if we shut this off and we turn this on,
I'm gonna select that, we're gonna hit
the Minus key to move out.
See how clean that looks?
It's not too bad.
I feel like we can probably frame out before the content
and then possibly after the content.
So let's do this, we're gonna grab the Pencil tool,
we're gonna go into Tool Options,
why don't we choose the line instead?
So we can keep it nice and uniform.
I'm gonna zoom in, let's hit a transparency.
Okay, so this is gonna be our line layer.
Okay, here we go, we're just gonna kinda hit that, click,
Shift, great.
Let's hit the Fuzzy Wand tool,
we're gonna select that line.
I'm gonna hit Control + C to copy, Control + V to paste.
And now we're probably gonna have
to zoom in just a little bit.
Okay, let's zoom out.
Let's do another paste.
Just gonna move this into place.
Looks pretty good, and why don't we do just one more,
just for the fun of it.
Anchor, good.
I'm gonna turn off that black background
just to make sure that I'm good with the barcode yet.
So here's what I'm gonna do is let's select the bio layer,
I'm gonna alpha this selection
so I can see where my text is at,
and I'm just gonna move this down in position here,
just a little bit.
I'm making sure that I'm not covering up the bar code,
'cause that's a big no-no.
Control + Shift + A will deselect it.
Let's turn that background layer on.
The very next, and very last thing we need to do
is get a spine.
Now bare in mind that in order to get a spine,
you have to have 100 pages or more.
That roughly works out to,
and I believe Julie Broad of Book Launchers put it this way,
a 30,000 word book is perfect to actually have a spine.
Let's just shut off that layer.
It looks like our hook is probably perfect
for fitting on the spine, so here's what we're gonna do.
I'm gonna select that hook.
Keep in mind, you can always just do a new text box,
but I'm gonna make this easy on myself,
because then I can just Duplicate,
and let's bring it forward a few layers,
so here's we're gonna kinda come up here.
So let's select all of this here,
and I'm gonna start to type in,
we're going to go up into Layer, Transform,
and I wanna flip this clockwise,
so that way it goes right on the spine.
Okay, next thing, let's take the Alignment tool.
We're gonna select that,
And let's just go ahead and center it, see that?
Alright, so now let's turn it back on,
let's see how this looks.
Alright, last but not least,
let's see about exporting this
so that way we can upload it over onto KDP Print.
What we're gonna do is flatten out
all of your visible layers,
so here's what we're gonna do,
we're gonna right-click the very top,
Merge Visible Layers, we're gonna Merge.
Now, let's hit Control + Shift and the letter E,
and we'll put our title, and we need to save this as a PDF.
Select the file and location that you wish to put it on.
Here we go, we're gonna hit Export.
Let's see how this looks.
Not bad, I'm very happy with this.
But what exactly can you expect
when it comes to the KDP Print quality of books?
Good news, if you check out this video
that is up in the top-right corner here,
it's gonna show you an unboxing of the KDP Print book.
I'll see you in the next video.
We send it in that bubble wrap packaging,
which leads me to what we can expect
from shipping and handling.
I am not too happy when it comes to sending.