Discover The Insider Secrets
To Wildly Profitable Webinars!

Webinars are an excellent way to increase sales and conversions, especially on big-ticket items. Because webinars are interactive, they are more engaging and thus have higher conversions than other types of marketing.

A few benefits of webinars over other sales presentations include:

• The limited time nature increases participation. People can’t procrastinate if a webinar is only available at a specific time.
• Active participation in the form of chat, question-and-answer sessions, etc. makes for a richer, more engaging experience that makes people pay attention and take action.
• Social proof from other participants can increase conversions.

In this report, you’re going to learn how to set up and run successful webinars, with a focus on selling high value items that pay a higher commission than average products. You’ll learn how and why you should run automated webinars, and how to increase webinar conversions.

So let’s get started.

What You Will Learn

• Selling High Ticket Items via Webinar
• Automated Webinars
• Planning a Webinar (Structure, Pitching an offer)
• Planning the Presentation
• Plan Attendees
• Create the Agenda
• Schedule Presenters
• Plan a Dry Run
• Fine-Tuning Your Pitch
• Pre-Qualifying Participants

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Selling High Ticket Items via Webinar

Webinars can certainly increase sales to smaller ticket items, however generally speaking they are much more cost-effective for selling high-ticket items.

The main reason why these big-ticket items make more sense is because of the limited nature of webinars. Most webinar programs only have a limited number of seats available, generally due to the limitations of the software itself, which might not be able to handle large numbers of users at once.

Because there are so few people who will be able to attend each webinar session, it only makes sense to promote higher ticket items. If you are only paid $10 commission on a small ticket item, and you only have 50 attendees, you’d need a 20% conversion rate to make 10 sales, which would only earn you $100 in commission. 

That’s not exactly a princely sum for the trouble of planning, organizing and carrying out a webinar. And remember, a 20% conversion rate is very difficult to achieve even with a webinar.

However, if you were paid $100 commission on a large-ticket item, with the same 50 attendees, you’d only need a 10% conversion to get 5 sales, which would earn you $500 in commission. 

As you can see, you’d need half the conversions to earn five times as much income. So large-ticket items really make sense when you have a limited number of people to market to, such as you do with a webinar.

Not only must you worry about the physical limitations of your webinar software and server, but the schedules of potential attendees as well. You may see fewer attendees than you expect because people are busy at the time you schedule your webinar.

It’s possible to record your webinar and distribute it to people who cannot attend, however conversions on recorded webinars aren’t likely to be nearly as high as during the live broadcast, because you can’t have viewers of the recorded webinar interact with you as they could during the initial live broadcast.

Doing the Math – Before you plan your webinar, it’s important to do a little math to be sure your webinar has the best chance to be profitable. (In other words, worth your time.) 

First, figure out which product you’d like to promote. Ideally, this should be a product that you’ll make at least $100 in commission from, though higher amounts would be even better, obviously. 

However, don’t choose a product solely based on its commission. It’s better to choose a product that makes a bit less commission and converts much better than to choose a product that has a very high commission and won’t convert at all.

Let’s say your product will make you $100 in commission. If you want to make at least $500 from the webinar, you know you need to get a total of five sales. 

You may not know the exact conversion rate of your product, but you can estimate it. A 5% conversion rate is a good starting point as an estimate. It helps greatly if you’ve tested the product already, or if the product owner has released public information about its overall conversion rates, but 5% is generally a safe estimate for most products.

In order to get five sales at a 5% conversion rate, you need a total of 100 people in attendance. You could make more, or you could make less. But getting a minimum of 100 people to attend would be your goal.

If you have a high-converting product that gives you $500 commission, you would only need one sale to earn what you desire. This means a higher-priced product would require much fewer attendees.

Automated Webinars

Automated webinars make it easy to set up webinars at times when you cannot theoretically be in attendance. This is great for providing access to people on varying schedules and all around the world without having to be there constantly.

You may wonder why it makes sense to do an automated webinar when you could simply do a single webinar, record it, and offer access to a video 

There are many reasons to use an automated webinar system instead of simply offering a video recording:

1. People are much more likely to attend when they feel they are on a time constraint because they don’t want to miss the event. If they are given a link to download a video, they are likely to put off watching the video until “later”, but “later” is likely to never come. People tend to procrastinate unless they have a set timeframe for something.
2. People tend to perceive the value of a live webinar as much higher than the value of a single video, even though the information is technically precisely the same.
3. A video recording does not allow audience participation of any kind. Some automated webinar scripts allow audience members to chat with one another and also chat with you if you are available at the moment.
4. A recorded video cannot be set to play at a specific time so that late attendees believe they are attending a live webinar. However, with some automated webinar software, the video will begin at a specified time, and if people are late or leave and come back, the video will not resume from the same place they left off, giving the impression of a live broadcast.

There are many different automated webinar systems available. Here are a few of the most popular.

>> http://www.EvergreenBusinessSystem.com – The Evergreen Business System is one of the most popular automated webinar systems. At $497. This system delivers a tremendous number of features, most of which cannot be found elsewhere. For an additional $97 monthly fee, you can also run an unlimited number of live webinars using their servers. 

>> http://www.StealthSeminar.com – The Stealth Seminar system charges as $97 registration fee (after coupon), and then an additional $69.95 per month. While this is cheaper upfront than the Evergreen Business System, you will find that it lacks some of the features people want in a webinar host. However, it does integrate with almost all major autoresponder systems.

>> http://www.EasyWebinar.com – Easy Webinar is only $297 for a 10-domain license. It is less costly than other systems, but again it doesn’t have quiet as many features as the two listed above.

Planning a Webinar (Structure, Pitching an offer)

Planning the full webinar before it begins is absolutely essential. Without proper planning, you’re likely to end up with long periods of dead air or being unable to answer questions posed by attendees, which can throw off your webinar and cost you conversions/sales.

Webinar Formats – There are several different formats you can choose from for a webinar. Different formats have different benefits, so you may want to use different formats at different times based on your needs.

Let’s take a look at some of the various formats and their benefits and weaknesses:

Single Speaker – In the single speaker format, one person does the complete presentation and may ask the attendees questions or answer theirs. 

One major benefit of this particular webinar type is that you won’t have to train multiple people how to use the webinar software. Additionally, you don’t have to worry about timing and coordinating multiple speakers, or having presenters talking over each other answering questions. 

The biggest potential drawback of the single speaker format is that sometimes people are reluctant to interact with a single speaker, because they feel it can be a bit intimidating, because the single speaker becomes somewhat of an authority figure. However, this is also potentially beneficial, because if you are seen as an authority figure, people will be more likely to take actions you recommend or request, such as buying a product.

Interview Style – The interview style webinar involves two or more people working together. One person is usually the interviewer, and that person interviews one or more other people.

Some people find that hearing several people at once helps make a webinar more interesting. Also, since the interviewer is asking the other person questions, many times this encourages attendees to ask questions, increasing interactivity.

This means you’ll have to ensure everyone is able to use the webinar software, including the interviewer and all interviewees. You may also run into scheduling conflicts, because you will have to coordinate multiple people to run the webinar.

Moderated Panel – A moderated panel has several people online at the same time with one moderator who ensures only one person can speak at a time. This is done either through the software itself, allowing the moderator to mute everyone who isn’t currently speaking, or in the same way a moderator facilitates a live discussion, by giving individuals permission to speak.

Like the interview style, this type of webinar allows users to hear different perspectives and different voices, which makes the webinar more interesting than a single speaker style.

However, as with an interview style, you’ll have to ensure all parties know how to use the webinar software and be careful of any scheduling conflicts. But perhaps the biggest challenge with this format is keeping the conversation flowing well without people talking over each other. The moderator must take great care to keep things organized.

Interactive – The interactive format requires a single individual to lead the attendees in various activities such as question-and-answer sessions, lessons or other interactive content.

Because this format is extremely interactive, people generally get more out of the webinar. Attendees can ask questions, and even answer questions for other attendees. This can be very helpful if someone asks a question that you don’t know the answer to.

The main problem with this format is that it can really only reasonably accommodate a small number of individuals, because large groups can cause a lot of confusion if everyone is trying to speak at once. You need to be reasonably skilled at running this type of webinar for it to work effectively.

Planning the Presentation

You will need to plan your presentation carefully from start to finish, and you won’t want to deviate from that format too much during your webinar. The reason for this is that once a webinar has been derailed, it can take a long time for it to recover and get back on track, thus making your webinar run over time.

Since people have to plan to be present at a particular time for a webinar event, they generally don’t allot time over that. They may make plans after your webinar, and if it runs over, they may have to leave. Or they may just get bored if the webinar runs too long.

Here are some things you might want to include in your presentation:

1. A slide that introduces your webinar, including its purpose, what time it begins, how to use the various webinar functions, and how long the webinar is estimated to last.
2. A slide that gives information about the webinar host/presenter and any other presenters, interviewers or interviewees. Include their name, their professional credentials, and a picture if you have one.
3. A short presentation of the webinar’s agenda, including the topics to be covered and any other material to be presented.
4. Screenshots or videos that demonstrate primary elements of your presentation. You may be able to keep these on your computer and present them as needed, as some webinar software allows you to share your desktop so everyone can see what you’re doing live as you do it. This will let you show videos, slides, screenshots or whatever else you need to display.

Plan Attendees

Keep in mind that a lot of webinar software has hard limits on the number of attendees. This is due to a number of different factors, such as bandwidth, software limitations, etc.

If you know you have a limited number of spots available, be sure to let potential attendees know this in advance. This will help increase the number of people who sign up for your webinar, because it will lend an element of scarcity.

Record the Presentation – It’s a very good idea to record the webinar to allow those who could not be in attendance to view it at a later date. This will increase your conversions, because you will be able to reach more people than could be present due to their own scheduling conflicts or due to the space limitations for the live presentation.

If you’re going to record the webinar, you’ll want to plan this in advance so you can be certain your webinar software allows recording, and to learn how to use the function properly.

Create the Agenda

It is very important to create an agenda with approximate times so that the webinar flows smoothly and doesn’t go too much over time. Remember, if you run over time, you won’t make it to your final sales pitch with some participants, which will severely cut down on conversions.

Your agenda should contain a list of topics that you plan to discuss during the webinar so that you don’t forget any important points.

The agenda should also contain a rough guide for each segment of the presentation, including the order in which speakers will make their presentations, a list of interview questions, etc.

Here’s a sample agenda for a webinar beginning at 6:00 PM:

6:00 – Introduction to the webinar and its presenters.

6:05 – First topic of discussion.

6:15 – Second topic of discussion.

6:25 – Third topic of discussion.

6:35 – Questions from the audience.

6:50 – Product is introduced, letting people know their unanswered questions can be answered by it. This is the sales pitch.

7:00 – Webinar is concluded, attendees are thanked for their presence, and the final sales pitch is made.

Schedule Presenters

If you intend on having any special guests, additional presenters, experts, or interviewees, you need to schedule them well in advance so they are certain they can be present and on time for the webinar.

Don’t forget to schedule all presenters for a trial run, too. This should be done at least once before the day of the webinar in order to ensure everyone knows how to use the software properly and that everyone knows their role and can stick within the time constraints.

Plan a Dry Run

A trial run is absolutely vital for ensuring your webinar goes smoothly. There isn’t much that will kill a webinar’s effectiveness faster than a bunch of people saying “um” and “uh” every couple of minutes because they don’t know what they’re doing or what should happen next.

It’s a good idea to do two or three dry runs, but you must do at least one. The dry run will help ensure everyone knows how to use the webinar software correctly, the order of events, what they plan to say, and how to stay within time constraints.

You won’t be able to plan for things such as user questions as well, but you can anticipate some of the things attendees might ask and be prepared to answer those questions.

The dry run should include, at minimum:

1. Practice the webinar introduction, including introducing individual presenters.
2. Making sure presenters know how to use the webinar software.
3. Check all software and equipment. Make sure the web server is running optimally. Be sure everyone has working headsets and knows how to use them and mute them when necessary.
4. Go over the complete agenda with all participants. Do a run-through of all presenters’ presentations, including visuals such as screenshots and videos.

Fine-Tuning Your Pitch

The most important part of your webinar is obviously your pitch. This pitch must be as finely tuned as possible before the webinar begins, and it must contain the perfect blend of selling versus informing.

If the product is yours, you can be a little more aggressive with your sales pitch. People will expect this if you’re selling your own product, so they won’t really be upset.

However, if you’re selling an affiliate product, people are likely to be rather skeptical about the product if you’re selling too hard. Instead, try to focus on talking about why you personally like the product rather than just saying, “Buy! Buy! Buy!”

Here are some things you might want to include in your sales pitch:

• A few of the most important features of the product
• The best benefits of the product (Remember, benefits are different from features. Features would be things like a server’s bandwidth or hard drive size. Benefits would be no loss of sales due to bandwidth limitations or never running out of server space for critical backups.)
• What the product has done for you personally
• Why you believe everyone would want the product

Be careful not to oversell the product or people will smell the sales pitch a mile away and won’t feel it is genuine. The more personal it seems, and the more you relate to them what it has done for you, the more people will want to buy it.

Pre-Qualifying Participants

Something you may want to do if your webinar is very limited is to pre-screen potential attendees to be sure they understand the product you are presenting, its basic features and its price. You don’t want valuable webinar spots being taken by people who would have absolutely no interest in the product you’re selling or wouldn’t be able to afford it even if they were.

Thus, before your signup form, you might want to include a short survey asking people questions that pre-qualify them for your webinar.

Some example questions for a weigh loss webinar might include:

• Are you interested in losing 50, 75, even 100 pounds or more in the next six months?
• Have you tried other weight loss products and failed?
• Are you sick of weight loss systems that try to charge you a monthly fee on and on, yet they never work?
• If you could pay a one-time fee of just $497 to lose all the weight you want, and be guaranteed success, would you be interested?

This will ensure participants are both interested and willing to pay the cost of the product.

Final Words

Webinars can be extremely profitable if care is taken with the setup, presentation, and pitch. Remember that they are best used for pitching high-value products that pay a larger commission in order to take advantage of the limited nature of most webinar software.

Remember, you can continue making money long after your webinar has ended by allowing others to view the recording of it. But don’t forget that your webinar’s effectiveness will diminish significantly if you only offer a standard video stream or download of your broadcast.

Instead, consider using one of the automated webinar systems that make your broadcast seem like a live event. This will increase urgency and ensure that more people will view your recorded webinar and take action, too.

I wish you the best of luck with your webinars, and I hope you find wild success with all your future webinars!

Good luck!

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How To Make Your Digital Products
Look Even Great If You’re A Design Dummy!

It has been said for decades that you should never judge a book by its cover, but that is exactly what most people do. Whether it’s a book on a shelf, a person they just met or the virtual packaging for an information product, people really do pay attention to appearance.

If you think about it, this makes sense. In a perfect world, everyone would look past cosmetic appearance and get straight to the heart of the matter. However, this is far from a perfect world. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and your product’s image is the first impression most people will have.

You can increase sales significantly by simply presenting the best possible image for your product. With a virtual product, this is usually done with a virtual product image. This might be a 3D book cover, software box or other visual representation of the digital product.

Graphics design is one of those things most people seem to shy away from. It seems highly technical and difficult to the average person, but it’s actually a lot easier than you might think. These days, software practically does the job for you. All you need is a basic understanding of the principles of design and how the software functions.

In this report, you’re going to learn about the different types of software available for the creation of virtual product images such as book covers, software boxes, DVD cases and more.

You will also learn the basic steps you need to take in order to create your own virtual product images, including where to locate legal stock photos and how to create your image from start to finish.

Let’s get started!

What You Will Learn

• Graphics Programs
• Photoshop Add-Ons
• Virtual Product Design Packages
• Stock Photos: What You Should Know
• Putting It All Together

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Graphics Programs

The first piece of the graphics puzzle is a good graphics software program. There are hundreds of these available, ranging in price from free to hundreds of dollars. If cost is a concern, you may be able to make do with less expensive alternatives; however, the more expensive packages will make it easier to create the look you’re after even if you’re a beginner.

Let’s take a look at some of the popular graphics packages.

Adobe Photoshop: http://www.photoshop.com

The most popular graphics software is Photoshop from Adobe. While there are other graphics packages out there – most of them cheaper than Photoshop – you simply won’t find the range of available add-ons for any other program. If at all possible, pick up a copy of Photoshop. There is a 30-day trial available on Adobe.com, so you can try the program for a while to see if you like it.

The main reason to purchase Photoshop is for the wide range of add-ons available. These add-ons help add flair to your designs, even if you are a very inexperienced designer.

Another great reason to purchase Photoshop is for the huge array of tutorials available. A simple check of Google or YouTube will turn up millions of tutorials for beginners and experts alike, and there are also countless books available to teach you Photoshop from basic to advanced use.

Photoshop CS2 (a version that is several years old) is also available for anyone who may have purchased a license in the past but can no longer locate the serial number. If you have purchased CS2 in the past, visit the download page and use the included serial number (found in the table beside the download link) to activate it.

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

If you want the latest version but can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars upfront, you can “rent” the software through Adobe’s Creative Cloud service.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud.html

This service starts at $29.99 per month if you are a student (and you must have proof of your status, such as a student ID card) or $49.99 for an individual with a one-year commitment. If you don’t want to make a one-year commitment, the cost is $74.99 per month.

This gives you access to all of Adobe’s Creative Suite products, including Photoshop CS6 and others, for a monthly price instead of paying a large amount of money upfront. You can even get a free 30-day trial, allowing you to test all of the Adobe software.

You will also have 20GB of cloud storage for your products, giving you a great way to back up your work and access it from any location on any machine. Once you install the Adobe Application Manager and log in with your Creative Cloud username and password, you can download and install any of the software on any machine.

NOTE: You can only install the software on two machines at one time using Creative Cloud. However, if you need to use your software on more than two machines, you can simple de-authorize and re-authorize machines as needed. You shouldn’t ever need to use the software on more than one machine at a given time, anyway.

GIMP: http://www.gimp.org

GIMP, which stands for The GNU Image Manipulation Program, is an alternative to Photoshop. The program is free, and it is available for almost every imaginable operating system. In fact, the source code is freely available for porting to other systems.

The main reason GIMP is less popular than Photoshop is because of the lack of add-ons. There are many add-ons available for GIMP, however existing add-ons for Photoshop will not work with GIMP, and you won’t find anywhere near the number of available add-ons you would find with Photoshop.

Fortunately, there are still a lot of good tutorials available to help you learn how to use the program. For this reason, GIMP is a good choice when used in conjunction with other software packages, such as Box Shot 3D which we’ll look at later.

CorelDRAW: http://www.corel.com

CorelDRAW is another higher-priced option, however it costs considerably less than Photoshop. CorelDRAW doesn’t have the range of available add-ons that Photoshop has, nor does it even have the same level of support as GIMP.

Perhaps the only redeeming quality of CorelDRAW is its ability to work with vectors, which makes it a good choice if you plan to do your own artwork for your product images.

Other Programs

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of alternatives to Photoshop for actual design work. Many of the former Photoshop competitors have removed a lot of their design capabilities, instead focusing on photo editing. For example, PaintShop Pro used to be a full-fledged design package, but has now been scaled back to be mostly useful for photographers.

There are a few online programs that allow basic image editing. You can create simple graphics with these, but they won’t give you the professional look of a rendered 3D-style graphic. In order to get that, you would have to import your graphic into another program. We’ll discuss these programs later.

Photoshop Add-Ons

There are several types of add-ons available for Photoshop that will make your job a lot easier. In fact, some of these add-ons will make it seem as though you are a graphics guru even if you are a total newbie to graphics design.

Photoshop Actions – Actions are scripts that run within Photoshop. These scripts add automation to Photoshop, allowing you to create realistic 3D style images without the need for an expensive and complex 3D program that would take years to master. These scripts range in price from free up to around $300.

Cover Action Pro: http://coveractionpro.com/index.html

Cover Action Pro has been the standard cover action script collection for years. This script package contains over 100 different action scripts, allowing you to create a wide variety of product images from books to software boxes and much more.

The Standard edition of Cover Action Pro currently costs $199, while the Extreme version costs $299. The Extreme version contains the same actions as the Standard version, but it also comes with the Bundles & Courses action pack.

Cover Action Pro is a great choice for beginners, because they provide plenty of training to help you learn how to use the scripts. Additionally, you can purchase a template package for $47 that will let you get started with little or no Photoshop experience.

Black Belt Covers: http://blackbeltcovers.com/

Black Belt Covers is a less expensive alternative to Cover Action Pro. At $97, it is about half the price of Cover Action Pro, so it is a good choice if you’re on a limited budget.

The main problems with Black Belt Covers are:

1. The actions have not been updated in several years, so they appear fairly dated compared to Cover Action Pro.
2. There isn’t much in the way of tutorials that teach you how to use the actions, especially compared to Cover Action Pro.
3. There are fewer actions available than with Cover Action Pro.

However, the price difference definitely makes this script package worth considering.

Mockups Master: http://mockupsmaster.com/

Another great Photoshop actions package is Mockups Master. This package doesn’t have quite the range of selections that Cover Action Pro comes with, but the graphics are more up-to-date than those in Black Belt Covers.

Perhaps the best thing about Mockups Master is the price. At this time, the product is available for only $27! If you’re just looking for a basic package that will give you a quality image, Mockups Master might be a great option.

Photoshop Styles – Styles are applied to layers, and they apply decorative effects to those layers. Styles are especially useful for creating interesting text effects, making plain, boring text really pop off the page.

Text without style applied is dull and lifeless. It doesn’t attract attention. You can turn plain text into a stunning logo with the click of a mouse by using the right Photoshop style!

If you’re going to apply styles to your text, be sure to choose a style that complements the image you’re using and it easy to read. Don’t choose overly busy styles or styles that clash with the other colors in your graphic. Using the wrong style is much worse than using no style at all!

Following this text, you will find an example of text on a gradient background. On the first line, no style is applied. On the second line, a garish style that clashes with the background and is difficult to read is applied. In the last line, a clean, simple style that looks good with the background is applied.

As you can see, the last line is easy to read and looks visually appealing. It stands out more than the text with the bad style applied, and it draws the eye much more than the text with no style applied.

You can download free Photoshop styles from hundreds of websites, but you should be aware that many free styles are not very attractive and may make your text difficult to read. Additionally, some styles are made for thinner fonts and others for thicker fonts, so keep that in mind as you use styles.

You can also purchase quality styles from reputable vendors. These purchased styles are often much more useful than free styles, and you can often see examples of the styles used on text before you buy.

One great place for purchasing styles (as well as other add-ons) is Graphic River.  This website allows individual product creators to sell their add-ons through a single marketplace.

>> http://www.graphicriver.net

To find Photoshop styles, simply mouse over “Add-ons” in the top menu, and then click “Photoshop”.  In the menu on the right side, click “Styles”. This will bring up a selection of hundreds of styles for purchase. Most packages include multiple styles focused around a similar theme, and packs are remarkably affordable. Packs start at around $2 and go up to around $20 for very large packages.

A great place to find free add-ons, including styles, is at deviantART. There are thousands of free downloads available. 

Once at the deviantART website, click “Resources & Stock Images.” Click “Application Resources.” There is no section specifically for Photoshop Styles, so browse through the Photoshop .PSD section and the Photoshop Actions section to find styles, or search for “styles” within the Application Resources section.

>> http://www.deviantart.com/ 

Other Add-Ons – There are other types of add-ons available as well. For example, you can buy or download gradients, patterns, shapes, brushes and more. Each of these types of add-ons is useful in its own way. Gradients are useful for backgrounds and stylizing text. Patterns are great for adding texture to elements. Shapes are great for calling attention and crating dynamic images, as are brushes.

You can download thousands of various add-ons through Graphic River and deviantART, and there are thousands of web pages that make these elements available free. But check the terms for use and make sure they are for commercial use.

Virtual Product Design Packages

If you cannot afford Photoshop, or if you use the trial and find you don’t like it, there are other alternatives available for creating virtual product designs.

Box Shot 3D (Windows and Mac)

http://www.boxshot3d.com

Box Shot 3D is a software package that is available for both Windows and Mac computers. This software allows anyone to create many different types of virtual product packaging graphics without Photoshop, because it is a standalone program. It is not a Photoshop action script as so many other virtual product design programs are.

Box Shot 3D is a 3D rendering program that allows you to take one of their premade shapes, add your own graphics to the shape, and render the shape from any angle you use. You can even customize the lighting to create exactly the look and feel you desire for your image.

Box Shot 3D is currently $80.

True Box Shot (Windows or Photoshop)

http://www.trueboxshot.com/

True Box Shot is a software package similar to Box Shot 3D. The standalone version (Windows only) is $55, and the Photoshop action version is $39.99, making it cheaper than Box Shot 3D.

True Box Shot doesn’t have as many options available for cover types, but if you find the right one for your product, you can save money by choosing this option over Box Shot 3D.

Stock Photos: What You Should Know

Unless you will be creating your own images or taking your own photos for your products, you will need to purchase stock photos. Legally, you cannot just take images from other websites without paying for them. Doing this could get you sued for major damages by the owner of the image.

In fact, you shouldn’t even trust most images you find online that claim to be free. You have no way of knowing whether that image is truly being posted by the owner of the image’s copyright or by someone who has illegally downloaded the image elsewhere and is reposting it.

Stock Photo Sites – Finding the right stock photo for your project is crucial. If you choose a boring photograph or piece of artwork, your entire project will be boring. No amount of graphics work can make a terrible image work well.

There are many different stock photo sites available, and most are reasonably priced. Keep in mind that the price you are paying is going, in large part, to the photographer who took the image. Most images only sell a handful of copies (or none at all) so the photographers don’t really make a lot of money. This is why stock photos may seem pricey. A good photo is well worth the expense!

Here are some of the best stock photo sites:

>> http://www.bigstockphoto.com

>> http://www.istockphoto.com

>> http://www.dreamstime.com

>> http://www.depositphotos.com

>> http://www.shutterstock.com

Be sure to read the license carefully before you buy. Some stock photo agencies may require an additional fee for certain uses, so be sure you understand your rights thoroughly before you buy.

Many stock photo agencies require you to purchase credits instead of buying individual images. This may require you to buy more than you really need. Big Stock Photo is one of the few agencies that currently allow you to buy images one at a time, so if you know you’ll only need one image, you might want to consider using them for your stock needs.

Trustworthy Sources of Free Images – There are a few sources of images that you can be relatively certain you can trust. Keep in mind that these sources may have limited selections, so you may not find what you need. Additionally, the quality will not generally be as good as with stock agencies that charge for their photos. Plus, you can never be 100% certain the images you download are legal, so use these only as a last resort.

Here are a few sources that are considered trustworthy:

>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page

>> http://publicphoto.org/ 

>> http://pixabay.com/ 

>> http://pdphoto.org/ 

>> http://www.photos-public-domain.com/ 

>> http://picdrome.com/

>> http://www.alegriphotos.com/

>> http://www.public-domain-photos.com/ 

And here is a large list of reputable sources for free photos:

>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources 

Please be sure to read the site’s terms of use before you use the photos! Many sites require you to credit them or have other terms you must obey to use the images legally!

Putting It All Together

Once you’ve chosen your software, you need to put everything together to create your virtual product image. Here is a quick and easy step-by-step tutorial that will walk you through the process of creating your image.

Step 1: Choose a Product Type 

The first thing you must do is chose which type of virtual product image best represents your product. This will obviously be limited by the software package you have chosen to use based on which types of product packaging they have available.

If your product is a book, you can choose a paperback or hardcover book image. If you have a software package or any type of product that is packaged as a bundle, you could use a box. If you sell audio or video, you could use a CD or DVD case.

Step 2:  Choose a Stock Photo

After selecting a product type, choose a stock photo that complements both your product theme and the type of virtual product image you have chosen. Try to avoid generic images of smiling people or stacks of money. 

Instead, choose something that really represents your company, your product or your product’s name.

Since the flat image will usually be quite large, choose a stock photo that is at least 3000×3000 pixels in size. 

This will be a bit more expensive than a smaller image, but a smaller image will look grainy and pixelated if you try to blow it up to the size required by most cover action software.

Step 3: Create the Flat Graphic

Most cover action software comes with basic blank templates that are used to create a flat graphic for use in the final design. 

Think of taking a software box and opening it up completely and flattening it out. If you fold it back up, it is a 3-dimensional product, but originally it was a flat, printed piece of cardboard.

There are hundreds of websites you can visit to get inspiration for your flat design. Sometimes looking at the work of others can give you ideas for your own work. 

Remember to use these only for inspiration. Never try to copy someone else’s work!

To find good sources of inspiration, search Google or another search engine for the following:

• Ecover designer
• Book cover designer
• Minisite designer
• Ecover design
• Minisite design

These searches will give you a good starting place for finding inspiration for your work.

Step 4: Render the Virtual Product

Once the flat graphic is finished, you can use your chosen cover design package to compile the finished 3D product. 

If you’re using a cover action script in Photoshop, you will simply run the action to turn your flat image into the finished product. 

If you are using an external program like Box Shot 3D, refer to the software’s manual to find out the steps you need to take to compile your finished image.

Step 5: Save the Image

Don’t forget to save both the flat graphic and the compiled graphic separately as a PSD file or other format that can be edited, and then save the compiled graphic as either JPG format or PNG format.

If you’re using Photoshop, you’ll want to save your graphics as a PSD, because you can come back and edit these files later if you need to make changes or create new images using the same basic elements. Don’t forget to save both the flat graphic and compiled graphic separately!

Final Words

You’re finished!

That’s all there is to it! 

Once you learn these basic steps, you will never have to pay a designer an outrageous fee to create covers for you again!

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