Creating an ebook can be a pain, especially when you’re not a designer.
From thinking about the content, typography, color scheme, and layouts, you may end up overwhelmed.
But it doesn’t have to be such a struggle.
You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on a professional designer or spend hours learning how to design when you can use an ebook template.
In this blog post, you’ll find 10 websites where you can get professional, easily customizable ebook design templates.
For each of the main tools, we’ve added a quick video tutorial that’ll help you create your own ebooks in no time.
What is an ebook template?
An ebook template is a predesigned document that includes the elements of an ebook such as the color scheme, typography, headings, structure, and layout.
With a template, you can edit these elements to create visually appealing ebook designs for your brand.
Now you don’t have to worry about losing your creative freedom, you can customize the elements to represent your brand and vision.
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10 websites to find ebook templates for free
These websites provide free templates that you can fully customize to your taste and build your ebook design:
1. Canva
Canva is a drag-and-drop graphic design platform with a huge library full of professionally designed ebook and other design templates.
It’s extremely user-friendly and easily customizable. You can get started with Canva in minutes with a simple sign-up form and a library of excellent tutorial videos on how to use it.
With the free version, you also get access to 100+ free templates to customize your ebook layout.
A major plus with Canva is that you can download your finished ebook without a watermark. But if you’re using a premium stock image from their library, the Canva watermark remains on the design until you pay.
The free version gives you everything you need to create professional ebook designs, but if you want to take it up a notch, you can upgrade to their pro version, which starts at $12.99/month.
Export format: PDF, JPEG, or PNG
Limitation(s):
- Ebooks designed with Canva have a 30-page limit, so if your ebook is longer, you’d have to split it into different documents. But you can always merge them with a PDF merger.
- You can’t automatically generate page numbers on your ebook. You’d have to input them manually, which is a bummer if you’re creating an ebook with a lot of pages.
Want to learn how to create an ebook with Canva? Then watch this detailed tutorial:
2. Visme
Visme is a data visualization and presentation tool where you can also get free ebook templates.
With the free version, you get six modern and simplistic ebook designs.
Visme also has a drag-and-drop feature that makes it easy for you to customize the templates to add your logo.
If you want more template designs, images, no watermarks, and more customization options, you can get their standard version at $29/month or a complete version for $59/month.
Export format: PDF and JPG
Limitation(s):
- You can only create five ebooks. After that, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid version.
- The templates, charts and widgets are limited in the free version.
- In the free version your ebook would have a watermark.
To learn how to use Visme to create your ebook, check out this video tutorial below:
3. Creatopy (formerly Bannersnack)
Even though the makers call it “a banner maker,” Creatopy isn’t just meant for creating banners.
It’s a super intuitive, drag-and-drop graphic design tool that lets you create beautiful designs and collaborate on them with your team in real-time.
The tool comes with hundreds of templates (paid and free) to create display ads, social media posts – and printed materials.
And that’s where you’ll find ebook covers, among which 14 are completely free for you to edit and download in JPG or PNG formats (more formats available in the paid plans).
And the best news? Even the free ebook covers look pretty good & follow the latest design aesthetics.
Export format: JPG and PNG
Limitation(s):
- The free version lets you only create ten designs, after which you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan.
- Most of the elements you’ll see in the creator are premium, much like in Canva.
Watch this video if you’d like to learn how to design an ebook cover using Creatopy:
4. Blurb
Blurb is a book design software that provides beautifully designed ebook templates.
They have ebook designs you have to pay for but there are also basic templates they’ve made absolutely free to use.
Once you open an account with them, download their Bookwright software and you can customize their ebook designs, which are fully modifiable.
Export format: PDF
Limitation(s):
- If you’re looking to have a beyond-basic type of ebook, Blurb pricing starts at $4.99.
To learn how to design and publish books with Blurb/Bookwright just watch this video tutorial:
5. VistaCreate (formerly Crello)
Crello is an easy-to-use online image editor.
With the free version, you get one ebook template with limited customization tools. You can also watch tutorials on how to use it from their website.
Crello has a premium version for $10//month, which gives you access to 200+ ebook templates and tools.
Export format: PDF and JPEG
Limitation(s):
- In the free version, you can only access a limited number of templates and customization tools.
- Also, your ebook is watermarked.
The following tutorial will show you how to create an ebook using Crello:
6. Marq (formerly Lucidpress)
Marq is a user-friendly brand templating platform you can use to create your ebook. With the free version, you get five modern ebook templates with restricted customization.
You can find more professional-looking templates on Lucidpress, and their drag-and-drop feature makes customizing your ebook easy.
Export format: Export options are only available with their pro version, that’s $12/month.
Limitation(s):
- In the free version, you have limited templates.
- Also, you have a three-page limit for ebooks.
- And you can’t export. You can only share the ebooks publicly.
The following quick video will help you get started using Lucidpress and present you their UI so you can see whether it’s something you’ll enjoy working with:
7. TEMPLATE.NET
TEMPLATE.NET — as the name implies — is an online directory for all kinds of templates, from website design templates, business card designs, and everything in between.
But ebook designs are what you’re looking for here. The directory has lots of paid and free templates for ebooks, and they’re also fully customizable.
Export format: AI, DOC, and EPUB
Limitation(s):
- Like most other tools, you have more customizations and the best designs only in the PRO and PRO PLUS plans
- You must give credit with a link to template.net (and if you’re printing your ebook, you must attach “Created By: Template.net” somewhere in all your copies)
8. Xara
Xara is an online document sharing platform.
With the free version, you get 14 beautiful templates for your ebook that you can easily customize and export.
You can also personalize and brand the templates with the tools available for the free version.
However, if you want more tools and templates, you have to upgrade to a paid version for €16.80(+ VAT)/month for the Essential or 28 (+ VAT)/month for Scale.
Export format: PDF, DOCX, PPT, JPEG, and XAR
Limitation(s):
- There are limited templates and customization tools with the free version.
9. Snappa
Snappa is not exactly an ebook design software app, but they provide free ebook cover templates.
Ideally, that shouldn’t be an afterthought. In fact, it is as important as your ebook content. It can improve and reduce the number of conversions (sign-ups) you’ll be getting — since it’s the first part of your book readers are going to see.
So don’t treat it as an afterthought, it’s as important as the ebook content.
Limitations: Only three downloads per month in the free version.
Here you can watch one of Snappa users creating an ebook cover using their tool:
10. Adobe Express
Adobe Express is a simple visual editing app from the makers of industry-leading tools such as Adobe Photoshop or InDesign.
It lets you create various digital assets using its free templates and stock photos. Best of all, the free plan lets you download your assets in different formats, including PNG, JPG, and PDF.
Limitations:
- The free plan gives you access to 18 free ebook templates
- Adding a custom logo is only available in the paid plan that starts at $12.29/mo
Bonus tips to use the templates above
These tips are not rules you have to follow, but they’ll come in handy when creating your ebook.
Tip 1: This is a no-brainer, but use visual content
Infographics bring your ebook to life. Providing visual illustrations in your ebook will make it easy for readers to read and comprehend.
You should use charts, icons, illustrations, images and image captions to make the important details clearer.
Tip 2: Use visual hierarchy
Visual hierarchy is the way you arrange elements (text or images) in your ebook. It influences the way your reader perceives information.
As you know, bigger texts are for headlines, main ideas, and topics, small texts are for body content and descriptions.
Since different fonts have different sizes, it’s difficult to provide you with one size that you should use for headlines and main copy.
That said, here are some practical guidelines on how to choose the right font size for your ebook.
Tip 3: Pick the right color scheme (that represents your brand)
Choose colors that resonate with your brand colors.
Also, when designing your ebook, be consistent with your color theme because it improves the organization and flow of the content. It’s also best you stick to 2-3 colors per ebook so your design doesn’t appear disorganized.
Overall, make sure the colors align with your main brand colors, so your audience always knows that your ebook is coming from no other brand but yours.
Don’t have a visual brand identity yet? Tools like Coolors will help you create good-looking color schemes very quickly.
Tip 4: Use white space
Don’t be afraid to use white space, a.k.a. negative space.
White spaces don’t always mean spaces that are colored white per se. They’re spaces (of any color) you use in your ebook to make it easier to read — as shown in the image above.
Use white space to make reading easy for your readers so they won’t find it difficult to read your ebook.
This rule doesn’t apply to ebooks only. Keep it in mind when designing your landing page and emails – where you’ll be promoting your ebook.
Bear in mind it’s easy to go overboard with space. Make sure to keep just enough white space to make your ebook readable but not too ‘bloated’.
Tip 5: Select an eligible font family
First, stick to one or two fonts per ebook.
And then pick fonts that are legible like the Arial, Times New Roman, or Courier fonts. You should also avoid heavily decorated font styles (depending on your content’s structure).
Use font formatting tools like bold, italic, and underline to make important content stand out and to emphasize meaning and/or relevance.
When picking a font size, consider using the so-called golden ratio. It’s going to help you decide on the font-size for your main copy, headlines, and also the appropriate line-height.
If you’re not sure how to match different fonts, check out the “Popular Pairings” section in Google Fonts. It’s very useful if you’re, for example, trying to use different font styles for headlines and paragraphs. You’ll also find some popular font collections in this post over here.
Conclusion
You don’t need to go through the hassle involved in creating an ebook from scratch.
Ready-made ebook templates save you time and help streamline the process involved in creating an ebook for your brand.
You don’t need to involve your designer, nor buy expensive software like Adobe InDesign and then educate yourself on how to use it effectively.
Whether you’re going to use ebooks on social media, inside of your blog posts, or on standalone landing pages, the free resources in this article will come in handy.
And while we’re at it, why don’t you share how you’re using ebooks to meet your business goals? Are they a big part of your content marketing and lead generation programs?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below 🙂