Introduction

Have you ever wondered how some sellers create those colorful, well-designed, professional-looking auction listings? Especially when your standard-issue eBay listings look so...well, so boring?

It's all about auction templates. A template is a building block you can use for all your auction listings. A good template includes a combination of fonts, colors, pictures, and page layout that does a good job of presenting the items you're selling in a visually interesting fashion. Once you have a template you like, you can apply it to any new eBay auction by inserting specific item information and photos. You can use the same template for all your listings, or use different templates for different types of productsor different seasons of the year.

There are many different ways to obtain great-looking auction templates. You can use eBay's own Listing Designer feature; you can use third-party websites to create your own templates online; you can download pre-designed auction templates from a variety of different websites; or you can create your own custom templates using HTML code.

If any of the above sounds too complicated, then you've turned to the right place. eBay Auction Templates Starter Kit is your guide to all the different types of eBay auction templatesfrom easy-to-use pre-designed templates to the kinds of HTML-based templates you create on your own. Whichever way you want to go, this book will help you get there.

What's in This Book

This book consists of 10 chapters and 2 appendixes, organized into 4 major sections:

• We'll start out in Part I, "Creating More Effective Auction Listings," by examining some design guidelines that should apply to all eBay auction listings.

• Then, in Part II, "Using Predesigned Auction Templates," we'll take a look at various types of template-creation services, as well as a variety of predesigned downloadable templates.

• In Part III, "Creating Your Own Auction Templates," we'll work through a crash course in HTML coding, complete with ready-to-use code you can use for your own eBay templates and special effects.

• Finally, the book's two appendixes detail special HTML code you can use in your About Me and eBay Stores pages, as well as describe the contents of the CD that accompanies this book.

And the good thing is, what you read in this book is supplemented by the materials on the accompanying CD-ROM. The CD includes ready-to-use HTML code for all the templates and special effects presented in this book, as well as hundreds of other predesigned auction templates from a variety of third parties. There's even a selection of HTML and photo editing software you can use to help create your own auction templates. Like the title says, this truly is a "starter kit" for creating all different types of eBay auction templates!

Who Can Use This Book

eBay Auction Templates Starter Kit can be used by any level of eBay seller. If you want an easy solution, read the first two sections of the book and use the ready-to-use templates included on the accompanying CD. If you're a bit more adventurous, read the third section and learn how to create your own auction templates using simple HTML code. This is a lot easier than it sounds, thanks to the ready-to-run HTML code included on the accompanying CD. You don't have to be an experienced HTML programmer to get startedalthough there are plenty of tips and tricks that even veteran HTML coders will find useful. There's something for everyone!

How to Use This Book

I hope that this book is easy enough to read that you don't need instructions. That said, there are a few elements that bear explaining.

First, there are several special elements in this book, presented in what we in the publishing business call "margin notes." There are different types of margin notes for different types of information, as you see here.

Note

This is a note that presents information of interest, even if it isn't wholly relevant to the discussion in the main text.

Tip

This is a tip that might prove useful for whatever it is you're in the process of doing.

Caution

This is a caution that something you might accidentally do might have undesirable results.

You'll also find several icons scattered throughout the margins of the text. These icons alert you to special information, as follows:

This icon tells you that the template, special effect, or software program under discussion can be found on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book.

This icon tells you that the program or template under discussion is available free of charge.

This icon tells you that the program or template under discussion costs money to use.

There are also lots of web page addresses in the book, like this one: www.molehillgroup.com. When you see one of these addresses (also known as a URL), you can go to that web page by entering the URL into the address box in your web browser. I've made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the web addresses presented here, but given the ever-changing nature of the web, don't be surprised if you run across an address or two that's changed. I apologize in advance.

The other thing you'll find a lot of in this book is HTML code. A snippet of code might look like this:

<p> This is a line of text. </p> <img src="URL">

You should be able to enter this code, exactly as written, into eBay's HTML editor on the Describe Your Item form (when you're creating a new auction listing). You can also enter this code into any text editor or HTML editor program, for further editing.

When part of the code is italic (such as the URL in the previous example), this means that you need to replace the italicized code with your own individual information. In the previous example, you would replace URL with the full URL and filename of an image file you want to include in your auction template.

And if you don't want to enter all the code by hand, the HTML code for all the templates and special effects included in this book can be found on the accompanying CD-ROM. See Appendix B, "Contents of the eBay Auction Templates Starter Kit CD," for more information on how to use the contents of the CD.

Ready, Get Set, Go!

With all these preliminaries out of the way, it's now time to get started. While I recommend reading the book in consecutive order, feel free to skip around, especially if you're a more experienced seller. And definitely feel free to visit my website at www.molehillgroup.com, for more information on this book and other books I've written. You'll even find an errata page for this book, in the inevitable event that an error or two creeps into this text. (Hey, nobody's perfect!)

So get ready to turn the page and learn more about creating better-looking eBay listings with auction templates. Not only will your auction listings look better, they'll also be more effectivewhich means selling more items at higher prices. What's not to like?