HOWTO make a Kobo sleep cover from a regular cover for about $2

The new Kobo Glo and Kobo Mini ereaders have a special feature. They contain magnetic switches that can put them into and take them out of sleep mode in the presence of a small magnet. If you already have an ordinary, non-sleep case for your Glo or Mini, I will show you how to turn it into a sleep case very quickly and inexpensively.

What you will need:

• Your regular case. (This NeoSkin Kindle Zip Sleeve works great for me. Dig the skull-and-crossbones design. I chose it because, um, you can't take your ebooks with you. It's a memento mori, right? That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
• A small, powerful magnet. (Radio Shack sells the Rare Earth Super Magnets (2-Pack) for US $2.49, which is where the "about $2" comes in. These are tiny but extremely powerful, good for triggering your Kobo's sleep function without taking up too much room in the case.)
• Some sticky tape. Depending on your case, you have many options here. I used gaffer tape because it's strong and matches the black interior of my case. You could use duct tape, electrical tape, or even cellophane tape, which I used myself for a few days while trying to pinpoint where to put the magnet.
• Scissors (for the tape).
• A ruler (optional).
• Pencil, chalk, or marker (optional).

Now that you have your supplies, here are the basic steps.

1. Very important: Turn on the magnetic sensing capability of the Kobo. Touch the three-bars icon in the upper right of the screen (under firmware 2.1.5). Select Settings > Light, Sleep & Power > Page 2 > Automatically sleep and wake up. I came into the DIY sleep cover conversation on MobileRead halfway and spent a day and a half wondering why no magnet I tried could activate my Glo, despite using some pretty powerful ones. Now you'll know better.
2. Exit Settings and wave your Radio Shack magnet or other small, powerful magnet around the bottom-right corner of the Kobo screen. I literally mean the screen and not the bezel. The magnetic switch you want to trip is not under the bezel. When people told me the switch is "under the lower-right corner of the screen", I thought they meant embedded beneath the bezel near that part of the screen. No, to get at the magnet, you would really have to peel the screen up -- it's under the screen's layers. (Don't actually do this!) So wave your magnet around that area and see if you can make the Kobo sleep and wake up, depending on how close you bring it. Once you can reliably do this, you're ready for the next step.
3. Provisionally tape down the magnet. If your case opens like a book, as mine does, you'll need to tape the magnet on what would be the inside front cover of the book. As I said, I messed around with cellophane tape before I finally pasted it down with black gaffer tape. The advantages of cellophane tape are that it's easier to see what you're doing with the magnet and where you're positioning it, and it's also easy to pick up and reposition.
4. Try to sleep and wake your Kobo by closing and opening the case. If it worked with a loose magnet, but not with one taped to the case, move it around until you get it right. Because of the way my case opens like a book, my magnet ended up near the lower-left corner of the inside front of my case.
5. Permanently tape down the magnet. First, once you're sure you know where the magnet should go, press down on the magnet with your thumb. It should make a temporary indentation in the case unless the case is titanium or something. Then, lift up the cellophane tape, put the magnet back in the indentation, and tape it down with stronger, heavier, better-looking tape. (Instead of making an indentation, you can use a ruler to measure where the magnet should go, but this seems like overkill -- and don't use a steel ruler! D'oh!)

Now you should have a functional and relatively handsome CheapSleep for a fraction of the cost of a genuine Kobo SleepCover, and available in a much wider variety of colors and patterns.

One interesting side effect I found is that my Glo sleeps even when I slide it into the top of my mostly-zipped-up case, and wakes when I slide it out. Experiment with yours and see what it can do.

I sometimes find the wake/sleep technology a little annoying, but there was little reason not to install it into my case, because it was so inexpensive ($2, or $1 if you share with a friend), easy to do, reversible, and I can turn the feature off temporarily any time I want in Settings. Plus, I learned a few things. So enjoy!