By nature of what we do as writers, it can be easy to forget that visuals are incredibly powerful for promotion and delivering messages. But their power can’t be ignored: 

• Visuals with color increase readers’ recall and attention spans by 82%
• Facebook posts with graphics perform 37% better than posts with just text
• People can process images significantly faster than they process words

But it’s a rare author that’s a graphic design expert—I’m certainly not! And you don’t have to be, either. Fortunately for us, there are excellent tools available that simplify the design process and allow any author to create excellent graphics to promote their books with minimal stress. 

For the purposes of this post, I’ll be focusing on Canva, a free design tool that I rely on for do it yourself book promotion. 

Step One: Gather Your Graphics

The first thing you’ll need is a high-res (high resolution) image of your book cover. To really max your optics, ask your publisher or cover designer if it’s possible to get elements from the cover image too—especially the background. 

You can also get creative with this if you like, and create some additional images inspired by your book. For example, for my most recent novel, I collaborated with a talented artist to create an illustration of a fictional creature from the world I created for the story. 

Step Two: Take Inventory 

What kinds of graphics will you need for your campaign? Each social media channel has different optimal dimensions, as does your website, your newsletter, and other channels you might wish to include!

For me, this list of graphics tends to look something like this: 

• Twitter header
• Facebook header
• LinkedIn header
• Twitter post graphic
• Facebook post igraphic
• Instagram post graphic
• Stories graphic
• Newsletter graphic

Luckily, most of these are universal enough that design tools like Canva offer easy grab-and-go presets for these dimensions—just browse the library or search for what you need. 

Now, upload your book cover, elements, and any other graphics you want to work with and you have everything ready at your fingertips. 

Step Three: Set Your Templates

Your promotion graphics will likely be an opportunity to not only show off the cover of your book, but also key supporting teaser or blurb text. 

Start with one of your larger dimensions, or one that you feel is particularly important for your campaign—I often start with my Instagram template since the images are the full focus in the feed. Then: 

• Consider the rule of thirds. It’s tempting to center the elements of your design, but in fact, it’s better to divide your designs into thirds. Once you see it, you’ll recognize what’s made so many other pro-level images you’ve seen look so polished. 
• Keep text short! You want it to be skimmable at first glance. An elaborate, dense quote of praise does you no good if no one takes the time to read it. 
• Know your color codes. In design, color consistency is everything. Pick colors that complement your book cover or author brand (the dropper tool is great for this), but once you choose them, note those HEX codes and use the exact same hues everywhere. 
• Use templates. Canva (and other graphic tools) offer templates for all sorts of purposes and dimensions. If you’re not sure what to do, pick one that speaks to you and stay as close to the original as possible. 

For me, a tried-and-true formula has been book cover on one-third line, and a brief review quote centered on the other one-third line. This will still look pretty flat, so this is where having your book cover elements on hand can be a game-changer. Use it (or a zoomed-in segment of it) as the background to the image. 

Step Four: Adjust for Other Sizes

Once you have the first version how you like it, you can copy and paste those elements over to the others and quickly have a consistent look to your graphics with just a few tweaks to account for each one. Don’t overthink it! You want your book promotion to be quickly recognizable across all channels. 

Step Five: Create Your Collections

There’s one thing left to do. Now that your template is set for each channel you wish to use graphics on, you’ll want to create variations of each to feature different teasers or quotes. In Canva, you can simply create copies of your first graphic in each version of it for as many different variations you want to create. Easy as A-B-C. 

Your Book Promotion is in Your Hands

Graphics are an important part of a book launch campaign, but you don’t have to be a graphic design expert to create some stellar visuals. The right tools, an understanding of a few key design principles, and a couple hours. Then, trust your gut, have some fun, and don’t be shy about pulling out a trusty template.

By day, E. J. Wenstrom is a digital strategy pro with over 10 years at communications firms. By early-early morning, she’s an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author of Departures and the Chronicles of the Third Realm War novels. She believes in complicated characters, terrifying monsters, and purple hair dye.

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One of my favorite ways to celebrate a new release is with teaser graphics.

A good teaser graphic creates an eye-catching way to announce the book about it across your website and social media. It should also offer some preliminary information about the book to get the reader excited and intrigued (hence, teaser).

When creating a graphic, be sure to catch an accurate tone for your writing, and try to capture some other elements of the story, too. On the other hand, don’t worry about capturing everything—it’s a tease, not a tell-all. Ultimately, a successful teaser graphic gets your reader excited to read.

How to create your own graphic

Of course, these tips are all well and good, but creating a strong graphic is as much about technical skill as it is about vision.

Once upon a time, this meant knowing elaborate, complicated tools like Adobe Photoshop, which were easier to screw up than they were to use well. Luckily, technology and the internet has swooped in to save us, with great, free tools that give you all you need for most cases.

There are two types of tools you will need to create your graphic:

• A free stock image source—There are a number of great websites for this. My favorite is Pexel. I like it as much for its effective search app as I do for its professional quality images.
• A newbie-friendly design application—My go-to source for design is Canva. Trust me, if I can make a good graphic from this thing, so can you. It gives you graphic sizes specified for various purposes, such as a Facebook post, you can upload your own graphics, and most templates and other added graphic elements from the application are free to use.

Tip: Especially when you start, stick to the templates as much as possible.

Once you have your go-to resources and tools in place, here are some steps to follow to create that knockout graphic:

1) Go to your stock image source and find an image that reflects an aspect of your story.

• Play with a few keywords – Before choosing your image, it can help to try searching for a few different key words related to your story to see what inspires you.
• Get creative with imagery – Images can reflect anything from a character to a setting, or even a core theme or metaphor. Your book, your rules.
• Go Potter Stewart—As the Justice once infamously said, when it comes to the right image to represent your story, you’ll know it when you see it. When you find it, download it.

2) Log into Canva and Select your image size

This should be easy because they are labeled by what they are meant for—generally, I recommend the “Social Media” square.

3) Upload your selected image and throw it onto your canvas, and choose a template.

• As you skim the options, consider: What do you want to say?
• You may want to try a few options before committing.
• Especially when you’re just starting, I recommend sticking to the template design as much as possible.
• Over time, you’ll gain confidence and sensibility for what works and how to create it

Ta-da, congratulations, you’ve got a book teaser image.

What to do with your image

Post that sucker everywhere! The idea is to get your readers excited for your book, so now, you need to make sure your readers see them.

Some places to make sure you share your image include:

• Website
• Newsletter
• All social media
• Guest posts you write
• Anywhere else you have the opportunity

Get Creative

Creating good visuals uses a different part of your brain than writing, so it can be hard for some authors to get started. But I assure you, these tools give you everything you need to

Be patient with yourself—once you have practiced a few times, I guarantee you will surprise yourself with your own creativity and skills.

EXAMPLES:

• Graphic for E.J. Wenstrom’s Tides
• Graphic for Heather McCorkle’s Dierdre’s True Desire
• Graphic for Em Shotwell’s short story in Enchanted

By day, Emily Wenstrom, is the editor of short story website wordhaus, author social media coach, and freelance content marketing specialist. By early-early morning, she is E. J. Wenstrom, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy author whose debut novel Mud was named 2016 Book of the Year by the Florida Writers Association.

The post How to Create Killer Graphics to Promote Your Writing appeared first on DIY MFA.