Tuesday Special: Handy Tips for Creating Images with Book Brush!

Today at The Write Way Café, Kathleen Sweeney from Book Brush is here to tell us about an image tool for authors!

When you need an easy way to create professional looking images for marketing or posting on social media – Book Brush is my answer! Book Brush makes creating marketing images easy, fun and affordable, too!

My favorite tool in Book Brush is the Custom Creator because even if you are an amateur, you can create great looking ads for yourself! I’m going to share handy tips and tricks to help you create even more eye-catching ads in no time at all!

Here is the easy to use task bar in the Custom Creator:

Ad Size

Book Brush offers pre-sized ads perfect for places that authors advertise! There are ads with the proper dimensions for BookBub, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more. You can also enter your own custom dimensions so if you are creating something for a special promo, you can enter the dimensions (in pixels) and you are ready to create!

Templates

If you don’t feel like you are creative, you can try the pre-made Community Templates for ads! You can filter by genre or the platform where you’ll post the image, find one that you like, then simply insert your book cover, edit text if you want text and download. Here are examples of templates perfectly sized for Instagram or a Facebook Square Ad:

Background 

In this step, you can search from over 1 million images that are available for free! You can also choose a solid background color or gradient color to add some pizzazz to your image. One of my favorite tricks in the background step is to upload your own book cover as the background. This gives you a truly unique and personalized look like this one:

Book Template 

Book Brush offers a selection of over 50 book templates including books, ipads, phones, cover reveals and even some with hands attached to show your book being read! Once you choose a book template, you can resize and move it around within your image to place it where you want. What I love in this step is that if you’d like to add more than one book cover to your image, you can repeat this step to add more.

Text 

Here you type or paste in your wording, then click edit text styling to really personalize things! You can change the font along with the color and the size of your text as well as adjust the height between your lines of text. You can add a background color to your text box (including gradient color), add a shadow to your text to make it pop or add a border around your text box for definition. Another cool thing about Book Brush is that you can even upload your own font. Here is an example of all the features that you can personalize:

Stamps 

There are so many possibilities in this step! You can add industry related logos such as Kindle Unlimited, Nook, Kobo, Audible, Smashwords and more. There are review rating stars, shelves and decorative stamps. My favorite are the blank stamps – colorful circles and shapes. These are wonderful because you can place a text box on top to create an eye-catching call-to-action in your image such as 99¢ or Buy Now!

Lucky for us, there is a filter option to find the stamps you want:

Want to try Book Brush?

Book Brush offers a Limited Plan where you can test out a selection of book templates, stamps and fonts and it is completely free to create three images per month. Sign up for your free Book Brush account today!

To access all of the great features and functionality, you can upgrade to the Plus Plan. With the Plus Plan you can create and download an unlimited number of images and enjoy access to more book templates, more stamps, more fonts along with the Video Creator and Instant Mockups! Book Brush offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, too!

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Book Brush is a platform that provides an easy way for authors to create professional looking ads and images for social media. We offer a free plan where authors can create 3 free images per month along with a paid plan with a lot of additional features like our Custom Creator, 3D Creator and Video Creator. We recently launched Instant Mockups - a super simple tool authors can use to create over 200 professional, real-life images featuring their book in minutes! 

Kathleen Sweeney is the Manager of Customer Service and the Image Creation Specialist at Book Brush. She has over 17 years of client service and business assurance experience across the financial recovery and healthcare industries. She thoroughly enjoys working with authors and helping them create eye-catching images. She lives in Illinois with her husband and three busy, fun-loving boys. Her hobbies include reading and turning socks right side out.

Note from HiDee and Lynn: While The Write Way Cafe does not endorse products, we thank Kathleen for sharing the information about Book Brush and hope everyone finds something useful to take away.

Writing Distractions

Despite having good intentions, interruptions often find their way into my writing time.  It’s a challenge to juggle writing time and responsibilities, to find a life balance that works for me.  But I refuse to quit trying!

I’m currently taking a workshop in which the leader has challenged us to set goals, to list the challenges we will face in meeting those goals, and to learn from both. Listing the challenges has helped me focus on ways to overcome them and make progress on my writing projects.

Weather – We’ve been in a stormy weather pattern here in Central Illinois lately.  Heavy rains punctuated with thunder and lightning have kept me off the computer during my normal writing times.  Even with surge protectors, I’d rather not take a chance on frying my computer.  Unfortunately, stormy weather always seems to hit when I don’t have a printout that includes my most recent edits, so I use a notebook to jot down ideas and brainstorm.  At least I am doing something writing related!  

Nice weather patterns are just as bad, especially in summer.  Since I’m cooped up in an office at the day job, I prefer to spend my evenings and weekends outside whenever I can, enjoying nature.  Long walks with my hubby and hiking in the local parks are definite distractions.  While the exercise is good for me after sitting all week, it doesn’t put words on the page.

Social media – I’m a social person, so some social media for me is fun.  It’s also addicting! If I stay offline too long, I find that little devil sitting on my shoulder, whispering about all I’m missing by not being online.  But if I want to make writing progress, I have to stay off the internet during my designated writing time.

Research – With the internet so readily available, it’s so easy to do research.  There are so many resources for just about any subject, it’s easy to spend hours surfing...or just wasting time looking at interesting information.  Once again, if I want to make progress, I have to stay offline.  Instead of rushing to search out something immediately, I’ve started inserting brackets with notes to “check XYZ” – and try to keep writing!  I also include any abstract ideas or related question. Once I have everything noted, I usually highlight the bracketed information to make it even easier to see on the page when I’m ready to start researching.

Reading – I’ve always been a voracious reader, and being a writer has not changed me.  Sometimes I need to take a break from writing – from every day life in general – and reading relaxes me.  It’s also very useful because my writing mind absorbs information when I read. If I’m struggling with how to handle something, reading offers a solution. It helps to see how other authors put all the pieces together. 

Family, friends, and responsibilities are my biggest writing distractions.  They are not easily overcome.   Instead, I strive to find a balance.  A calendar helps me keep track of responsibilities, and to plan time with family and friends.  Mapping out my week or month helps me to also schedule blocks of writing time.  Having it all in front of me allows me to see the bigger picture and be flexible enough to make it work for me.  

What are your biggest distractions and how do you combat them?  Please share!

The Culture of Instant Gratification

I have a love/hate relationship with technology.

I embrace the computer, but don’t have a smart phone – mainly because I refuse to pay the price.  In my area, one month of a smart phone costs approximately three times what I currently pay for one month of internet access.  I’m not denying there are times a smart phone would be convenient, but I’ve also seen how addictive it can be.  I enjoy having downtime from electronics, and I don’t want to be attached at the hip, or hand, or ear.

I like my Kindle, but I love the feel of a paperback book in my hands.  My Kindle is great for having untold numbers of books readily accessible, as long as I have battery life.  It’s taken the place of a smart phone when I’ve spent hours sitting in hospital waiting rooms, or waited in the van for soccer practices to end.  But there’s a different connection with a paperback book in my hands.  The texture of the paper, the motion of turning the page... it’s just so easy to get lost in a book!
The internet makes it easy to stay in touch with family and friends far away, which I love, but I hate how people sometimes hide behind the relative anonymity it offers.  That’s a hypocritical statement, because sometimes I crave the anonymity as well.

But my biggest issue with technology today is the culture of instant gratification it has created.  Many people can’t function without checking their email or social media sites constantly.  Instead of face-to-face conversations, they communicate in short bursts via texting, Facebook or Twitter.  Companies exploit their clients to generate more sales by promising products that are faster than their rivals, and consumers buy into it because they crave even more immediacy.

“The unmistakable message people receive in both the workplace and marketplace is that faster is better,” writes Ronald Alsop, a freelance journalist and book author as well as longtime reporter and editor for The Wall Street Journal.  His article, Instant Gratification & Its Dark Side, explores the effect of technology on the millennial generation (those born during the 1980s and 1990s).

Unfortunately, in the quest for instant gratification, it is easy to forget that there are real people on the other end.  Being compelled to comment or post something NOW causes people to simply react with words, rather than considering the effect their words may have on others.  That’s when we run into trouble.

I’m just as guilty as the next person when it comes to craving instant gratification, even without a smart phone.  I’m a social person so I like knowing what is going on, even though I don’t really need to know all the time.  There are times when my kids are more likely to converse through texts than they are in person, so I take advantage of that.  And yes, I enjoy some aspects of social media - it’s darned addicting!

That being said, when I participate in social media, I try to abide by some basic guidelines that I hope I have instilled in my own millenials:
– Don’t be rude.
– Think about your words.  How would they affect YOU if you were the intended recipient?
– Remember that what happens online stays online...forever.  It might come back to bite you.
– Sometimes you have to be the bigger person and just let things go.

Sometimes instant gratification is not all it’s cracked up to be!

How do you feel about technology and instant gratification?  Do you love it, or hate it?  Please share.