Maggie Blackbird

I’m a member of the Author Toolbox Blog Hop.  What is it?  A chance for authors at any stage in their career to connect by providing helpful posts related to all things writing.  The Hop occurs once a month, with the exception of November and December.  My post for April 2020 is creating the dreaded graphics for book promotion, so read on…

I’ll be the first to admit I am not a graphic artist.  And I will also admit I loathe making graphics for book promotions.  I seriously do.  I’m far from an artist.  I do have photoshop elements.  For my personal blog at LiveJournal, I used to love making icons.  Not that my icons were award-winning or anything, but I did have fun.  Plus, my LJ is locked down to private, so only my friends so my poor attempts at design haha.

But what of those without Photoshop elements?  Or the big Photoshop program?  Or anything else that costs money?  I did find a couple of photo editing programs online.

My fellow writer friend V.J. Allison uses GIMP.  She swears by this program, and she does some pretty nifty graphics for her books.  Gimp promotes itself as a free, open source image editor.  Now, I haven’t tried using this program myself.  And it looks like you have to download the program.  But it’s something worth trying if you don’t have your own personal graphic design program.

Then there is BeFunky (love the name, by the way), that calls itself an all-in-one creative platform.  I haven’t tried the available programs, but it’s there for you to check out.

Putting aside the graphic design programs, there are also other nifty ways you can dress up your promo images for your books.  There is DIY Book Covers.  My good friend V.J. pointed me in this direction.  I don’t design my own book covers; my publisher’s graphic artists do that.  But I do love the 3D book mock-up maker available at this web site.  It allowed clumsy me to make some nifty graphics.

Another author friend uses Smilebox to create something similar to a book trailer, but yet it’s not a book trailer.  There are tons more features at Smilebox if you register for the premium program, but I chose to go with the basic because it’s free.  You can make slideshows, cards, and other neat things.  I made two.  Since I don’t have the premium option, I can only provide a link to my Facebook Page where you can see a full slideshow and a collage.

SLIDESHOW

COLLAGE

I’m not the most technologically savvy person out there, so I hope the links work for you.  LOL.

How about you?  What free programs have you found to promote your books?  I’d love to know what you are using, because I’m always on the lookout for freebies!