When I got my first traditional publishing contract, I naively assumed that the publisher would supply me with the promotional images I’d need to market my book. I was wrong. What I got was a single JPEG image of my book cover. If I wanted fancy images to promote my book, I was going to have to learn to make them myself.
I am not a graphic designer, nor an artist, but I’m always willing to learn, so I started scouring blogs and YouTube channels for “how to make images.” That’s how I came across Canva, a graphic design tool created for anyone to design beautiful images quickly and easily. Unlike Photoshop, it was intuitive enough for a beginner to use; I could use templates, simply edit the text and add my book cover, and end up with something that looked professional; and best of all, it had a free tier.
Now that I’ve been using Canva for about a decade, I teach other authors how to use the tool on my Canva Tips for Authors YouTube channel. In this post, I’ll share my best tips on using Canva to create book marketing materials. The tool has a lot to offer, but I hope this gives you a good introduction to the kinds of content you can create.
How does Canva work?
Canva gives you access to thousands of images and video clips that are free to use for commercial purposes, so you don’t have to purchase stock images separately. The program is web-based, so it doesn’t take up space on your computer (an important consideration if, like me, you work on a Chromebook). There’s also a mobile app, and your designs will sync across devices.
Canva’s free tier is a good place to start, and powerful enough to stay on forever if you’d like. With a free account, you can choose from a wide range of templates, fonts, and other elements and visual effects, upload your own files (like book covers), and use all the basic features needed to edit, share, and download high-quality designs. You can upgrade to Canva Pro for more templates and sophisticated editing tools (like the background remover!).
What can authors do with Canva?
1. Create engaging graphics for social media
This is by far the most common use case for authors. Many authors use graphics to engage readers on social media, and you can use Canva to explore different formats — from carousel posts teasing book reveals or excerpts, to eye-catching flat lay shots showcasing your book, to static images like Facebook headers or ads. Canva Pro’s magic resize feature lets you adapt images for different platforms, so you can quickly resize your Instagram post to use as a Bookbub Ad, for example. Even in the free tier, you can start with templates that are correctly sized for different platforms. Once you’ve designed your images, Canva lets you post them straight to social media.
Using templates means you can create professional designs with no experience required! Modifying them can be as simple as changing the text and colours and dragging in your book cover image, which you can mock up in 3D or a digital device using Canva’s Mockup generator. Once you’re confident using Canva, you can create designs from scratch.
Here’s a tutorial on how to design a carousel post:
2. Animate a book trailer or ad
Animated images and videos make for scroll-stopping social media posts — a bit of movement helps grab attention long enough for readers to become curious about your book. Animations are also great options if you want to create videos for Instagram or TikTok but you don’t want to be on camera.
One type of content that lends itself well to animations is a book trailer video. You can use the animations and video clips Canva offers or you can upload your own videos to edit. You can even animate images — Canva lets you add text, music, voiceovers, and interesting transitions.
Canva also makes it easy to create animated ads for social media. For example, animate the text of a book review quote with a typewriter effect (when the text shows up as though it’s being typed) or by having it drift elegantly onto the screen. Or make short cartoon-style ads similar to the ones traditional publishing houses post for their bigger releases — here’s an example:
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3. Make simple book covers
One of the things Canva does best is to help you arrange design elements in a pleasing way, using guides to line up elements automatically. The tool also has a large library of fonts. This makes it ideal for designing book covers.
Of course, there’s more to making a book cover than taking an image and slapping some text on it. If you can afford it, you should hire a designer who has the design expertise and knowledge of the market to create a professional-looking cover. But if it’s for a reader magnet or freebie, or cash is tight, Canva is a good option.
When making book covers, I prefer to buy the main images or elements from somewhere like Depositphotos or Dreamstime and then use Canva to manipulate the image and do the composition work. Here are examples of covers I’ve made for clients, plus one of mine — all made using Canva.
4. Design swag and other offline assets
When you need swag to give out at events, sell on your website, or include in a book giveaway or Kickstarter launch, you can easily design these in Canva and get them printed using a print-on-demand service — or Canva itself. Canva’s POD service tends to be slightly more expensive than services like Vistaprint, but delivery is free, so sometimes the costs balance out. I’ve used Canva to design bookmarks, leaflets, stickers, and even custom t-shirts.
These are just a few ways I’ve found Canva helpful for book marketing. If you’d like to chat with other authors about Canva or get feedback on your designs, join our private Canva Tips For Authors Facebook group!
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