It took me over a week, but I have now spruced up my all my eBook covers and added Amazon A+ content to individual book pages. In this gal’s opinion, it looks rather flashy. Kate McVaugh's Amazon Author's Page. None of this could have been done without utilizing Canva.
I found out about the
online, mostly free, graphic design site maybe a year ago, after noticing some
classy book/author graphics. I asked
around and was directed to their site.
Initially, I made a few simple
graphics that could add to my short-lived twitter account. I then used it to
produce a few things for my blog. But the book cover thing didn’t happen until
a week ago.
It turned out that all the time I had spent on my book covers might have been defeating the purpose of author exposure. Although I had spent hours on covers, and they look great as paperbacks, those images did not translate to readable eBook covers on small devices. Blame for that is clearly on me. As a person who does not like to read on a kindle, does nothing but text on her phone, it never really penetrated the brain that the rest of the known world lives on their tiny screens. I got to work.
Back when I was first able to
self-publish, the only tool at my disposal had been the KDP cover creator.
Although quite limited, one could play around and get a decent cover,
especially when I provided my own cover art. (photographs.)
On my book, Broadsided in
Bali, I had a clear idea in my head, but it was impossible to achieve with
the limits of KDP publishing. I turned to the internet and poured over
tutorials on creating a book cover.
With only Word, Paint, and a
purchased image of a temple in Bali, I came up with a cover. It took hours and
hours – which I thoroughly enjoyed – and was quite pleased with the end result.
If you had asked me two weeks ago if I still liked the cover, I would have
pulled it off the shelf, looked at it, and replied Yes. Ask me now and
the answer would be different. None of all the fancy stuff I employed on the
cover translates to a tiny kindle image.
As for my other seven books, I
took a good look. They all seemed professional and clean to me but did not
stand out, especially in tiny form. Time to get to work using Canva.
Oh my goodness, I told myself after I started. I had no idea it was this easy and fun to create a cover on Canva. My preference is to use photos and there is no end to what is available on their site. For Murder, Jaz, & Tel Aviv, I went for a shot of the city coastline. When it came to the series sequel, Jaz, Tall Men, & Mayhem, I found a night shot of the same scene. (for that one I had to subscribe to the Pro account, but it’s a 90-day free trial.)
Another author advised using
the same font across all books. Initially, I thought this would not work as six
of my books are stand-alone titles. But I soon realized that employing the same
font actually does make everything on my Amazon page stand out.
There is no shortage of fonts
from which to choose. I played around until I found the one that appealed to my
eye and was clearly readable, no matter the image size of the book cover.
Once all the covers were done and uploaded to KDP and on to my Amazon page, it was time for Amazon A+ content.
Again, I only found out about
this in the past few weeks. I had noticed all these fun banner-type graphics
under, From the Publisher, on an author’s site. But was that available
to self-publishers? Yes, it was! Upon
further reading I found that A+ content is especially important for book sales
that come from browsing books of their phone. One other thing I had never even
considered because I could not even imagine perusing book titles on my phone.
Back to Canva and more fun graphics. The part about actually using the A+ templates and having the right sized Canva images proved to be a bit tricky. I might need some more work on that but am more than satisfied with the end results.
The best part about all of this,
or at least an added bonus, is that it is loads of fun! Possibly not all
authors would feel the same, but I say give it a try. It really is very easy,
and you can’t really make a mistake.
I would say the only bit of a problem
is choosing the correct blank template for a given project. When I searched for
book cover, then hit enter, it came back with “no such template.” But if one
pays attention to list under search, book cover is there.
Also, I still can't figure out the difference between Jpg and PNG. Jpg seems to work better for my needs, but Canva suggests PNG. Minor problem.
Now, if I could just figure
out what Canva templates will fit into the Amazon A+ templates, I’ll be set.
