Lorna Faith

Clean Fiction Author

How to Create a Book Cover Using Canva

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I’ve been experimenting on how to create a great book cover using Canva.

I thought I’d walk you through some simple steps on what I’ve done to create a simple book cover, so you can do it too.

how to create a book cover

How to Make Your Own Book Cover Using Canva

As a self-published author one of the most difficult and most important things you’ll do is choose a cover for your book.

Your book cover is your most powerful marketing tool because it will either attract potential readers or repel them. If you choose a great cover for your genre of book and draw in readers, then you’ve done well, but if you don’t, then potential readers will just click away… a most likely not be back.

Personally, I like to use a professional book cover designer when I can, but there are many reasons you might want to make your own book cover:

  • Maybe you want more creative control
  • You want to try different cover ideas so you know what you want before hiring a designer
  • Maybe you’re writing a series and you don’t want to pay full price for each cover design
  • Or, you might be launching a small book – a short guide or ebook – and you don’t want to invest too much money into the project.

I created the book cover for my fiction giveaway, A Most Unsuitable Husband. It was fairly simple to do, so I thought I’d show you what I did in this post.

It’s super important that you consider a few things before you create your book cover:

There are a few guidelines for choosing pictures to have a great looking book cover. How good your book cover looks, will depend on what pictures or art you use and how well they fit together. One important aspect of a good book cover is to make sure it resonates with your target readers. For example, for this ebook cover, it is a Western Historical Romance, so usually there’s horses/or a ranch in the background and a lady dressed in some type of old fashioned dress. That’s why I chose the lady in the blue dress as well as the horses with the trees in the background.

Here’s simple steps on how you can make your own book cover.

Step 1: Find a great photo.

This part of the process can take the longest, because it’s your photo that will draw readers to your book. Of course, you’ll want to find a photo that mirrors the theme of your story, character and plot.

You might be curious where to find photos. If you’ve taken some photos yourself, you can use that. Just double check that the resolution meets the required resolution before you publish your book on KDP(Amazon), CreateSpace or Smashwords. As far as photos go, the higher your resolution, the better your book cover image will look when it is printed.

Other websites to find royalty free photos:

www.morguefile.com

www.freedigitalphotos.net

www.bigstockphoto.com

www.shutterstock.com

www.dreamstime.com

At most websites you’ll have to pay for the photos. You’ll also need to double check what the licensing terms are for the photo. For example, some photos cost around $200 for up to 50,000 print copies. For my first two novels I used photos from bigstockphoto.com and there was no limit for print copies. Also I a lot less for the actual picture – somewhere around $50.

But when I created this book cover, I only paid $1 per photo. Here’s the two photos I used that I found on Canva.

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Step 2: Go to Canva.com and upload the photo you’ve found.(or you can find the photo you want once you’re in Canva. It’s easy you just use search terms. For example, search terms for the above photos: woman, historical dress, horses, ranch).

Create Your Account… it’s free. The website takes you automatically to a ‘beginner’s challenge’ – a tutorial on how to use it. If you want to go straight to designing your book cover, you’ll end up at the Dashboard here:

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You’ll notice that there are a bunch of different sizes already prepared for whatever platform you’re looking for. Click on the “More” button and scroll down until you find “Kindle Cover.” Click on that one.

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Step 3: Choose a Template already pre-made or Create Your Own.

Once you’ve chosen the Kindle Cover, you’ll see a bunch of pre-made book cover templates on the left hand side of the page.  They’ve already been formatted with photos and fonts. You can choose one of those and just tweak the font or change the picture color, or you can create your own. Here’s what you should see…Screen Shot 2016-06-29 at 11.06.10 AM

You can make your own book cover. It’s so easy to do, that I wanted to show you how you can make your own in this tutorial.

Step 4: Upload Your Photo to Canva.com

Just click on “upload your own images” and you can grab your photos from your computer file.

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Step 5: Decide if you want your photo to cover the front cover or if you want to use a different layout for you book. You can see it in the picture below. I clicked on layout(top LH side of Canva screen) and used the layout with 3 boxes for this book cover(see it below on RH side).

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Step 6: Drag Your Photo(s) onto your workspace.

Now you can drag the photos you’ve chosen into the layout you’ve chosen. I decided to use 2 photos. I put the woman in the blue historical dress at the top and the horses on the ranch on the bottom of the layout. Then for the middle picture I clicked on “background” and chose a ‘burgundy’ color to fill in the white lines around the pictures. Then also from ‘background’ I chose a cream colored background to place in the middle box.Screen Shot 2016-06-29 at 11.44.59 AM

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Step 7: Add Your Book Title and Author Name.

You’ll need to add your book title and author name. On the far left hand side of the canva screen you’ll see an icon that says “Text.” Click on that.

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Then, a box will pop up above the photo you’re designing. It should say “Add Text.” Put your cursor in the text box and enter your title. If the text doesn’t fit the box, you can stretch the box with your cursor. Or what I did to create my title below I clicked again on “add heading” for each new word I wanted to add to the title. I changed the  font to “Libre Baskerville” and chose a burgundy color and ’48’ font.

It’s so simple to change font or color – just click on the ‘number box’ or on the ‘color box’ if you want to switch something.

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Then you can do the same for your author name.

Step 8: Download Your Book Cover.

Double check that you like the finished product. When you’re ready to download the book cover just click on “download” on the upper right hand side of the screen. Then click what you want. I normally choose either “Image: high quality(PNG)” and click on that.

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Canva will get busy converting your photo and downloading it to your computer.

Step 9: And Voila! Your new DIY Book Cover is finished 😉

You’re book cover is done… and I’m sure you did a wonderful job!

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If you found this post helpful, please share it with someone who might also find it useful.

What are your tips for creating book covers using Canva? I’d love to hear your thoughts – we can learn from each others ideas 🙂

 

 

 

 

*Photos created with Canva.

020 Overcome Writer’s Doubt and Create Work that Matters with Bryan Hutchinson

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Awhile back, I had the privilege of interviewing an amazing writer and friend, Bryan Hutchinson. We had a great chat about how to work through feelings of doubt, fear and intimidation…  the dragon of resistance that most writers have to slay every single day. This was an inspiring and encouraging chat and I really hope you find it helpful in your writing journey.

Bryan has written a bestselling book that has helped thousands of writers, Writer’s Doubt: The #1 Enemy of Writing(and what you can do about it).

Since he wrote the book, Bryan has created a companion online course you can start anytime at  writerscrushingdoubt.com.

You can find Bryan at his award winning blog, PositiveWriter.com or connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

 Summary of Interview

*Bryan talks about the fact that inhibitions and fears that hold us back as writers. He encourages us to write about stuff in our story that’s hard to talk about, because that will help free us from some of the doubts we have about writing. He learned to overcome many mental hurdles when he was a Professional Pool Player, which he later found helpful when he started to write.

*He tells his story. It was at his therapist’s suggestion, that he started to write out his story in his journal. He remembers in his childhood at school and at home being punished severely for his lack of focus and discipline. As he started writing about his story, he started to see what still held true for him and what he had learned and overcome. Working through this process helped to free him from his inhibitions and fears. Writing is unique from any other art form in that once you write your story you can read it back and see with more clarity what you’ve been thinking about all this time. By reading it back you can decide what to keep and what to let go of.

When you’re not embarrassed to share the truth of your story, it brings out a vulnerability in your writing. @ADDerworld

*Bryan talks about the two choices in publishing for authors. Choosing to go with Traditional Publishing or Self Publishing. Traditional Publishers are a business. They choose a book that they feel has the greatest opportunity to sell. Self Publishing is also a business, however with the rise of indie writing and publishing now you have the opportunity to find a readership whether you know you’re book will sell or not. It’s a “New Reader’s Market” now where readers are the ones that decide who and what story they connect to. Most of the time, in this new market, readers don’t look or even care who published the book. They just want to read what they like.

*As writers we still need to have our books written and edited well. You don’t just publish anything and think readers are going to love it. That’s not true. Don’t put out a book that’s so filled with errors that it distracts the reader from your story. If you do that, they probably won’t buy anything else from you. In writer’s doubt he talks about the most basic editing you need before you self-publish.

*If you’re a writer/author a platform is super helpful. Bryan and I talk about an awesome writing course where we’ve learned to find our voice and build our platform called TribeWriters.  When you build a platform, people can find you and you can get the word out there about your book. In the past you needed to wait to be picked by a publisher. That’s no longer true. The New Reader’s Market wants to read writing that’s new and that they love. That’s why right now it’s important to get your feet wet with self publishing. Today there are self published books that are selling well that probably wouldn’t have been picked up by a Traditional publisher.

*Bryan inspires new writers that are scared to begin, to just write.

If you’ve struggled with writer’s doubt, read Bryan’s book and get started doing the helpful exercises and be encouraged by others writers just starting out in the online course, WritersCrushingDoubt.com. It’ll change your world.

Start by writing for yourself every morning or evening. Even if no one else will see it.

Begin. Today.

Have you struggled with inhibitions and fear to get your story written? Please share your thoughts in the comments, and we can learn from each other 😉

 

 

 

*Photo credit: Bryan Hutchinson

*Some of the above links are affiliate links and help to support this blog

5 Ways to Organize Your Novel Using Scrivener

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Organizing your book can be a challenge.

At least that’s how it’s been for me.

I wrote my first novel using MS Word… and lost whole scenes that later I had to rewrite. It was very discouraging and I thought there must be a better way to do this.

Then, during an online writing course, I learned about Scrivener. So many writers were raving about it, that I was curious about how it could help me.

I picked up the software and started writing my next book in Scrivener.

But I found it confusing and difficult to understand. I needed help to figure out how this program would help me write my story, in a simple, non-confusing way.

That’s when I discovered Learn Scrivener Fast. I was amazed at all the benefits this software really had. I didn’t realize you could actually self-publish your book directly from Scrivener to Amazon and Kobo(and other digital retailers). Suddenly writing and self-publishing a book, no longer meant fighting a war with technology. It was the first time I felt like I could really do this. I share more about the usefulness of Scrivener here.

Now it was only a matter of writing the books, editing, getting a great book cover and hitting publish.

As I’ve continued to learn how to write better stories, I’ve discovered unique tips from bestselling authors.

In this post, I share what I’ve experimented with in Scrivener and what I’ve found to be super helpful to organize my Novels and my nonfiction books.

If you’re interested in going into more details about how to use Scrivener to write your stories and tips on self-publishing, you can find detailed videos, PDF’s and emails in the free mini-course The Storyteller’s Roadmap.

5 ways to organize your novel 

 

5 Ways to Organize Your Novel Using Scrivener

I’ve been digging deeper into the unique ways to use Scrivener to write a book.

In the process I’ve been asking a lot of questions that I’m finding answers for.

Questions like: How can writers add the background of characters to a separate document? Where can writers put the details of plot, character arc and setting? What if writers want to add more detailed notes like: colours and symbolism or weather elements?

In this post you’ll find different ways for you to develop and organize your story with Scrivener.

1. First before you write a word of your first draft, you can write out your story structure. Look under the Binder and move down until you see the Research folder. Here you can add a new page. You can see I’ve chosen yellow for plot ideas. Write your details of Concept, Premise, Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four, in separate pages here.

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You can get a ‘bird’s eyeview’ by going to the top of the document where it says “Group Mode” and clicking on index cards.

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2. Next, if it’s helpful, create separate pages for colors and symbolism; for setting and weather elements. You can see I’ve added different colours to represent each character. I’ve changed each of the tabs for color and setting thesaurus, in brown.

For this story, The Marriage Bargain(working title), Cassie is blue with orange for creativity, loyalty, strong relationships and nostalgia. Jack is green and red for harmony, growth, passion, strong-willed and a strong sense of right and wrong. Damien is a mixture of red and black because of his quick temper, that he keeps things hidden, that he is rebellious and resentful.

When you’re writing the first draft, it helps to have these pages to refer to at a moment’s notice to help you dig deeper into character, meanings and story.

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3. Under the folder that says “Places”(in yellow), you can add a photo and description of the area where your story takes place. As writers, it helps to get our descriptions accurate when we can see vivid pictures(when possible) of the time and place that we’re writing about.

A tip for finding photos. Go to Pinterest and start a separate board for each of your books. Then in the search bar, type in what you’re looking for. For this book I typed in ranching, 1900s, Alberta. You can seen the pictures I found for this Western Romance here.

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If you click on “Places” folder, you’ll get to see all the pictures you’ve added at a glance.

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4. Then you can go to the “Characters” folder and add a new page for all of your main characters. It’s quite fun to find photos of your characters. It’s a little like directing the casting for your own movie 😉 I find pictures on Pinterest mostly, but sometimes on Creative Commons.

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5. Lastly, you can go back to the “Manuscript” folder and begin to add one-liners for chapter titles. I don’t know about you, but I find it helpful to add short descriptive phrases to help guide me as I’m writing the first draft. For first draft, I use the color yellow, to remind me that I can just say it. In the final draft – as I’m editing for story flow I switch to green.

Oh, and by the way, if you go to the top of the scrivener page you’ll see the “Add” button(it’s the only green one), which is where you add a new page, whenever you need one.

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You can also see the “index card” version by clicking on the “Manuscript” folder.

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I hope you’ve found this helpful as you write your novel. If you’re interested in going into greater detail about how to use Scrivener to write your stories and self-publish your books, you can find detailed videos, PDF’s and emails in this free mini-course The Storyteller’s Roadmap.

 

What do you find helpful when you are outlining and organizing your story? Please, leave a comment below so we can all learn from each other 😉

 

 

018 Write Captivating Novels Using the Emotion and Setting Thesaurus with Becca Puglisi

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Subscribe: iTunes

As writers, we captivate our readers through the word pictures we paint in our descriptions and dialogue. In today’s interview with Becca Puglisi, she gives writers tips on how they can use the Emotion Thesaurus and Setting Thesaurus to draw readers deeper into their story.

In the intro, I talk about 3 helpful opportunities to help you learn how to become a successful author.

  1. Free online Self-Publishing Success Summit. Learn how to become a successful author, from some of the bestselling writers in self-publishing. Get behind the scenes as they share the details of how they wrote, published and marketing their books.  Many awesome speakers are sharing this year like: Joseph Michael, Jeff Goins, Joanna Penn, Gretchen Rubin, Michael Hyatt, Pat Flynn and many more. Best of all, you can watch the videos for free: Click here to grab a Free spot on the Self-Publishing Success Summit. Summit is from June 12 – 22nd.
  2. Free eBook along with a Storyteller’s Roadmap mini-course. I’m wanting to do what I can to help struggling first-time writers get past self-doubt and other roadblocks, so they can write, self-publish and sell books to readers who are hungry to read them. So, I’m offering my nonfiction book Write and Publish Your First Book for Free along with a free mini-course to help you learn the steps to take to write, self-publish and market your book. Click here for your Free ebook and free Storyteller’s Roadmap mini-course.
  3. Onestopforwriters.com is a membership site where you can find all the Thesaurus’ that Becca and Angela have written – all in one place. It’s a great resource 😉

Click Here to Watch the Video Interview

Interview Summary

Screen Shot 2016-06-01 at 8.51.39 AMBecca Puglisi is a nonfiction co-author – along with Angela Ackerman- of the best selling The Emotion Thesaurus, Emotional Amplifiers(Free) and also the Negative and Positive Trait Thesaurus. Their newest books are The Urban Setting Thesaurus and The Rural Setting Thesaurus  are due to release on June 13th! At their blog, writershelpingwriters.com and their newest website onestopforwriters.com, you can find all sorts of help for writing your books in a more compelling way for readers.

In this today’s interview we talk about the emotion thesaurus and how these thesaurus’s can help writers to tell better stories.

Here are the highlights:

Angela and Becca started their website when it wasn’t convenient for them to do it – while having younger children. They loved each other’s work and wanted to start a website together.

The emotion thesaurus started with them writing blogposts about it and people were interested. Soon they found PDF’s of their Emotion Thesaurus around the Internet, so they thought they should write this book.

*Emotional Amplifiers book is helpful to use, when you want to amp up the emotions for your characters. For example, if your characters are already feeling sad and you add in exhaustion or stress…  that will make the characters feelings stronger and more volatile. You use the Emotional Amplifiers when you want to elevate the tension of the character.

*Becca talks about how using The Emotion Thesaurus helps writers to show instead of telling. Telling often takes less work and less time, but when you show by writing vivid descriptions or emotions, the reader is drawn in and feels like they are living the life of the main character.

*Angela and Becca have talked a lot about emotional wounds on their blog, and even though it’s hard to write about and painful to dredge up painful memories, it’s these traumatic or negative events in a character’s past that often causes a lie to surface in their psyche.  For example: A guy who had a family member shot in a convenience store, might end up believing that he can’t protect the ones he loves. He believes that lie. As a result different character traits form as a means of protecting himself, so he won’t experience those emotions again. Example: He might become superficial to keep from having to get to know people. He might start being extra observant and cautious about his surroundings.

When wounds happens, new character traits form – but the negative traits hold the character back from being the person they were meant to be. The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Negative Trait Thesaurus are very useful books, to help writers, tell vividly about a characters wounds and character traits.

*Becca shares helpful tips on writing backstory. It’s good to know each of your character’s backstory – what happened to them – but the backstory is more for the author than it is for the reader. Knowing the backstory is where layering and depth comes into play for writers. Becca offers a helpful free tool on their website: Reverse Backstory Tool, to help paint a vivid picture of who your character is.

*The Setting Thesaurus – which releases June 13th – has over 200 settings to help authors write compelling descriptions.  Setting is a great vehicle for conflict. Since every scene needs conflict – some obstacle that stops the character from getting what they want – you can use setting to help with that.

*Normally we see settings as background, but it can be a great way to: reinforce emotion; create mood; create tension and conflict; show the passage of time; foreshadow; hint at backstory, etc. You can do all those things while you’re showing the reader what the scene looks like.

*Becca talks about how she experienced fear when she first started writing. She struggled with panic disorder. As she talked with her therapist, she learned that most of the time when you have fears, most of the time they are unfounded and overblown. Most fears are based on a lie that isn’t true.

Example: I’ll never be good enough to be published; I can’t write this genre or this story or this character; etc.

Tips for writers who are struggling with fear:

  1. Identify what it is you’re afraid of: this scene; writing this book; putting your name on a book cover; that you’re not a good enough writer, etc.
  2. Replace the lie with what is true. Maybe you’re writing skills aren’t where you want them to be yet, but you can write. You just need to keep practicing and learning, etc.
  3. Then put a plan in place. A goal without a plan is just a dream. If you’re afraid of writing in a certain genre – but would really like to – put a plan in place to read in that genre – 1 book a week; analyze that book – looking for tropes and break down story structure; Decide on a goal of writing a certain number of words everyday until you have a book finished in that genre.

Many fears come from lack of information or lack of experience. Begin by educating yourself. Becca says she was a little nervous as this was her first Podcast Interview, but she went through the questions ahead of time, and then she felt up to the task(and did a great job too:).

If you want, you can connect with Becca or Angela on their website, www.writershelpingwriters.net or their membership site, onestopforwriters.com. You can also connect with Becca on Facebook or Twitter.

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