Fun With Graphics

A  picture is worth a thousand words. How many times have you heard that old adage? But it seems to hold especially true when talking about book promotion.

Words are good -- but images! colors! impressions!-- that can add so much to the message and may help convince readers to try a particular book. Images and backgrounds combined with just the right text can speak to the emotions, and in this sea of millions of books, it's important to have a very special way of "talking" to your readers.

I was never much good with graphics. I'm still not much good with them, but fortunately for me, there are other people who are...and even some who can help me be better at designing graphics by providing the proper tools.

I thought it might be fun to do a little diary blog of my history with graphics.

This was one of my very first graphics which was done by my cover artist, Danielle Fine, while my first books were still in the works. It did a wonderful job of capturing the genre and atmosphere of my books--and maybe help create some anticipation, as well as utilizing certain elements from the covers. (Those familiar with my books might recognize Sair and Drea.)

Danielle did most of my early graphics, but later I was provided with images designed for a SFR Brigade project called Portals -- seven volumes of first chapters/beginnings of science fiction romance stories so readers could sample over 70 stories by multiple authors to see which stories and writing styles appealed to them--saving them loads of time to find SFR books they wanted to read!

Pauline Baird Jones did the wonderful graphics for the volumes, which began as only four volumes but due to popular demand, later expanded to seven! They are still Amazon freebie favorites! The Portals Volumes.

Later, I got involved with the last two Pets in Space collections which were created around a fun very idea--Pets. In Space. It was also the (genius!) idea of Pauline Baird Jones and came to fruition with the joint collaboration between Pauline, Veronica Scott, the amazing promotional talents of Narelle Todd of GetMyBookOutThere.com, and with very effective collaboration from the authors themselves.

This New Release graphic was one of many and made for a fun spin on the Pets in Space theme:

Please note that the first two Pets in Space collections were limited runs and are no longer available...but Pets in Space 3: Embrace the Passion is coming in October and preorders are available now! Click the link above to follow the news on their website!

Author and peer Carol Van Natta created this super special graphic to not only promote Pets in Space 2: Embrace the Romance, but to also use in conjunction with a fun post here on Spacefreighters Lounge -- The Music Behind the Words: Nine Authors Talk Inspiration

Carol Van Natta also helped me with this pull quote design for Courting Disaster, my story in the Pets in Space 2: Embrace the Romance collection that I will re-release as an expanded stand-alone book in the near future.

And a series of very special graphics were created to allow authors to celebrate and share a very special milestone for Pets in Space 2: USA TODAY Bestseller! This is just one...

This was about the same time I discovered PhotoFunia--a site to create graphics using your book covers or other images. I had a riot creating some really fun graphics and promos, though some of the designs were easier to work with than others when it came to book covers. Here are a few...

For a Valentine's Day suggestion for a romantic book 

in the "love conquers all" vein: Farewell Andromeda!

This image above was created using PhotoFunia 

for use on my Facebook Author Page

and in a video to show that Inherit the Stars 

is available in print, too.

I had a lot of fun creating these Inherit the Stars posters!

Another site offered limited free use to highlight my book covers

in various ways, such as showing Courting Disaster on an e-reader.

But now I've discovered -- and bought an upgrade for -- the Covers Sell Books site, which offers all variety of graphic design tools including Twitter and Facebook ads and cover images. You can sign up for a free version to try it out. You can use their images, backgrounds and overlays or upload your own and choose from a wide variety of ways to showcase your books--as print, on e-readers, on smart phones, etc.--and create your own colored fonts and stamps to include in your design. 

Here are a couple of my first two attempts. It took me less than two hours to put together my designs and that was as a complete newbie. As I get more skilled with the tools and options, I'm sure I'll be able to create them much faster.

A spotlight graphic for Inherit the Stars:

And finally, I designed a Facebook cover photo for my Laurie A. Green Author Page using four of my covers, a stock background, and incorporating special fonts and colors.

(It's much larger on the page. You can click the link above for a larger view.)

And even my signature below was designed on a special site to create signatures or phrases.

I enjoy working with graphics, but I still have a lot to learn. I'd love to hear what you think of my attempts to date.

Have a great week!