Just taking a break from hot, sweaty yard work this morning. Thought it was time to try my hand at a few more graphics, and decided to share a few of them with you. If you haven’t tried BookBrush to create some images of your own, I highly recommend it. There’s a free version, which is what I’m using right now, but at some point, I might give the paid one a try. Especially if I work up the nerve to shoot for ads with some of the Big Guys (like BookBub). They offer a template sized just right for BookBub ads, too, which makes it easier.
This is what I came up with today. I’ve already thought of one or two ways to improve them, but they’ll do for right now.
The Write Stuff 
Nice graphics, Marcia. I’m finally taking advantage of my paid Book Brush subscription. It’s fun and super easy to use.
BTW, this has nothing to do with today’s post, but I couldn’t help but notice the owl on your header. One flew in front of me the other evening as I was driving to a meeting. I hear them frequently, but don’t often see them. It was nice.
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HI, Joan! BookBrush is really fun, isn’t it? My graphics so far are pretty basic, sometimes using their templates & my images, sometimes starting from scratch. But it’s amazing how quickly you can make something presentable, if not totally brilliant, that will work for many uses. I love it. And I’ll probably go to the paid version, once I’ve covered all the tricks in the free one.
I change my headers pretty often, because I love seeing something fresh and because this blog isn’t always about me. I figure, why not? A chance to give folks something pretty and new to look at. This is a barred owl, one of the three larger owls that live in central Florida. (And lots of other places.) It’s an owl that is often spotted in the daytime, has dark eyes instead of yellow, and no ear tufts, like the great horned owl and others do. When we first moved into this house, way back before storms and age removed so many trees for us, we had barred owls here often. They nested across the street, and nights were full of their really cool calls and other sounds. Glad you enjoyed seeing the picture and that it reminded you of your recent sighting. Owls rule! 😀 ❤
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I’ve always loved owls. Used to have a collection of them. It was nice to see one in the wild. What I saw was a barred owl, but we also have great horned owls as well as screech owls.
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Can’t remember where you live (sorry!!) but but you might have barn owls, too. They are wide-spread across most of the country, except for the very northernmost states. I really do enjoy owls. Beautiful and interesting birds. I saw one of our barred owls catch a goldfish from our pond one night! Never knew they’d do that, but I guess the fish was right at the surface and just too tempting to resist. 🙂 I miss those big guys! 😥
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I live in Texas, so yes we also have barn owls. Can’t recall seeing one in the wild, however.
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Me, either, and I’ve been birding for over 50 years! You’d probably have to know where one had been spotted, then make special plans to watch for it. Unless you are lucky enough to have one on your property (maybe even in a BARN 😀 ) and then you’d likely see and hear it often.
You do have quite a few of the other birds we enjoy in central Florida, though. And guess what? I just checked, and Texas definitely has burrowing owls, too, over most of the state. The population of them in Florida is limited to the south, and we are the only eastern state that has them. PLUS Texas has saw-whet owls and short-eared owls!! Now I’m jealous. We only have five and you have seven. 😦 *sigh* I guess this means a trip to Texas someday. 😀
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Lovely graphics, Marcia. I really must make the time to create more of these…
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Thanks, Jaye. It’s super easy to use the site, and I find an hour or so playing with images is very relaxing. Plus I have some useful graphics when I’m done. You really should give it a go. If you are hesitant as to what to do, scroll through some of their completed templates for something you like, and swap out the images for your own. You can merely change the book(s) to yours, or you can swap the background, etc, and just go with the layout they’ve provided. Some of them are quite good. The Emissary ad at the top of this post took about 5 minutes to make. All I did was change their book cover to mine, and change the background image. Voila. A cute little ad, ready to go.
I know you can do it, and will probably enjoy the process. Good luck! 🙂 ❤
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Do you have to pay to have a go?
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No. There is a free version (indefinitely so, as far as I can tell) and a paid version. I’m still using the free one, and I’ve made a couple dozen thingies. Have at it! 😀
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Definitely!
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That’s cool, Marcia. I’m bookmarking this for future reference. Thanks!
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Thanks, Diana! I found time to make some today, too, and I like them even better! And I used the same template for all six books, just changing the cover and the tagline. SO easy. Took about 10 minutes each. Yay. I love BookBrush and think I’ll likely subscribe to the full version. You can make up to 25 templates for free, but I believe it’s unlimited if you subscribe, along with a bunch of other features. Oh, and I fixed the Finding Hunter one above. The background needed to be lighter and I used a much shorter tagline. It looks a lot better. 😀
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Where are you using them? That’s sometimes what trips me up. They’re fun to make, creative and beautiful, but I then I don’t use them. 😀
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Well, my PLAN is to use them for ads in various things like BookBub and the less expensive ones of that nature. Plus, on Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere else I can find where a visual will help attract attention. I’ve been amassing all sorts of marketing materials and links. One of these days SOON, I’m going to choose a few and submit ads. In the meantime, I’m just sharing them on various social media sites. When I have a good, solid plan worked out, though, I’ll share it here, so you guys can see what I think is working and what’s not.
I’ve also saved blog posts from folks who have documented their experiences with this or that site or mail-out letter. Fussy Librarian is an inexpensive one that pops into my mind, but there are a lot of those to investigate. (Probably with varying degrees of effectiveness.) If I strike gold, count on reading about it here! 😀 (Wish me luck!)
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I’m looking forward to the post. 🙂
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That’s so cool Marsh. It took me forever to get used to Canva, lol. 🙂 x
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Thanks, Deb. I’ve used Canva before, but to me, this one is much, much easier and has more features. I have fun working with it, and there are just so many things you can do with it, and so fast. There’s a free version, which is all I’ve used so far, so you could give it a risk-free try and see what you think. I can do all of this in my PaintShop Pro program, but it’s MUCH slower and trickier. This is a snap. 🙂
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Thanks for those tips Marsh. Next meme I make I’m going to try it at BookBrush to see the difference. 🙂 x
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Nothing to lose by checking it out, I figure, and if you like it, then yay. If not, you just continue with Canva. There’s more than one way to skin a horse. (I made that up, you know. No, really. I did. HONEST. Okay, not so much. At all. 😀 )
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Lmao crazy woman! 🙂 xx
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😉 😀 ❤
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Great ads, Marcia! I’ve been using Canva, and haven’t taken time to try BookBrush much, but after seeing these, and Joan Hall I think posted about using BookBrush, I might have to set aside more time to play with it.
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Thanks, Julie! I’ve tweaked them a bit and done several more I like even better, but I’m not going to bore everyone by posting them any time soon. I’ll be back on this theme in the future, though, especially after testing some of these in some actual marketing usages, besides Twitter. 🙂 I’ve tried Canva, and I far prefer the options on BookBrush, but that’s a personal taste matter, of course. But since there’s a free version as well as a more extensive paid one, you can give it a whirl when you have time and decide for yourself. So far, I’m still using the free one, but may end up switching when I’m ready to use more features or access larger libraries, etc.
Let me know what you think if you do give it a try. 🙂 Good luck! ❤
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