Promo Art … aka Promotional Graphics
There are two kinds of people when promo art is brought up…
The ones that scream and kick and don’t want to do it…
… And the ones that smile with glee and spend hours making several of them.
Which camp do you fall into?
Me? I’m the one that LOVES making graphics but that’s only because I have templates and know what to do for promotional graphics.
Now perhaps you may not like creating your own graphic arts. Maybe it’s too hard or you think it’s a waste of time.
That’s okay.
But Do You Want To Be Seen?
Did you know that even a little bit of promo art can give your story a boost among the sea of stories out there?
With the two online tools that we talked about last week there’s no excuse, really, that would prevent you from creating at least one graphic for your story.
Colors attract the eyes. Bright ones or stuff with stuff going on will always attract the eyes. Give your audience something interesting to look at…
Then… hit ’em with your story.
Take the following for instance… which one catches your eye?
You’re probably looking at the one with the mermaid tail, aren’t you?
No, worries. But do you now see my point?
Reward your audience with something to look at and then they’ll pay attention to what you have written in the photo.
Remember to make your text easy to read.
Do a squint test.
Basically, if you can’t read it when you’re squinting then it’s too hard to read.
You need to simplify the text and colors.
Recognition for you
Authors that I have helped create graphics for in the past have reported that they’ve seen an uptick in recognition for their titles.
Go ahead and give it a shot. It’s super easy to create a graphic in Canva.
Take your new graphics out for a spin for at least a month then report back here.
Where to use promotional art?
Oops. Silly me. I forgot to tell you where you would use these… didn’t I?
Well, most of the time authors use these promotion graphics in author takeovers, digital book fairs, Instagram, Pinterest, twitter and their Facebook feed.
Try them and you’ll start to see an improvement. It might take a bit of time but you will see an improvement.
One more thing…
Don’t put Apple, Amazon or Kindle branding into the graphics. Apparently these corporations have been doing a smack down on authors who have been using Apple / Amazon branding without permission.
I’m talking about these images:
The images / logos that I have posted above are to keep you informed and are not to be used within any promotion graphic / art / ad.
If your book is available on Amazon then you can say in text available on Amazon.com (yes, you have to capitalize the ‘A’ in Amazon) but do not use their images / logo in your promo art without their permission.
Curious to find out more on branding guidelines for Amazon? Check them out at https://advertising.amazon.com/resources/ad-policy/brand-usage
Until Next Time…
Keep on rising above the ashes of obscurity!