Make marketing graphics on a shoestring

I was fortunate to land a job early in my career that required me to learn graphic design. Between the professional seminars, how-to books, a very kind colleague who taught me all his best tricks, and a grad school class, I got to a level of basic competence. The more newsletters and magazine spreads and brochures I designed, the more my skills improved.

All that to say, even words people can learn some of the basics of design. You don't need an art degree to attempt to create marketing graphics (though seminars and how-to books are a good idea, so you understand composition, balance and the like).

These days, you don't even need the pricey software I learned on (Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator). There are a number of freeware solutions that will enable you to create very attractive designs. They aren't as powerful as the pricey design products, but they also aren't nearly as complicated to learn (I'm looking at you, Photoshop).

Photo editing

GIMP is a great, basic photo editor, available free, that allows you to not only resize images, but also tweak the colors and use layer masks--one of Photoshop's most powerful tools. Check out GIMP's tutorials page for instructions on using some of these more advanced options. Because it is open-source software, there are lots of cool plug-ins you can get from third parties to make the software even more powerful. Check out the 20 best free GIMP plug ins to start.

Layout

Canva is my new favorite toy. This powerful web-based design platform has lots of free design elements, premade designs, and great, easy-to-use tools to make quick marketing graphics.

Once you login--you can do so easily by linking with a Facebook or Google account--pick the type of element you want--a blog graphic, social media post (Twitter-friendly designs are under this heading), card, poster, etc. This will create a live working area in the correct size for your needs.

From there, you can select one of their premade designs, or you can assemble something freestyle. The amazing thing is that EVERYTHING is editable. It's kind of crazy. You can upload your own photos, pull them into the live area and resize them, flip them, turn them on a jaunty angle. The backgrounds come with textures and colors, but these are editable too. You can change the colors, even the opacity.

You can layer in shapes and text. And wow do they offer a lot of very cool pre-make text elements that are, once again, editable (made larger and smaller, different color, different typeface). Pick the shape that will work well with your message, then simply change the pre-made text to your words, and edit any other attribute as needed. Let me give you a couple examples, from my fairly quick and easy noodling efforts:

This is a standard Twitter-post size. I used one of Canva's free photos, expanding it until it was the right width--the program automatically cropped it to fit in the live area. I dropped in "heading" text element on the left, then changed the typeface to "Emily's Candy" (is that not a great font name?) and played with the color mixer until I had a nice crimson that reflected the raspberries. The black text is the standard "subheading" type, 

This design uses an uploaded image I got from the free image site, morguefile.com. The text graphic is a pre-made that I edited by adding my own text and changing the color of the border to echo the apple. The #1linewed (one line Wednesday, a weekly Twitter party for writers) theme this week was "school," so I had fun doing themed thank you graphics.

This is perhaps the most complex design I've attempted so far. I got the 3D book covers using the free 3D cover designer available from Adazing (warning--you will get a lot of e-mail ads from them in exchange for the free design). Each of these I uploaded. Because they have some white around them to accommodate the drop shadow, I stuck with a white background. The text elements are, top to bottom, subheading, body text, and heading. Only the heading text did I significantly edit, changing to a brush-syle typeface and tweaking the color. I now know how to fine-tune my color choices more, so I will likely do some revisions to this ad for my book series.

It's easy to do permutations of a design by making a copy on an additional page, change an element or two and see which you like better. When you're ready to post the image elsewhere, use the share button, or download. If you have permutations and want to download only one, click "options" in the download menu, and pick just the page you want. 

Anyway, That's a little taste of some of the fun things you can do to jazz up your blog posts, Twitter posts, or Facebook posts. Follow me on Twitter @LaurelGarver to see what new experiments I dream up.

Have I convinced you to try out some of these tools? Do you enjoy design or find it intimidating?

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Quick note

If you take a look at my handy-dandy profile over on the right, you'll see that I've shifted my schedule to posting on Thursdays. I ended up needing to do so last week, and it fit into my week so much better. So check this space tomorrow!

And if you've never before joined the Twitter party that is One Line Wednesday (#1linewed), come on over to Twitter, search the hashtag and join in. This week's theme is "nod." Share a snippet (or two) from your work in progress on the theme, and cheer on others who have done so by liking and retweeting their snippets. The themes help us ferret out overuse of some words in part. And the party is a great way to meet new Twitter peeps.

Have a great day, all!

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Building a Twitter following as an author: lessons from the trenches

I was a somewhat late adopter of Twitter, in part because the fast and short nature of posting intimidated me. I'm more of a slow and deep thinker, and at first I thought adding a Twitter feed to my life would make my head explode.

But as I shifted gears to indie publishing, I realized I needed this site to reach a wider audience. Blog reading was on the wane, and I'd heard so many positive things about Twitter, I knew I had to get a grip on my fear and jump in.

My early attempts were half-hearted I admit, but in the past year I've gradually experimented and reached out and basically doubled my follower base. If you are still trying to get your footing on Twitter, this post is for you. If you're feeling meh about using Twitter, this post is for you. If you're a mega guru, maybe you have some wisdom to share in the comments, so please stick around!

Develop a vision 

What do you want your Twitter presence to be? This precedes all other considerations. How vulnerable will you be about your personal life in this forum? Will your persona be mostly serious, mostly silly, mostly enthusiastic, mostly wise, mostly curious, mostly pious, mostly arty, mostly visual? Which parts of yourself will help you reach and connect with your "tribe"? Your tribe is the group where your passions and enthusiasms are shared and supported and cheered on.

Consider the kinds of projects have you written and ones you plan to write. Now imagine your ideal reader. What are his or her interests? Which parts of  yourself do you think this reader will most want to know?

Communicate your vision

Choose your photo, banner image and color scheme to undergird the communication of vision. The visual look might mirror your blog or website, it might echo your book covers. But you don't want a lot of dark and heavy if you write romantic comedy, any more than you want light and fluffy images if you write thrillers. Look at Twitter profiles of others in your genre and emulate those who communicate well a message you also want to communicate.

Side note: If you're especially stumped about picking a color scheme, you might find it helpful to read up a bit on the psychology of color. It's how I landed on plum and tan as part of my branding; the first related to wisdom, creativity and spirituality, the other with warmth and being down-to-earth. Here are a couple of useful articles on the topic:
The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding
Color Psychology

Build your description from your vision: that sense of yourself and your work. Think keywords and allusions. Here's my description: "Urban Christ follower, incurable Anglophile, Ravenclaw. Pro grammar wrangler for hire. My writing explores how faith grows in dark places #CR4U"  Describing your thematic approach is more inviting than listing book titles, I've found--readers and writers are more drawn to a vision than a product name.

As you might guess, I am frequently found and followed by others in my faith tradition, by Harry Potter fans, by other writers, by other editors, by other city dwellers, by other lovers of British culture, and by members of Clean Indie Reads, a Facebook indie author collective, which uses the hashtag CR4U (clean reads for you).

Who you follow, what you tweet, and what you retweet and like--all these things should be guided by your vision. These actions also communicate your vision.

My published work so far has been in diverse genres--Christian fiction, poetry, and nonfiction writing resources. I hope to continue producing work like this and building a following for it. My Christian fiction is quite niche, so that takes the most concerted effort to seek a tribe. The writing resources are more broad. But as you might guess, writing religious work means I'd be unwise to follow just anyone on Twitter. There are are few kinds of accounts I avoid following back if they approach me first--erotica and gore-horror writers, pottymouths, inappropriate photo-posters, political all the time, cranky/agenda-driven zealots, bot accounts, click-farm sales pitch accounts,

You need to know your no-go areas and be thoughtful about it, or you'll find your garbage following takes all the joy out of the platform. For the most part, not following back followers who don't interest you is enough. In the case of inappropriate photo-posters, I tend to block accounts. The pottymoths and erotica and gore folks I tend to simply mute. (Click the sunshine icon next to the follow button in your followers list, and these options will appear in a drop-down menu).

Find your tribe

This is honestly fairly easy to do on Twitter. It is its most powerful feature in my mind. Start by following any writer friends, beta readers, critique partners, and fellow bloggers. Follow your favorite authors and organizations, especially local ones.

Cannibalize their friend lists. Okay, let me put that in a more positive way--check out their follower lists, likely to be full of people who share interests and will be similarly awesome, and follow them. I also find it helpful to RT their pinned tweets or like something they posted recently. It's a way of saying "Hi, you look fantastic, Let's be friends" in a less sycophantic way.

Do keyword searches for things that are part of your vision. Maybe it's your genre. Maybe it's a particular fandom (Star Wars or Sherlock; things like that). Maybe it's a geographic region you live in or write about. Follow away. Retweet and like.

Remember on the keyword searches to look not only at "top" tweets, but also click the next category, "live" where fresh content will be popping up. Folks with tiny followings who may be wonderful friends are likely hiding in there. The top stories are the ones that have had a lot of RTs and likes. They might be worth following if only for a time to find more of your tribe.

Hunt for hashtags popular in your tribe. #YA or #teenreads, for example, will help you find those who love young adult books--reading and writing them.

Join one of the weekly work-in-progress sharing parties like #2bittues (two bit Tuesday) or #1linewed (one-line Wednesday). Look up the hashtag and you will find instructions to participate. This is a really fun way to share small snippets of your writing and find readers who like your style--and for you to find writers whose style you admire.

Post a variety of content

Getting followers and keeping them also requires you to keep putting out content yourself. If you have been blogging for any length of time, you likely have some ready-made content that is eminently tweet-able. For the most part, age doesn't matter either. Your good post about hiring a cover designer in 2013 is just as helpful today.

Pimp your books--but only occasionally. If possible, link not only to your sales page, but also to interviews you've given about it, old blog-tour posts, and really great reviews posted online. Your "buy my book" pleas are better received when they aren't pushy but rather inviting to target readers. Creating photo memes with quotes can be a nice change of pace for getting the word out. Have a variety. Pin a new one to your page (click the ellipsis icon at the bottom of a post and chose "pin to your profile page") every week or so. Keep it fresh!

Share parts of yourself that relate to your vision. Be sincere. I have posted about finishing drafts, about choir practices, about cool things going on in my city, about parenting. These posts might not get a lot of retweets, but they are an important part of building a genuine following.

Share inspiring quotes. You can find them on Goodreads, on BrainyQuote on Quote Garden. Be sure to properly attribute them!

Add useful hashtags in moderation. Some that will help your tweets be found by other writers include #writing #amwriting #writetip #writingtips #amediting #books #amreading. Limit yourself to one to three. More than that just looks spammy and desperate.

Engage with others

Aside from following and following back (with care--remember your vision!), it's essential that you interact with your followers. Twitter gives the impression that it is a 100% live stream, but that isn't the case. It is moderated like Facebook is. Those you don't interact with much stop showing up in your feed--and you in theirs! So make an effort to pop back through your followers list periodically and like or retweet content from folks you haven't seen in your feed recently.

If you love someone's blog post shared on Twitter, add a comment before retweeting, like "I so agree with this" or "fantastic!" or "wonderfully helpful!" Your follower will know you aren't simply automating your sharing, but that you actually engaged. Attention is the currency of Twitter, Share yours liberally.

Ask questions and follow up. This can be a powerful way to deepen the relationships you have, and for your followers' followers to discover you.

Express gratitude to those who share your content. I tend to take a batch approach so that my feed isn't too noisy. It also helps my followers find cool people to follow when I acknowledge them.

A note about automation

I have found it really useful to sit down weekly with Hootsuite and automate some of my Twitter activity. Hootsuite makes it really easy. And you may find it useful to experiment with which times of day your followers are most likely to engage with your content.

Variety is essential with automating. If you post only one kind of thing, it will seem spammy. Share your historic blog posts with news articles with inspiring quotes with memes for your books.

Don't go overboard, posting every five minutes, which you could feasibly do on Hootsuite. Use it to keep some fresh content appearing daily. Two to six automated posts, spread from your waking to sleeping hours, is plenty. Feel free to experiment with hours you aren't awake to engage with folks in other time zones.

Importantly, don't let automation be the only Twitter presence you have. Live retweet others. Live share items. Thank people. Ask questions.

Do you use Twitter much in your capacity as a writer or author? What tips would you add?

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Roundup of best links for the year

Photo credit: DanielaTurcanu from morguefile.com

Another year is ending, which naturally tends to make us stop and take stock of where we've been and where we are hoping to go next. I've done well with some goals, less well with others.

Reflecting on what worked, I realized there were some influential articles and blog posts that were especially helpful to me. As my year-end gift to you, here they are:

Most helpful posts of the year

The procrastination doom loop, and how to break it via @TheAtlantic
It's very easy to become slave to your moods when you're doing creative work. This is one of the best explanations about how to overcome this. Truly a game-changer for me.

The Redemptive Arc via @DavidCorbett_CA
Really helpful discussion on how guilt and shame operate in a person's life, and how to harness these powerful emotional forces to build stories that resonate.

Five tips for making writing a daily habit via @premieressay
Some of the advice here will seem like old hat--goal setting, accountability. Other tips are unique to creative writing, like being always prepared to capture ideas when they come. Not putting parameters on what "counts" as output for the day is great too. Check it out.

Discovering our writing process via @JamiGold
Whatever gets you to "the end" is worth trying. Don't let the plethora of advice online paralyze you, or worse, make you waste your creative life chasing the Holy Grail of  "a perfect writing process." If the thought "I must be doing this writing thing wrong" ever crossed your mind, check out this post.

More than one adjective--Comma or no comma? via @CathleenTowns
This is my favorite editorial discovery of the year. I've never before heard the rules of how to order adjectives, even in graduate-level editing courses. If commas drive you batty, go check this out!

How POV can solve your writing troubles via @Janice_Hardy
This one crossed my Twitter feed when I was struggling to ensure my denouement would remain dynamic and dramatic, not devolve into a dull info-dump. It helped me with with more than this--I was able to revise several other scenes I knew weren't quite working yet.

"Can you make this worse?" Thoughts on rituals of self-care when the writing is hard via @gingermoran
Are you genuinely taking risks in your writing, daring to go deep when it would be easier not to? This post discusses teasing out the deep emotions that are difficult to access, and also how to not lose your mind while doing so.

The unfair truth about how creative people really succeed via @JeffGoins
A look at why networking is important, and helpfully gives tips on how to do it better. For the reticent and shy, this is good stuff. It's all about being supportive and trustworthy, not flashy.

My favorite writing books from 2015 

Story Trumps Structure: How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules by Steven James
At last! A writing craft book for pantsers that doesn't try to force you to become a plotter. James's approach is to help you develop more deeply what you do well--follow your instinct toward the most compelling direction a story can go. His chapter on "status" in character interactions is worth the purchase price. Pure gold.

Around the Writer's Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer's Resistance by Roseanne Bane
A great all-around resource for building better work habits while gaining a deep sense of satisfaction and creative joy. This book isn't just about routine and schedule, but caring for and feeding your muse. Her most powerful concept is the importance to entering a relaxed state in order to create. If you struggle a lot with writer's resistance (fear-based procrastination), you MUST read this book. It is hugely helpful. A great follow up to Pressfield's The War of Art.


Any powerful lessons you learned this year? Favorite links you'd like to share?

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Beware of committing these Twitter turnoffs

In the past, I was pretty reticent to join Twitter. The stream design felt overwhelming, and the brevity of what could be posted seemed to favor witty one-liners over genuine engagement. But since 2012, I've learned the ropes a bit and see the benefits of the medium.

image: www.goingmobo.com

I also see a lot of habits among some tweeps that aren't compatible with my goal of making genuine connections with readers and a supportive author community.

Maybe that isn't why you're on Twitter. Fine, but don't take it personally if I choose to unfollow or even block you for some of the following behaviors.

Numbers hounds

There are a cluster of habits that point to a tweep's primary desire to have a high follower count. Unless someone is a genuine celebrity, having a followers count that is disproportionately higher than follows tells me this person cares only about appearing popular or famous.

Here are some typical numbers hound behaviors:

Random follows
This type follows every last person their followers follow, even if there is not one single point of intersection of interests. Doing this makes you look like a bot account. I will assume you hired a click farm if you have no apparent interest in the things listed in my profile.

Repeated follow, unfollow, refollow
If I choose not to follow you, it's usually because your content doesn't interest me, not because I didn't notice you. Dropping and adding over and over just so you show up in my feed merely makes you annoying. Do it enough and I'll block you.

Favorite-never-follow
Folks who repeatedly favorite my content, but when I follow them abruptly stop doing so and ignore me are clearly only motivated in building their follower counts. If you like my content, connect, but don't play stupid games like this. I'll thank you for your favorites, but I won't follow.

Pushy types

These folks want to connect, which is great, but they overstep the boundaries without taking the time to adequately build a relationship first.

Here are some behaviors I deem pushy:

Aggressive mentions
These folks drop my Twitter name into tweets with their random musings, or with information about their book for sale. Folks, this is what your own Twitter stream is for. If I'm interested, I'll favorite or retweet. But using the mention function in this way is like being a door-to-door salesman. It's invasive.

Reserve mentions for interacting with something I said, to thank me, to let me know you're giving a shout out about something I did that you liked (shared useful info., wrote a book you loved, gave helpful advice, that sort of thing).

Nonstop sales stream
If your tweets are constant "buy my book" or constant sales pitches of others, it's going to feel like nothing but noise rather than connection.

If you've been guilty of this, make sure you add value-added tweets to your stream. Use the #Discover and search for helpful #writingtips or #inspiration to retweet. If nothing else, go hit up a quotes website, gather some inspirational messages and schedule regular doses of nice and "you can do it" among the sales. I'm willing to bet those tweets will garner you the most followers. Everyone needs more positivity.

Tit-for-tat offers
If you choose to like my FB author page, great, but don't tell me you liked it and I ought to like yours back. You know why? Facebook algorithms will screw us both over if our author pages are full of fake fans. The REAL fans are exponentially less likely to see new content.

If you like my books and my page, and are genuinely seeking to be my champion. God bless you. But for Pete's sake, don't do it to oblige me to owe you favors. That's really just a form of extortion.

Offensive content
If your stream is filled with hate speech, foul language, constant put downs, whining and complaints, or p0rnographic material, I'm going to unfollow. I'm clearly not your target audience.

Note that I said "filled"--occasional grousing is normal, as is occasional salty language. But venomous verbal attacks of things I care about are not great connection-makers or conversation starters.

And erotica writers, please don't read it as "judging you" when writers of other genres like me don't follow back. Maybe we're judging ourselves, as in, I know what things would tempt me to be unfaithful to my marriage, at least in my imagination, which Jesus taught is bad for me and which St. Paul taught me to flee from. Also, I write Christian YA and I carefully curate my follows so that my part of the Twittersphere is a safe place for teens who want to live a life of faith.

Direct messages: the gray area

I have really mixed feelings about DMs. Here are the kinds of DMs I see regularly, and how I feel about them:

TrueTwit notifications
If I get a TrueTwit notification, I'll know you are carefully curating your feed, which is totally legitimate, if a bit of a hassle for me. I get not wanting bot accounts bothering you.

However, bot accounts tend to unfollow pretty quickly if you ignore them. So do other annoying types mentioned above (except the follow/unfollow/refollow--those you have to block). In the meantime, this hoop you require new followers to jump though is likely to turn away good, genuine connections who don't have time for your hoop routine. Consider ditching TrueTwit, and simply follow back only those accounts with interesting content.

Buy links
This is just a private version of aggressive mentions. I ignore these.

I'd prefer you showed me in your feed that your book is one I want to read. Show me cover art, share interesting interviews you gave to bloggers, share snippets, that sort of thing--in your own feed.

Other site links
Mostly these are tit-for-tat Facebook like "suggestions"--like my page, I'll like yours. I highly doubt the like I give will be returned. And I don't really want fake fans anyway. I ignore these requests also.

Better that you periodically tweet your FB page link (a few times of week max), so that your real fans can find it.

Bizarre comments or threats or links
I assume your account has been hacked if you tell me someone is spreading rumors, or you ask for financial help, or you send a condensed link with a vague teaser like "you won't believe this!" I might do a mention ("@joeschmoe bogus DMs are being sent from your account") in hopes you will see it, and then unfollow you just to distance myself from your hacker.

Get-to-know-you questions
These can be wonderful or just weird.

A good one might be, "I liked the blog post you shared about dialect.  What book or author do you think does that well?" or "I loved the Harry Potter books, too. Which is your favorite?" or something along those lines. It shows that you engage with my content and want connection. As long as you don't require great effort for me to answer ("how can I get published?") or get too personal ("are you married?"), I will likely interact.

If it's clear you have a stock question that's auto-sent to every follower, ones that tie to your content but show no knowledge of mine, I'm apt to ignore. "Who are your favorite cowboy hero's?" was one such question posed to me. That assumes I like cowboy romances--I don't--and that I don't mind grammatical errors like your inability to make the word hero plural (it's heroes, silly). I promptly unfollowed this writer, despite the good writing tips she shared in her feed. The DM made it clear she's far more interested in selling and engaging with readers than being part of a writing community.

Free content
This is actually a decent tactic, giving a Twitter follower access to free content like a short story, if they'd like to know more about you and your writing style/genre/themes. It is a gift that invites deeper connection, a generous gesture.

I'd caution to not do this with brand-new followers. Interact for a while first. Otherwise, it will seem pushy.

Requests to connect elsewhere or promo opportunities
Sometimes folks use DMs to ask how to connect on sites like Goodreads or Pinterest, because they'd like to connect there too. That's perfectly fine. I'll answer when I have time to respond.

I've been offered guest posts through DM also. The most effective ones say something complimentary about my content and give a link, so I can see what their site is like. Because I write religious fiction, I have to take care to stick with sites that aren't promoting erotica or occult material. That's just basic branding.

So if you want to reach out to followers this way, think value-added and friendly, helping connection.

What Twitter behaviors do you consider turnoffs? What alternate suggestions do you have for folks who've made these mistakes?

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