When promoting a new release, your graphics should create excitement and provide key information to your target readers. Effective, high-quality “shareable” graphics will boost an author’s online presence and engage potential readers. This guide will help you create eye-catching graphics that align with your author brand and book marketing strategy.
Branding and Marketing Strategy
When creating graphics for your author brand and book promotions, we highly recommend creating a brand board or style guide for your designs. This will help ensure that the promotional graphics complement your existing platform and social media posts, while also standing out (in a good way) from other content.
As you plan, start with these simple steps:
- Develop a consistent visual identity: Use the same color palette, fonts, and style across all graphics to reinforce your brand.
- Create evergreen content: Design graphics that remain relevant over time, such as quote images from your books and reviews from readers.
- Resize graphics for different platforms: Adjust sizes and content for various social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, Twitter).
- Incorporate book cover elements: Use elements from your book cover in promotional graphics to create a cohesive and custom look.
- Design series-specific graphics: For authors with multiple books, creating templates that can be easily adapted for each new release while maintaining brand consistency will save you time and hassle!
- Engage with readers: Design shareable graphics that encourage reader interaction and social media shares!
Choosing the Right Stock Images
Once your brand board or style guide is in place, the next step is to choose appropriate stock images or design elements (like backgrounds or textures) to use. It’s important to carefully choose stock images that coordinate with the book design and the author’s brand. This helps audiences recognize and connect the promotional graphics with your business or platform as well as your book!
Here are some key considerations:
- Choose images that reflect your book’s genre, themes, and mood, but also align with you as an author or expert.
- Maintain a consistent style across all of the photos or elements used. Consistency increases recognition!
- Avoid overused images to stand out from other authors. Spend a little more time searching for unique stock images that you won’t see everywhere else.
- Select high-resolution images for professional-looking graphics. Be sure to download the highest resolution option available so you can crop or resize as needed and maintain the image quality.
Some recommended stock image websites include:
Graphic Design Tools
To create shareable, market-worthy graphics, you’ll need user-friendly design tools. While we always recommend hiring a marketing expert and graphic designer to walk you through your book launch, here are two popular options for creating graphics on your own:
Canva
- Pros: User-friendly interface, several available templates, free plan option available
- Cons: Limited advanced features, some high-quality elements require a paid subscription
Adobe Photoshop
- Pros: Professional-grade software, extensive editing capabilities
- Cons: Steeper learning curve, subscription-based pricing
Your shareable graphics should resonate with your audience and foster an engaged community of readers. Using professional on-brand marketing graphics for your new book release ensures brand consistency and marketing cohesion, helps your book stand out, fosters emotional connections, and reinforces your brand identity. This allows you to boost recognition, build trust, and communicate your book’s message to a broader audience of potential readers, which will maximize the impact of your promotional efforts.
Interested in one of our digital assets packages to get started? Let us know!
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our full affiliate disclosure here.
