WOW! Great way to make your own book extras!

Ally Shields will share with us today how to create eye-catching book extras! Ally, the stage is yours!

Thank you! Here’s my tip:

How to Make Your Own Book Extras

Simple story graphics can be made by using a free program, Picasa3. (You can download it several places including here: http://download.cnet.com/Picasa/3000-2193_4-10160334.html)

(1) select 2-4 small photos that tell your story;

(2) write a brief story summary or tagline – no more than 15 – 20 words;

(3) Open the program and click on Create, select Picture Collage.

(3) Add your photos. You may place them or let Picasa do it for you. You can set one of them as the background if you choose.

(4) Click on the tab that looks like a wrench, find “text,” click on it and add your chosen text. You have lots of options for size, color and type.

(5) When you’re finished, click on create.

That’s it, you’re done. Once you’ve done it a few times, it goes very quickly. I created this simple pre-release graphic for Eternal Fires in about five minutes.

3D book covers are even easier.

(1) obtain a 3D book template. There are free ones at several sites like the one here:

http://www.myebook.co.za/files/3D-Book-Template.jpg

(2) Choose a graphics program. I use this free one on line: http://apps.pixlr.com/editor/

(3) Click on Open Image From Computer and select your 3D book template and wait for it to load.

(4) Next go up to Layer and select Open Image As Layer. Select your book cover, a medium size works best. When it loads it should be a small image on top of your 3D template.

(5) Your need to make the cover so you can stretch it around. So go to Edit and select Free Distort. You can now move the corners of your cover to fix on the front of the template, leaving the “pages” showing slightly at the top and on the right.

(6) When it looks the way you want, click on the image to bring up a dialogue box asking if you want to apply changes. Click yes, then go up to File > Save > OK.

My first one took me an hour, my second was 2-3 minutes.

Here’s the one I made while writing these instructions.

You can also make your own book trailers. They won’t be movie quality and can’t compete with the professional trailers that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, but the only cost you’ll have invested (other than your time) is for photos and music. You can find many of them free or at low cost. If you’re interested in trying, I use Windows Movie Maker and get many of my photos from Depositphotos.com and 123rf.com. There are hundreds of music sites. Lately I’ve been using Kevin MacLeod (free) and 123rf.com (won’t break your bank). This is the simple video I created for Eternal Fires.

Eternal Fires book trailer: http://youtu.be/a43a-ZUBUpc

THANK YOU!!! The second I’m back from Italy I’ll be doing some 3D:s for sure!

Cheers,

Jen x

About jenniferloiske

Jennifer Loiske lives in Finland in Naantali, which is a small sunny town on the southwest coast. She is a pre-school teacher by profession but she stayed at home when her youngest daughter suffered brain fever, which developed severe epilepsy in 2004. She is a workaholic Teen/Young Adult author, who loves dark fantasy, teen movies, chips and candies and warm sunny days. She’s also very keen on charity work and a big part of her royalties goes to the charity; mainly to help families with epileptic children but also to the epilepsy units in the hospitals. As a huge fan of dark novels Jennifer's bookshelf is full of books from L.J. Smith, Alyson Noel, Stephanie Meyer, Chloe Neill, Michelle Rowen, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Amanda Hocking and Lauren Kate. She’s also a huge fan of music from Evanescence, Linkin Park, Within Temptation, OneRepublic and Disturbed. But her hunger for music is endless and depend on what mood she’s in or what kind of book she’s working on. She can be pretty much an omnivore when it comes to music.

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