book publishing - Ally Aldridge

March 11, 2021 Ally Aldridge My Books, Ocean Heart, Publishing, The Soul Heart Series, Tips, Writing

How I did my cover reveal

I couldn’t wait to show off my cover, and it was the first real piece of marketing I paid for. That’s right, your cover is an important part of selling your book.

Don’t judge a book by it’s cover…

A book with an eye catching cover will naturally attract more attention. It also should communicate what the book is about, so your ideal reader picks it up.

DIY Cover

It’s fine to make your cover yourself. But, if you do make sure you have permission to use any images, fonts, or any other element in your design. You may need to buy certain licences from the creator to use them.

If you want to design your own cover, check out author Elexis Bell’s blog post series on the topic:

Step 1: Creating a cover

Step 2: Creating a cover

Step 3: Creating a cover

Professional Cover

Commissioning a professional can ensure you make the right impact. Check their portfolio and testimonies to see if they are right for your book. You may find it useful to check out my post on how I found my cover designer.

Cover Reveal Images

You will need to prepare the images for the cover reveal. My Cover Designer included a social media package which included social media banners, 3D Renders and an IG version.

The 3D Renders have been so useful. I often add them to various social media posts I’ve made. I’d highly recommend them.

3D Render

I am fortunate that my cover designer created me 3D renders of my paperback and my eBook. However, if you don’t have that privilege, here are some ways you can obtain one.

BookBrush helps authors to create images to market their books, including 3D renders. You can try it for free or pay for more options.
DIY Book helps indie authors create covers and has a tool to easily create 3D Renders.

Stock image

You may want to utilise a stock image within your social media post. Make sure you have permission to use it. Here are my favourite sites:

Unsplash is a resource of images by photographers made available for free.
Pixabay is another great resource for free images.

I like searching for flat-lays I can add my book and text to.

Decide on a date

There is a lot of division on when to do your cover reveal. What it boils down to is personal preference.

One successful author recommend 6 months, or as soon as possible. Another, suggested 3 months at most, as they struggled to keep the momentum going. A lot of authors said only a month.

I started mine during the 1st week of September, with the full reveal on 7th September. My book was on preorder on 1st October, and released on 1st December. This worked well from me.

Cover Reveal Teaser

You should have already been talking about your book and generating interest. As your cover reveal approaches you want to incite interest. You can capture peoples curiosity with a partial reveal, announcing the date you will reveal all…

How I created my partial reveal pics…

I created mine by using a torn paper image from Unsplash.

I edited the image in a free app called Adobe Photoshop Mix . I cut out the part of the image where I wanted my book to show through.

I uploaded the cut out image and my cover to Canva. Canva is my favourite app for creating Social Media posts. It was here that I added the text.

If you have Book Brush, you can use their templates to achieve something similar. Personally, I prefer Canva as I have more freedom to do what I want. However, if you are stuck how to start, you might find Book Brush easier as the templates are specifically for authors.

Of course, you could achieve a similar affect by wrapping your book in paper and tearing a teaser rip in the paper. Then take a nice photo. You may still wish to use an app like Canva to add text.

Cover Reveal Team

You can ask friends, family, and/or fans to support you by sharing, liking, and/or commenting on your reveal pic. The more engagement the pic gets, the better it will perform in the algorithm.

Make sure the post is public and that you use hashtags your ideal reader follows. It’s okay to tag the book title but it’s unlikely anyone will be following that hashtag yet, so choose ones that describe the themes and genre of the book.

I was really fortunate that a number of my IG followers were willing to share my cover to their IG stories and I had loads of lovely comments on my post.

If you don’t have anyone to help, you can pay for a cover reveal service. On 1st Nov, I used Xpresso Book Tours for a Book Blitz and was really impressed by how many signed up. They also provide a cover reveal service which I’m sure would be just as good.

Cover Reveal Image

You need a nice picture of your book for social media.

Manually: Again, you can do this manually by taking a nice picture of the physical book.
Digitally: I didn’t have a physical copy so I created my image digitally.

I mainly searched Unsplash for flat lays, books, beach, ocean, mermaid, and any other theme relating to my book. I then edited it in Canva.

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A post shared by Author Ally Aldridge (@redfae)

Keep up the momentum…

Once you have done the cover reveal, you must keep up the momentum until release (and beyond).

It’s a waste of your time to get everyone excited about your book and then let them forget. Once you’ve shown off your gorgeous book, got them excited, you need to keep reminding them it’s coming. Get then to sign up to your news letter, and you may want to have a preorder option.

It can help to set aside a day to come up with content ideas. Then, schedule the content ahead of time so you can space it out and consistently post. Here are some good apps for this:

Preview: This app is free and enables you to see how your IG content will look on your feed. You can schedule post reminders or to post automatically.
Facebook Business Suite: It’s free to use and enables you to schedule posts to FB, IG and Twitter.
Planoly: The free plan enables you to schedule to two platforms for free. I paid for extra features during my launch month in Nov, so I could schedule videos.
Hootsuite: The free plan enables you to schedule posts to FB, IG and Twitter. You can pay for more features.
Later: Allows you to schedule posts to Instagram.
IFTTT: A useful app for sharing posts you posted on one platform, to another.

I also regularly schedule my blog posts. There’s no reason you can’t do your cover reveal on your blog. You want to spread the word so why not on all your social media platforms.

Ocean Heart Gallery

The first image, with the shells, candle and yellow blanket is one I took of my physical book on my bathroom floor. The others, I created in Canva using images from Unsplash.

I added some of these to my Facebook group album and told my street team and blog tour team, they were welcome to use them. Having a bank of images of my book enabled me to keep posting fresh content to IG, in the lead up to my book launch.

I hope you found my cover reveal experience useful. I’d love to hear your thoughts and what worked for you.

[kofi]

Redfae Bookshop is my Affiliate Bookshop.org Shop Link.

You may also enjoy:

The Making of The Blurb

How I chose my cover designer

The Benefits of Having a Formatter

The Process of Publishing a Novel (Step 1)

May 21, 2020 Ally Aldridge Behind The Book

Behind the Book: Lanterns in the Sky by Pagan Malcolm

This book by Pagan has been on my To Buy list for way too long. Here’s the Trailer so you can add it to your list (or basket) too:

You launched your book and it became a best seller. When did you start marketing it?

Before it was even signed with the publisher, if I’m being honest. I was already sharing teasers and talking about it because I knew people had to be excited by the get-go. I haven’t really stopped marketing since and I probably never will—though now, I tend to market the series as a whole because I have more books out to catch reader interest.

This book is traditionally published. How did you get signed – can you share your pitch?

I got signed with The Parliament House from Twitter’s #PitMad event in December 2017. This was the Tweet I pitched that got their attention:

You share what you have learned to support fellow authors. Can you tell us about some of your courses and coaching?

I sure can.

A great starting point for new authors is my membership community, The Authorpreneur Kingdom, which is where I do quarterly trainings (and you get access to a vault of past masterclasses on topics ranging from book marketing to publishing to mindset work). We also do weekly coaching calls in there and the authors find it very helpful to stay accountable each month.

I also have two courses that I launch twice a year.

Storyteller Academy is my course helping authors to write their novel and build success habits for full-time authorship, and Storyseller Academy helps authors with book launching, marketing and brand building. Both are self-paced, come with a range of bonus resources, and have direct access to me via a group community.

Please share a snippet or teaser from Lanterns in the Sky?

“Hey! Hey, wake up!”

Someone was shaking me. When I first opened my eyes, everything blurred together. I blinked to adjust them to the night sky. I could hear crickets chirping somewhere. Hovering over me was the face of a boy with emerald eyes and brown hair. I stared at him — my mind was scrambled, and pain throbbed in my temple. Between that and my momentary amnesia, I couldn’t really concentrate on much else.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a smooth voice, his brow furrowed in concern. “Do you need me to call someone?”

I slowly sat up, which prompted the pounding in my head to intensify. I hissed and raised a hand to my forehead.

“What… happened?” I groaned, trying to recall the moments before I’d blacked out.

He rocked back on his feet to give me some space. Still crouching, he folded his arms as he said, “You tell me.”

I shook my head, thinking hard. It came back to me in pieces. I remembered the dread I had felt … the light…

“I was hit… I think,” I told him as my memories slowly came together, but I wasn’t sure. My head swam and the throbbing pain in my head was distracting me.

“By who?” he asked, furrowing his brow.
I shook my head again. It sounded stupid, but I was certain of what I saw.

“It wasn’t a who… it was a light.”

The boy frowned, his mouth twisting. “A light?”

What did you enjoy most about writing your fantasy novel?

Wrecking havoc in my characters lives! Mwahahaha!

But also, building the plot. That was a lot of fun too.

What was hardest about writing your fantasy novel?

Making sure the plot was consistent, fixing plot holes and reducing the amount of side plots from my first draft back in 2011. It took me 18 drafts to get this story right.

What inspired you to write Lanterns in the Sky?

Well, it actually started as a psychological horror novel—but then I realised that was not for me. It was only when a friend convinced me to keep writing because she liked the concept of the stars being lanterns in the sky that I was able to adapt some of my newer, fantasy ideas into the story (e.g. the princesses, the magic, etc.) and kind of did a 180 with the story to bring it to life.

Which novel do you love and wish you wrote?

Honestly, none of them. I love so many books and there are definitely writers I wish I could write as well as, but I also love my own writing style and my own stories. Their stories are theirs and that’s why I could never come up with their ideas.

Tell me about a typical day in the life of author Pagan Malcom?

On most days, I’m actually working on my business, Paperback Kingdom—but I sprinkle in time to market my book, send out a few emails, and do the authorly stuff that needs doing. On a true writing day though, I can be at the kitchen table (which is where I enjoy writing most lately) for hours on end. I spend a lot of weekends like this with cups of tea and some kind of snack.

Where can we find out more about your coaching, courses and buy your books

For my books, check out psmalcolm.com (you can also find the membership site there—but you have to be a Patreon supporter of mine for access).

For my coaching and courses, check out paperbackkingdom.com.

[kofi]

If you enjoyed this, you will like:

Behind the Book: Stuck on Vacation with Ryan Rupert by Pagan Malcolm

Behind the Book: Soul Bearer by Elexis Bell

Behind the Book: Sorceress of Truth by J D Groom

Book Review: The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa

August 16, 2019 Ally Aldridge Books, Goals, Tips, Writing

Why I Love World Indie Warriors

First you need to know who World Indie Warriors is.

World Indie Warriors is a collaborative group of indie creatives.

Indie creatives are people who created something and decided to put their product out into the world themselves. Creatives can be writers, artists, musicians, singers, actors, designers, etc. The list is endless.

For these creatives to make their product they need resources, knowledge, experience. The vision of WIW is that together we can help each other grow.

Why am I part of this?

It’s true, for years I’ve dreamt of being traditionally published but as I’ve met more brilliant talented authors that are self published, I’ve started to ask ”Why wait for someone else to say yes, when I can say yes right now.”

Being part of WIW has enabled me to see how self publishing could be a reality. One of my fears was that I had no idea where to start. The answer is WIW.

The group shares what works, what doesn’t work and offers guidance and encouragement.

At first I wondered what I could bring to the group. All the other members are more experienced and I felt inferior in comparison. But, those beliefs were my own. The members never treated me as less important and always value everyones contribution. It is a truly inclusive and diverse group.

What do I get out of it?

Initially I joined for the wealth of information. Whenever someone is willing to help me, I’m always very grateful. However, I quickly found myself part of something much bigger.

Being part of WIW is much more than just a knowledge source. They have become my author friends and together we empower each others creativity to become more than we could alone.

We support each other with marketing so we don’t get lost in the noise of social media. We collaborated to create a giveaway with an incredible prize of signed books and merchandise for our first winner. I got to be part of the Claerie Kavana’s Duet Rubato ARC (review coming soon).

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Thank you to everyone who took part in our #wiwjulychallenge , we had so much fun getting to know you. . So without further ado, the gold star contributor and winner of our super duper giveaway is @sarahneofield !! ? . Sarah walks away with a large collection of prizes from indie authors, including signed books, so please contact us with your mailing details! . For your chance to be a winner, follow us and #worldindiewarriors ,and keep your eyes peeled for future challenges. . . #worldindiewarriors #wiw #indiepoet #indieart #indiemusic #writer #indieauthor #authorsofinstagram #author #iwrite #indiewriter #selfpublishing #indiewritersofinstagram #fellowcreativeminds #indiecreative #writingcommunity #amwriting #readersheart #everyonehasastory #everystoryhasahome
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