Give your self-published books a professional look.
Text: Solveig Hansen, 2016
Websites:
The Book Designer
Self-publishing guides and advice from Joel Friedlander, a veteran in the publishing business.
9 indie author webinar replays from The Book Designer
Including upload to CreateSpace, creating a media kit, book launch, using social media, using an author blog, and book planning.
Creative Writing Now
Writing resources and tips, including courses, inspiration and guides.
The Creative Penn
Resources to help you write, publish and market your books. By Joanna Penn.
The Independent Publishing Magazine
The latest from the indie publishing world.
The Book Publicist
Book publicist Scott Lorenz offers authors book marketing tips and techniques.
Writing:
Scrivener
All in one place, both research and working documents. THE tool for structuring long texts.
See also: How to use Scrivener as an outline tool
Scapple
Mind-mapping tool.
Book (and cover) design:
Book Design Templates
Ready-to-use templates for Word and InDesign. By Joel Friedlander, mentioned above.
See also: Book design templates
DIY Book Covers
Rich site with Word templates, video tutorials and much more. By Derek Murphy.
Facebook group: Book Covers and Cover Artists
38 Book Cover Designers to Create Your Bestselling Cover
By Scott Lorenz.
Canva
Create your own cover, marketing material, Facebook headers etc.
Canva Design School
How to create a good cover. See this article: 20 Incredible Book Covers Non-Designers Can Pull Off [with Free Templates]
You’re a Better Designer than You Think
How to create your own book covers.
Create an animated book cover:
Glitterboo
Add some sparkle. Great for the purpose of promotion.
DP Animation Maker
Create movement or light and water effects.
Twitter, Pinterest and web sites do support animated GIFs. For Facebook, try to share through Giphy.com. Here, you can also text your GIFs.
See this article by Derek Murphy for more: How to make an ANIMATED book cover that blows people’s minds
Animated cover by Derek Murphy. Effective eeriness.
Find & hire a designer, editor etc.:
Buy pre-made covers:
The Book Cover Design
Each cover is sold only once.
Facebook group: Book Covers and Cover Artists
Convert to EPUB and other formats:
Calibre
Free tool.
See also: How to convert a Word file to EPUB using Calibre
OnlineConvertCom
For instance to convert your PDF cover to JPEG.
Image Editors:
GIMP
Free tool.
Sell books directly from your own website:
E-junkie
Set up an account, upload your book and embed a shopping cart on your site.
Create a book trailer:
MakeWebVideo
Online template-based service for creating promo videos.
Example: Michael Kobernus used the “Sand Text Animation” template to create this book trailer:
Create and manage e-mail lists:
Fonts:
Letterhead Fonts (including retro fonts)
300+ Fool-Proof Fonts to use for your Book Cover Design
Ordered by genre. By Derek Murphy, mentioned above.
Stock photos:
Buy:
Free:
30 free public domain image websites
Sidebar photo: iStock.com/Spectral-Design
