Canva Pro is a tool I talk about in number of posts. I love this app. I couldn’t do what I do without it. But I also know it’s one of those tools I can get lost in, letting my creative juices. As an Indie Author, it saves me hours of time in creating all the pesky images we self-publishers need to manage for ourselves. If I ever had to choose an app to give up, Canva Pro would be one of the last on the list. 

Here’s what I use Canva for, as an Indie Author: 

• Book Cover Images
• Marketing posts for Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
• Sell Sheets 
• Book Quotes 
• Promo Graphics 
• Blog Post Images
• Business Card graphics
• Testimonials

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I created my book cover images for both Camino Wandering and Beneath the Surface in Canva Pro. Not to mention the covers for my short stories. 

For Camino Wandering, I used an image I took while on my personal Camino and then added the fonts and background page to match it. 

For the Beneath the Surface cover, I used an image I found in Canva then played around with the look and feel. I didn’t intend to go with a pool of blood for the cover. I had a cover in mind but could not find the right image for it. (Who knew trying to find the right red suitcase sitting by a colonial front door would be so difficult to find!) Still, I’m quite happy with how it came out in the end. 

Why I love Canva… let me count the ways.

Why do I believe all Indie Authors will love Canva? Because the apps makes graphic creation easy. 

I can create social media graphics for marketing, sell sheets for my novels (which I then send to booksellers) and images for my book covers. And all of those can be created in ONE day if I needed to.  

To do most of these things, Canva provides templates. For example, say I need a graphic to post on Instagram for av book promotion. I can use a template Canva provides, replacing the images in the template that I need to use, updated the text and if I don’t like the fonts, I can change them with a pull-down menu. 

But here is my favourite feature: Canva allows you to ‘resize’ your image to whatever specifications you need. 

When I have my image created, I can ‘resize’ that graphic to create a duplicate post for other social media formats. For example, I can take an image I’ve created for Instagram and ‘resize’ it for Facebook, and another for Pinterest, creating both new images to each application’s format sizing. I can tweak the graphic, if I need to, but otherwise they are ready to download and post. 

The same goes for book cover images. I can use graphics found in Canva, or upload ones I own. I can use a template the app provides or create an image from scratch (it’s easier and faster with templates). Once I have the image the way I want, I then resize the image to the whatever size the distribution template requires.

 

If you want to try it, you can for free.

The free version is a great place to start, to play around, but if you tend to create marketing images a lot, then I recommend you go with Canva Pro. The Pro version offers more advanced tools that allow better control I need to perfect my designs and it includes a lot of higher end images (one of which is the blood image on Beneath the Surface).  Canva Pro offers a free 30-day Pro trial, so check it out. 

Here are three other posts where I talk about Canva:

• 7 Steps to Self-Publish a Book
• 7 Apps All Indie Authors Need to Write a Novel
• 10 Tips for Creating a Book Cover  

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