I’m so glad it was helpful, Janet! Thank you for the feedback. : )

Sandy

I love your tips, Alison. Unfortunately, the MockupShots software doesn’t have that level of design power. You can do some editing — cropping, adding text (as I did), adding visual special effects, etc. — but you can’t enlarge or remove specific elements. And that’s OK. I think most of us want to grab an image that includes our cover and move along to our next book marketing task!

Sandy

I love that feedback on BookBrush, Gifford. Thanks. I looked at BB as one of the options I might use to create an example for this article, but decided that it was so much like MockupShots that it wouldn’t really add to the article. It can be hard to find a background with enough space to drop in the endorsement or review excerpt, so I’m glad it’s working for you. It’s easier to use than Canva for this because BB is designed for book marketing images, whereas Canva is an all-purpose, all-industry solution.

That’s a great question about review permissions, and yes, you’ve got that covered with your ARC statement. When Amazon reviewers don’t use their full or real name, you can still click on their reviewer name to go to their profile and see if you can glean any insights from that. When they want to be as anonymous as possible, which is often the case with haters (people you don’t want to follow up with anyway), they don’t reveal their “true” identity. Mine, on the other hand, uses my full name and my profile reveals my city and state. You can find me really, really quickly on Google with that little information.

Sandy

Thanks for all the amazing information you supply for folks new to book marketing like myself.

I use BookBrush for my quote cards. It has standardized sizes in the Custom Creator for social media. I like it because I can create graphics in a square or tall size for my newsletters, then use the same elements for Twitter posts or header (which won’t show up that well unless they’re horizontal). It just takes a few tweaks to change from one size to another. I also found it had a much shorter learning curve than Canva (which I never really did get the hang of).

A couple of questions: When I send out an ARC, I always tell the recipient that, in accepting the free book, they give permission for their review to be quoted for marketing purposes. Do you think that would cover me with Amazon? And how would I go about getting permission from an anonymous Amazon reviewer?

Thanks again!

You’re welcome, Teri! It means track down the reviewer and ask for permission before using their review for promotional purposes.

Sandy

Thank you for always providing great content. Can you explain how to apply a permission policy as quoted below?

“To be safe, apply that permission policy to reader reviews from any other retail site or platform, too, including Goodreads”.

Thank you