Mockups Anyone?

I often get messages asking me about the mockups I use for my book teasers and thought I’d write a post about it as a way to also organize the who’s and the what’s of creating book teasers.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, this is a book mockup.

It’s basically your book cover edited into devices or on the covers of paperbacks or hardcovers. You can create them using a paid service like eCoverAuthority which is an online service you log into and create your book or device mockups or you can create them for free on DIYBookCovers using their free mockup design maker. You can choose single books or a group of devices like the one above.

Covervault is known for its beautiful photoshop template mockups from a single device or book to 25-book box sets. This is one of my favorites and I love the reflection on the glass. In order to create this, you’ll need Photoshop CS6 (at the very least, I think but I could be wrong) and it uses a cool feature where you simply click on the layer, add your book cover to that layer, save it and then close the file. The action basically puts the cover right where you see it. No more fudging with the Distort or Skew tool to fit it in there.

To put the device mockup and the backgrounds together into a teaser, you can use Canva.com or in my case, Stencil.com (I paid for lifetime use during a Black Friday special two years ago and as of last year, switched completely to Stencil from Canva) which both have the default sizes for each social media channel your image will end up in. They also allow you to post the image with the accompanying text to the social media channels like Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest except for Facebook which removed that ability middle of this year.

If you want it all in one stop – the device and the background altogether, then check out The Image Apothecary which I discovered last year. Their templates are DIY and they’re beautiful. They also have a service where they’ll photoshop the covers for you.

I recently discovered a new company called Images for Authors on Facebook and they will add your book image for free. I bought a few mockups from them but photoshopped the covers myself.

And then there are templates you can buy online from sites like MyDesignDeals and DesignBundles where you can create your own mockup. Each item is a separate layer and you just assemble them as you see fit. The only things you need to pay attention to are the shadows. When not done well, it will make your items seem to float as some of the objects in my mockups do. I actually don’t just use Photoshop but also Pixelmator which is a straight-up purchase for Mac and IOS and does almost everything Photoshop can do.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, sometimes I add animation to my mockups like this one:

or this one:

And for these two, I use apps on my iPhone and iPad called Werble (you buy the effects although some are free) and PicsPlayPost (subscription).

So there you have it—my book mockup secrets revealed! Oh, and it’s supposed to be #smallbusinesssaturday today so do buy from small businesses. We don’t have millions of dollars to throw on ad and marketing budgets, but we write some pretty entertaining stuff, don’t you know?

Are you an author? Comment below with any special or promotion that you’d like to share!