I don’t do a lot of endorsements on my blogs.
Oh, 
I do it from time to time, but not very often and when I do, I do my best to make it something I really, truly believe in. Regular readers will know that I often share free resources, and, sometimes, those have paid options. Most of the time, I share those for the free options only, because that’s all I’ve used and I kind of hate pimping stuff that I haven’t actually at least tried out.
Sometimes, I do share things that are from a company I believe in or who’s products I use. This what I’m sharing today. The company is Adazing. I paid for their Author Academy and it has been worth every single penny I paid. Today, I’m sharing one of their tools; The Book Mockup Generator. To the left, you can see an image I created using that tool. I’ve also used it on the main homepage. And, in fact, the current WordPress theme I’m using, AuthorWrite, which I got as part of the Author Academy. And, if you’re a writer who wants to self-publish in any format, I definitely suggest you go look at their free tools at least, because the free tools are pretty worth it. It’s also worth signing up for their email list because that’s how I got Author Academy at a pretty steep discount.
In any case, I’m kind of a marketing nerd. It’s something I picked up from my father as well as from my degree. M
arketing and advertising are actually fun for me and I love finding all the little bits and pieces and tools to do it. The Book Mockup Generator is one of those tools. You can make an image or two for free, or pay $12.95 to get a whole bunch of them all at once. You can see another example of some of the images to the right of this post. These days, social media is one of the fastest way to generate interest in products, and most of that is visual in some way. If it’s not Instagram, then it’s Pinterest. Even Facebook posts tend to do better when there’s a graphic on them. So, if you’re a self-published author who’s selling books, having a tool that essentially creates social-media-ready images for you is an enormous time-saver. The tools at Adazing let you make a lot of images, quickly and simply.
Seriously, these folks have given authors all the marketing tools they could possibly want to help get their books sold. In fact, now, my only problem is that all the excuses I had for self-publishing and marketing are gone. Now, I have to get down to the business of actually writing books!
Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I was asked to call attention to this tool in exchange for access to one of their products. I jumped at the chance, though, because not only is this a good, mostly free, tool that I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned here before, but all of Adazing’s products are actually pretty great. And, so is their support, which is for the most part quick to respond with helpful information. So, yes, I was compensated to post this, but I’d recommend this either way.
