Attracting Attention - Positively

As authors we all know how important it is to show off our work in the best possible light. That often means creating social media posts that depict images of our books or advertisements for author events we'll be appearing at.

Most events will provide posters for advertising, however if you're booking events yourself at local venues you may need to create a poster on your own. Images have a strong visual impact on people. We're all more likely to read a post with an image included than one that includes only text. Why? Because images attract attention. Whether they're attractive or not so great, they will attract the attention of viewers.

You want people looking at your posts because they're attractive not because they can't stop staring at the disaster you've created.

Below is an example of a poorly designed poster for a romance author event -

There are several things that make this poster a bad design, let's go through them -

1. The colors do not convey romance, it looks more like fall, maybe? The pink and orange clash and don't go together.

2. It's a very plain and boring poster.

3. The chosen font also doesn't convey romance and things are spread all over as if they were thrown on there as a cat walked over the keyboard.

This poster will do little to attract people to the advertised event. It makes you wonder what exactly is going on.

When you create a post for an event (or your books) you want things placed in a way that's attractive to anyone who looks at the post. You need to keep in mind colors, chosen fonts, placement of text and images. If you aren't certain how your final product appears, ask others whose opinion you trust to take a look at it before you show it off to everyone on any social media platform.

Here is a much better version of the Romance Event Poster -

The colors on this version depict romance as do the hearts and the fonts that were chosen. The text is neatly fitted into the various hearts which keeps the placement from appearing randomly tossed onto the canvas, yet gives all the event information to whoever looks at the post.

Here are a couple of book advertisement posts. Which would attract your attention more?

There are a lot of things to consider when designing, always look at how your final design appears and don't put it out there if it doesn't show you and your work off in the best light possible.