3L&AP Episode 42

Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self-publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self-publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 42 of the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. I'm Kimberly Todd, and I'm here with my fabulous friends, KC Luck and Jamey Moody. Today we're talking about Canva and Book Brush. Before we start, how was your week?

My week was good I went for an awesome hike with my girlfriend. So, we went over to the coast and there's a place called Cascade Head Trail that's a little north of Lincoln City. If you're familiar with Oregon at all. And it's a four-mile hike, which is pretty much straight up 'cause it gets to a really great viewpoint. But the cool thing is I'm going to post a dozen pictures or so of my hike on my Patreon account. Those people who wanna see those pictures can go and sign up for free and see them. So I'm gonna start putting more stuff on Patreon and maybe less on Facebook.

Cool.

Oh well fun. 

And of course, Fixing Hearts is out and doing quite well. I'm actually pleased. I've heard a lot of other authors saying that Amazon was not pushing their book like they had in the past, and I have not seen that be true for mine. So, I'm very grateful and thank you for everyone who's purchased it and gave it a read. And the reviews have been very good, so thank you for that.

That's awesome. Good for you. Well, lemme tell you what happened to me. Mine wasn't necessarily great. I came home from work yesterday and I always turned the ceiling fan on as soon as I get in. I thought it's kind of hot in here and I looked around and my thermostat was like on 81 and I was like, oh no, Houston, there is a problem. But my Air conditioner people came right on out and got to work on it, needed a part, and of course they couldn't get the part until today. So Leo and I packed up and went to stay with my sister last night, and her oldest grandson is there. So we had some fun with that. But, yeah, Texas in July, you don't want to try to stay in a house without some AC, but I'm happy to report they came in, fixed it up this morning, and I'm cool as a cucumber. 

Let's see. Other than that. I have been very bookish the last week or two. I got book three in my Wishing Heart series back from my editor. So, I'm working on edits and let me ask you all this, this always happens to me. You kind of have to stop, and start editing, so you stop whatever book you're working on, right? I swear invariably I will be in a flow on that other book. It's like, I don't have time for edits. I gotta keep this chapter going and then bam, I know what's coming next, and then you have to stop to do edits. Does that happen to y'all?

No. 'cause I don't do books so close together.

Yeah, me either.

You're not writing a book when you get your edits back.

Very rarely.

Okay. Well that just happens to me. Good old Jamey.

Because you're very organized and have very good strategy about when you release your books next to each other. Mine is like, oh yeah, I should write this book now.

Yeah, and mine is like, I hope I get a book done this year.

Kimberly.

Isn't that interesting? Since that sounds like I'm a planner, which you would think I'd be a plotter, but I'm not. Anyway, so book four in the Wishing Heart series is going great. I'm probably about halfway through, but so now I'm spending my time. Editing a little, writing a little, editing a little. And then I've got a book that I'm reading. So, it's like book, book, book. Yeah.

So anyway, that's my week. Kimberly, what you been up to?

So, I had a great time on the 4th of July. We went to the beach and I forget how cathartic it is to sit there and just listen to the waves and have no, you know, screen time and kind of hear the kids laughing and just smell suntan lotion, and chill.

So, that was awesome. And then on the writing front, I was stuck on a chapter and I finally finished it and I'm so happy because I didn't know what the next chapter was gonna be. But yesterday afternoon I figured out that, you know how I do the beginning, middle, and end. I decided I'm gonna move the middle to the front.

Oh.

Yay.

You go. 

The words came flying out, and I did some this morning. I'm gonna do some this afternoon. So the writing is going really well, thank goodness. And then I had one fun thing to share with you that I saw in Diva Magazine. Evidently there are some sapphic slang words that I did not know. So, I wanted to see if you guys knew what they were. So, the first one is OWL. Do we have any idea what that is?

No.

Okay. It's Older, Wiser Lesbian. So there now you learned something new.

I was gonna say are you gonna make me feel like an old out of touch lesbian?

You're wiser. Wiser.

Wiser. Exactly. And then the other one was A hundred-Footer, which means that someone is so obviously sapphic that you can spot them from a hundred feet away.

Oh, okay. So I like it. 

Some of them were a little naughty, so I'm not gonna say those, but...

Oh.

So I'm just gonna say. Hoo Hoo... 

Oh, that's funny. Oh my gosh. Okay, so that's it for me. KC, do we have any texts for this week?

We had a couple texts from our regulars who we appreciate very, very much. Cheryl, said that the cover that grabbed her the most was Because of You by Julie Cannon, and it was simple but effective. I'm not familiar with that. I guess I could have done my research and looked it up, but, one of the main characters hands were tied.

So go Cheryl.

Oh, you know what? I did look that up. Let me think. I did look it up.

But she said it wasn't bondage. It was a kidnapping.

It wasn't, and it took you a minute to see hands tied together. So, I did look it up.

But she said it made her pick up the other book. So maybe I need to tie somebody up.

Well, there you go. 

That's interesting. 

She likes the realistic covers and not the cartoons, which again, is another person who says they don't like the cartoons. Yet, when you look at the top 10, they're all cartoons. So, I don't understand how that works.

And CeeJay said the book cover that caught her in the most, not necessarily sapphic book, was Jaws. And if, you know that cover that giant shark getting ready to eat, that little girl at the top is just like, whoa, that's scary.

Especially this time of year.

No kidding you never wanna swim after seeing that and, there are plenty of others, but that was the one that she listed first. That's it. Emails.

Yes. But you know, I'm kind of, wondering why we didn't get any comments on Kimberly's, dad joke time, you know, the scissors? I don't know. I just thought that was fun.

Maybe the only ones that thought it was funny.

Maybe the ones that got it? 

Because we're Hootie-Hoo's, Hootie-Hoo's. Okay, so CeeJay also emailed about book covers. She said she likes them clean and not too busy. It gives you an idea of what the book, contents are, but it doesn't give things away. She said her dislikes are super busy and too much going on. Just gives a touch away and you don't really know what's going on in the novel. And she definitely dislikes the AI covers.

Oh yeah.

She said the colors always seem too bright and the perception is off just a little bit. Same from Cheryl. She said she loves her, covers realistic and simple, but I have to say this, Cheryl said one of her favorite covers is one of mine, The Woman at the Top of the Stairs. And she said, I love that series, which kind of, works for this episode we're talking about, because I got the photo for that cover off of Book Brush.

Cool.

So a little tie in there. And then also, I got an email from, Minishca. She had just caught up with the, podcast and she appreciated. I think y'all were in the giveaways too, weren't you?

In the I Heart SapphFic Big Pride Giveaway, all of those. She appreciated us being in that because. Minishca is in South Africa and she doesn't, buy off of Amazon. And so, she had won some books, which is, you know, awesome for her because she didn't have to get 'em from Amazon.

Nice.

And then we also had one other from CeeJay she answered the question from our last, episode about Canva and Book Brush. She said she has never used either one of those, but she has used Fiverr for a little side project she was working on. She said she found the cover designer. And, told them what she wanted and that they ended up nailing it, which she was very pleased about. She did caution and say, make sure that you read, all the different reviews so that you don't end up paying a lot of money for something that you don't like.

I think that will cover the emails. How about Insta Kimberly?

Nothing on Insta this week, but I did wanna do a shout out to Minishca as well, to just say hi to Mijo, her puppy. She sent me some pictures.

Oh...

and I was like, oh, it's so cute. Yeah. Okay. This week we're talking about Canva and Book Brush. KC, you wanna start us off with Canva?

Sure. I love Canva. It's the one I learned from the beginning, so that's probably why I prefer it. I never, ever even knew about Book Brush until actually you guys started talking about it. So, I really find Canva friendly to use and I think it's a lot of fun. Saves me a lot of time, because I can do things quickly rather than using Photoshop. 'cause before, I used Photoshop before I found Canva and Photoshop is a great tool and I use it for covers and everything else, but it is not intuitive and it is not fast. Yeah. So that's why I use it a lot and it makes professional looking content, you know, for marketing like teasers and quotes and cover reveals. I use it for all that stuff. So that, really is why I prefer Canva.

Yes, I think both, Canva and Book Brush are very similar. And I had just dabbled a little bit in Canva and then I found Book Brush, and now this is just for me Book Brush, I seem to be able to learn it easier and, you know, we're all about easy. So Canva seemed a little harder for me at that time in my life. I don't know how else to explain it. So, I stuck with it. KC does Canva, you can make book covers on it, right? Does it have pictures and stuff, or do you have to import the pictures from Photoshop and then use them in the Canva tools?

Canva does have, a template for you to use to set up a book cover. It's the right size for an ebook, and then it also has photos available. You have to kind of be a pro version. I'm a pro version, which I pay every month to use. It's like $14.99. If you don't pay by the year, which I pay by the year.

 There's a free version, but it doesn't have nearly as many bells and whistles. So, I do use it to lay out what my cover's gonna look like, kind of as just like a sketching board. And then I'll go into Photoshop and make it look a little more professional.

Well, that's one thing I like about Brook Brush. It does have a ton of pictures. And you can also import if you find a picture somewhere else. So, you can do it on anything, I mean, on a social media post or on a cover. I just wondered about that by Canva.

Yeah, I like Book Brush. I do use the free version of Canva. Book Brush is a lot easier. I like that all the social media sizes are populated for use, so you can just, pull in an image that you have of your own or use one that they already have there to choose from and quickly make an ad for Facebook. And then you just click a button and it will do for all the other social medias. 

And the same for reels. If you wanna make reels, which is what I've been doing recently that I really love. The reels are set up where you can do a basic, which is really easy, where they populate music and pictures for you, and then you just change the font, whatever you wanna say.

And then there's an advanced, which I've learned and I love that. And you can just basically start from scratch and make whatever reel you want to, pulling in images and choosing your own music and importing that. And I find that actually really fun. So that's one of the social media things I'm interested in doing lately.

Don't you have to, be one of the, upper tiers because I thought I was on the medium tier, but I may be on the bottom tier and I can, create reels and things like that, but they don't always have music.

Oh yeah, I think I have the platinum. I think I got a deal when it first came out, so I don't pay the full price that everyone has to pay now. I think it's $246 a year for platinum. And that's every year you pay.

That's steeper than Canva.

Yeah, I don't pay that. Mine's around $150, and I thought I was on the middle version, but maybe I'm not. Because the gold you have as $199 and the plus is $149 a year.

Unless I'm on the gold and I got in too kind of at the beginning, so I don't know. What do you pay, KC?

I pay $130. But I wanna tag on a little bit with what you were saying. There are a bunch of templates in Canva where you can do all those things you were talking about. It's also in there and to clarify, you can upload photos of your own. So yeah, it sounds like they're very, very similar. It seems like you guys are paying a little more. So, I would really be curious to see side by side how better your tools are.

Maybe we need to do an offline thing where we can tutor one another on both, platforms because I'd love for one of y'all to show me how to use Canva to make it easier. And that way you can use the free version, like Kimberly said, of one of 'em, and then pay for the other because they are very similar.

Yeah. And a lot of times if you do join those Book Funnel, newsletter builders, a lot of times the people that start them will create the graphic that you use to promote in Canva. So that's why I started using the, free version of Canva. And it does help, but it is a little more confusing than Book Brush, that's for sure.

Well, let me say this about Book Brush that I do like that they do, and I don't know, if Canva may do the same thing, but Book Brush will send you an email every week with some kind of a video tutorial on one of their tools. And I watch these every week and learn something new, even though I know how to use Book Brush. But I love they, come up with, new templates already made for you that all you've gotta do is stick your book cover in like every week it feels like. But they come up with different, little tools to help you and gives you a little play by play that makes it easy.

Do you have mockups in yours? 

Yes. 

Instant mockups.

 Canva is very limited on their mockups, which is a little disappointing. Yeah.

Speaking of the mockups, I find it amazing 'cause you can go in and you can do it by genre or you could do it by, let's say it's 4th of July or it's summer, spring, winter holiday, or you can do it by romance, paranormal, whatever. And they have all these images where the book is gonna go and you can click on like 50 of them and then hit zoom, and your book cover will go into all of them and then you can augment. Yeah. It makes it so much easier if you're gonna post often.

And you can change the text if you need to a little bit. One thing I was gonna say is they allow you to save your work too, because just this morning before we came on air, it's Friday when we're recording this, and I do a spotlight of one of my books on Fridays, so I just went to the ones that I had saved because this week's spotlight is on Cee Cee Sloan is Swooning, and on Fridays I like to post, some kind of little review snippet from whatever book I'm spotlighting. So, I went back through the things I'd saved and found a good one that's on Book Brush. And all I had to do is save that to my computer and then post it on social media and put a little comment and, you know, some tags. So that made it very easy.

Yeah, on Canva you can also do that, you know, take stuff that you created before. And my recommendation is to name them really well, really uniquely. 'cause you can search and if you don't do that, you'll be like, where the hell did one go with the quotes on it? Where's that one? So, yeah, so name it well.

Yes. 

I have, one other thing that I really like in Book Brush a brand kit, and you're allowed to put three of them. So, I have two different brands. So, you basically upload your logo. So, if I do Kimberly Todd Author, I have my logo, then I choose the font that I use all the time for my ads. then I choose the color palette. I think they let you choose three colors. So, every time I go to use that particular pen name. I just click on the brand kit, and I don't have to go searching through a dropdown box for anything. It's just ready to go. then if I switch over to my other pen name, then it has all that set up to go and you can do up to three of them, I believe, and it's pretty cool.

I haven't set one up yet. But how does it work though, Kimberly? If you click on like you wanna do a Facebook promo, does it populate your colors and everything right there and everything.

Any platform you wanna do, it's there. And then if you wanna switch over to another pen name, which I do a lot of times, then you just click a dropdown arrow and then you don't have to look for the font. 'cause maybe you use the same two fonts every time. 'cause it matches your branding. 

What about resizing? Another nice thing about Canva is you can create a Instagram post or whatever you wanna create, and then you think, oh, I'd like to make this a Facebook story size that you can go in and say, resize this to a Facebook story, and it'll actually lay things out a little bit. Now you kinda have to tweak it a little bit, 'cause sometimes your fonts are too small or whatever, but it can do resizing.

 Book Brush can do that too. Let me just say though, that I am a little, upset with Instagram for changing their layout. Oh my God. We could do one square layout and that would work for Facebook and for Instagram and for Threads. And then Instagram went and changed that, which I don't know why.

Thank you, Meta. 

So, yeah, so if you try to put a square on there, it just doesn't look right. And so, I have had to go back and resize all of my squares when I get ready to do these spotlights and put 'em. On the Instagram, what do they call it now? Portrait, I think, or something like that. But anyway, lemme just say, thanks a lot, Insta.

I still upload the square because I tried clicking on the other size version that they have in Book Brush, and I tried redoing it myself in custom, and it still never looks right, ever. 

I just I just do a square. Screw it. 

Yeah, I have to redo 'em. Usually the font's too big, so I'll have to do that and then I'll have to move some things over in the background. But yeah, it is kind of a little pain.

My Instagram interaction level is so low. I mean, at the best I might get 20 likes on a post, so I'm like, hmm. ROI on this is not high. So.

Yeah, but I like Instagram and so, but I think a lot of my readers are on Facebook, so that's why I do both of those. And I like posting to Instagram because it will automatically go to Threads. And I like Threads too.

 Another thing that I love that I use a lot for my books is, Book Brush has, QR codes. You can make QR codes through them and it's super easy. And sizing, it used to be a pain in the bum and all that. And now it's like so simplistic. And also I love that they have, all the social logos and all the, star ratings right there for Amazon with the Amazon logos. So you just click on these things and they go right into your ads. It's not like it search for anything makes it so easy. Yeah.

Let me say too, since you mentioned those QR codes, Book Brush also has business cards, book markers, coasters, things like that that you can make. And before I did this author signing a couple of weeks ago, I redid my business cards and on the back of it I'll put a QR code, so all they have to do is take a snap of that and it went straight to my Amazon page so they could buy all my books, or it might've gone to my author page. I can't remember exactly, but I did put a QR code on there and when I got back I noticed that my bookmarks were running low. So I made a new bookmark template and I loved them and I've already gotten them back. And, I did all the artwork on Book Brush.

Mm-hmm.

Jamey, just to point out the QR code, you said you didn't know where it went. Go to Link Tree, make a Link Tree for free, and then you can have your Facebook and your website and your author page and everything all on one QR code.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, I do that for the back of my books.

But what does it do though when you do the QR code, where does it take them?

To the Link Tree. 

Oh, to the Link Tree. Okay. 'cause I know mine, I don't remember if I set it up to go to Amazon or to set it up, I think I set it up to go to my website. 'cause you can do either, I had both of them. I wanted something on that business card instead of them seeing Jamey Moody author.com and having to type it in somewhere, you know, phone or whatever that QR code took them straight to it. And that's what I was trying to is make it easier. Yeah, 

I did something very similar and it's worked really well for me. I made, V.A.M.P. Coasters and on the back of the coaster, I put the QR code and I was surprised to see that they worked. Yeah, actually Jamey's holding up one right now. Thank you, pal.

Please out what Jamey is up. Because I use my V.A.M.P. coaster with the QR code on the back.

Yeah, and you can track the QR codes, and it's kind of fun to see like, oh, my coasters weren't a total waste of time. So anyway.

Well, these bookmarks, I'm really, pleased with 'em because I found a new, little, tagline to go on 'em, and it didn't take long at all to get 'em made. I made 'em in, Book Brush and then sent 'em off to be printed.

Nice. You were talking about how Book Brush sends you an email about new things you can do. I don't think Canva does that either or I opted out the newsletter, who knows. But when I do have a question about how do I do something on Canva I go to YouTube. 

And there's tons of stuff. Canva, has YouTube channel, and either they do it or a third party will do it, but it's a very good resource.

Book Brush has that too. You're right. that's where, all of their tools are and everything, but they're just so helpful if you can take the time, if you wanna punch something up or if you're making your own cover, you know, they've just got all kinds of, howtos in there to make it easier for you.

Yeah, and I love it too. I wrote them a bunch of times through the website and they write back. It's very exciting that you get actual human contact, writing you back. With your problem.

Yeah. 

Mm-hmm. 

They've also branched out and they have virtual assistants that, you could go through Book Brush and get a virtual assistant if you're at that point in your, career. And they do things like, they'll do your social media posts and things like that, and you work with them and I think it's an hourly rate, but they can set you up there. they also have cover designers that they can, do a cover. They're a little bit more expensive than I want to pay, and I don't exactly know the process, but you could get a Book Brush cover made. I mean, they'll make a cover for you.

Cool. 

They look professional. 

But they don't do a wraparound, they don't do a full size for paperback, right? 

No. They do. 

They just do, ebook. 

Oh, do they? 

Oh, 'cause there's not one on Canva. 

Like I said here, the last few books from Anita Hallam has done my covers for me, and I don't have her do the, paperback cover. I have her send me, the ebook image and then I use that and I make my own, print covers.

In Book Brush?

Oh, I do it in Photoshop. 

Okay. 

Yeah, and what's nice about the cover designer in Book Brush is that usually the spine is the hard part. It's super easy In Book Brush. You just drop it in. It's no pro and they have all the guidelines and everything, so you know it's gonna upload. Perfect.

Oh, and you can make audiobook covers there too.

I might have to investigate. I wonder if Canva can do it. Maybe, I just don't know if it can do it. I should check, because it seems like it's pretty similar to what Book Brush can do. And if I only use Photoshop for book covers now, and I am paying for Photoshop every month, and it's like $20. So I would like to maybe trim that off. Yeah, that would be great.

 I'm not saying one is better than the other. I think they're very similar and it's whatever is easiest for you to manipulate, is how I look at it. 

Mm-hmm. 

One more question. Does it allow you to save in a high res, because I could use it to make a poster even. It saves at really high res levels. 

Yeah, it has PDF, it has PNGs and it has JPEGs.

Okay.

Yep. 

I just usually do JPEGs because that's what all the socials, accept. but you can save in either one.

Yeah. And the PDF will allow you to do the high res.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. One thing I'd like to add about Book Brush too that I use it for is A+ content on your, Amazon book page because they've got all the different templates for that. You pick what size you wanna use and, then you create the A+ content there too.

Nice. Does it have a setting for that? You can choose it?

Yeah, you could choose the stacked, you could choose the one. It's got all the different things that match what Amazon has for you to put your A+ in there. 

I will have to look. Canva probably does it. I just don't know it.

Then one other thing I want to ask you about Canva that I love about Book Brush too is they have, all these 3D choices for print, books, tablets, phones. So they have like a white phone front, sideways, left, and then you just select it and then it will populate your book cover in it. And then they have multiple images, so there'll be like the print book facing forward, then a tablet and then a phone, in one image, and then you just click and all your book covers will go into it. So it's like all these different 3D versions of, iPads, phones, or whatever, and it's really cool. So I didn't know if they did that on Canva or not too.

Uh, they might, again, I haven't looked, 'cause I've always used, I've always used this other, free website. That lets you do all that, it's called 3D book cover. 

It's the same thing, but you know, it'd be nice if you do it all in one place and just save it.

I was gonna say, but you're in one place. Yeah. They also have a hand holding your book, like on a phone and you can use all kinds of options. 

Wow. 

On, um, book templates. 

I always think off the Adams Family when you say that.

I've used it because there's one girl that has really pretty red nail polish and you bet I use her and I'm like, read this book, honey. Get other people to read this book, please. 

Okay. Well that's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thank you everyone. Talk to you in two weeks.

Thanks. I hope you have a great week coming up. And Hoo Hoo... 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to hearing from you, see you next week.