Canva Tutorial: how to extend an image using Canva’s magic edit tool

| Rhoda Baxter

You know how sometimes, your image is just not tall enough or wide enough for what your need? Here’s what to do if you need to extend it a bit. This uses Canva’s generative AI (based on Dall-E, possibly), so it has all the usual foibles of AI, but it’s improving all the time.

Here’s a step by step guide. I recommend doing the extending in sections, so that the AI had lots of reference material around the area it’s trying to fill. Sometimes the results are hilarious, but most of the time, it’s surprisingly good.

Just hit the big red play button to watch the video in YouTube.

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva tutorial: How to use Canva Colour Edit to change colours

| Rhoda Baxter

As the name suggests, you can use Canva’s new Colour Edit feature to change colours of parts of your photo. It also lets you separate out of the foreground from the background, which is really handy if you just want to make the background a bit darker, for example.

Here’s a tutorial on how to use the Colour Edit feature and a few examples of what you can make with it. This would be a super useful tool to use when making book covers.

Just hit the big red play button to watch the video on YouTube.

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva tutorial: How to animate your book cover

| Rhoda Baxter

Have you ever wanted to make your book cover come alive by animating parts of it? Now you can do that easily in Canva. Most of this is available on Canva free, so there’s nothing stopping you now!

Just hit the big red play button to watch the video on YouTube.

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva tutorial: How to animate your book title #2

| Rhoda Baxter

Continuing on from last week’s tutorial, here’s another step by step tutorial on how to animate your book title. What happens if you have a book where the title is particularly fancy and difficult to separate from the background? That’s where Canva’s AI image features come in. You’ll need Canva Pro for some of it.

Just hit the big red play button to watch the video on YouTube

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva Tutorial: How to animate your book Title #1

| Rhoda Baxter

Adding a little bit of movement to your posts makes them stand out and can stop people from scrolling past. One nifty way to do that is to add a bit of animation to your book cover by animating the title. Here’s one way to do it. I’ll post a second method next week.

Just click on the big red play button to watch the video in YouTube.

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva tutorial: How to make Rotating Text in Canva

| Rhoda Baxter

Sometimes, you just need your text to go round and round and round…

Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to make rotating text in Canva. You can ‘stack’ animation effects so your can make the text fade in and then rotate.

Just click on the big red play button to watch the video on YouTube.

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva Tutorial: How to merge two photos together in Canva

| Rhoda Baxter

Merging two or more photos together is one of the most useful photomanipulations that you can do. In this tutorial I will walk you through how you make a book cover by adding extra sky to a photo to make it fit better into a book cover.

There are easier ways to do this using alternative programs – Photoshop, PaintShopPro, Photopea or Gimp will let you use a soft brush erase and allow for more subtlety – but this is how you do it in Canva.

Just click on the red play button to watch the video on YouTube.

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

Canva Tutorial: How to distort text in Canva

| Rhoda Baxter

Let’s face it, sometimes you want text to do funky things. Now you can distort your text – make it wide at one end and thin at the other, or make it fit into a globe, that sort of thing – using the Typecraft app in Canva.

Here’s a tutorial on exactly how to use it and where you might use it in your book marketing. (Mainly, it’s a nice thing to be able to do on a book cover). Just click on the big red play button to watch the video on YouTube.

How will you use TypeCraft in your designs?

You can sign up for a free Canva account here: partner.canva.com/Jeev*

If you want to talk to other authors about how to use Canva in your book marketing, come and join the free Canva Tips for Authors Facebook group at facebook.com/canva4authors

* This is an affiliate link. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it gives me some small amount if you get a Pro account.

#Canva #Canvassador

#Canvassador #Canva

My favourite Christmas novellas

Text reads My Favourite romantic christmas novellas. The text is white against a red background. The image if a close up of red baubles on a fir tree.
| Rhoda Baxter

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately, so when I wrote a longish post on Facebook, I thought, ‘hey, why not share this with my blog readers too?’. So here we are.

Someone asked for Christmas novella recommendations. I love reading novellas at Christmas. I stack them all up on my Kindle and have a reading binge in the strange liminal time between Christmas and New Year. Here are some of my favourites.

First of all, I must mention my own ones. Please buy them –

Girl At Christmas (m/f) – two people who work in the same lab finally tell each other how they feel. [Content note: hero is overweight and trying to lose weight for health reasons. He has a heart attack – but he’s okay in the end. If either of these things are sensitive topics for you, pick one of the other books instead!]

Snowed In (m/f) – Secret millionaire heroine, nice guy hero, lots of falling over in the snow.

Christmas for commitmentphobes (f/f) – a workaholic and a commitmentphobe walk into a pub … and get snowed in there over Christmas.

These are my favourite reads:

The Boys of Christmas (m/f) – Jane Lovering. I’ve read this many times. The hero is a clown (literally, a children’s entertainer). The setting is really pretty and coastal. It’s hilarious.

A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong by Cecelia Grant (m/f) – historical. Buttoned up and very proper guy meets adventurous and not-very-straitlaced heroine. She trains hawks! Only one bed. Usually Free.

Not Your Royal Christmas (m/nb) – Kate Johnson. Non-binary love interest. The story is told backwards, which sounds weird, but it totally works.

Not You Prince Knight in Shining Armour (m/f) – Kate Johnson. I love this whole series, but this one is my absolute favourite. Heroine is a plus sized pop star. Hero is a prince with PTSD. (Prince Tom – swoon). It’s a Christmas-ish book, rather than a Christmas book per se, but … Prince Tom.

Cora’s Christmas Kiss (m/f)- Alison May. Fun times at the department store. This is one of three novellas. The other two are fun too. Fake Alan for the win.

Only One Bed for Christmas – Jackie Lau. Inflatable dinosaur outfit.

What are your favourite Christmas novellas? Do you have any gems that you love?

*As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn a few pence from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra.