The Book Designer

Free Guide to Get You Started

Book publishing can be confusing. That's why I created this free 24-page ebook packed with tips, links and resources to help you reach the readers who are waiting for your books. You'll learn things like:

How to find freelance editors
Getting and using ISBNs
Using social media to market your book
Getting a great book cover

And it's all free, just enter your email address in the box below and it will be on its way.

I've helped thousands of authors fulfill their publishing goals and dreams, and I know you can do it too!

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Create Fast, Free, Festive Images in Seconds with PhotoFunia

By Joan Stewart ON December 13, 2018 8 Comments

By Joan Stewart

You need a creative image for a blog post, your author media kit or other marketing materials.

If you can afford it, you grit your teeth, whip out your credit card and buy a pack of 10 from those pricey stock photo sites. Or you use a cliché stock photo from one of the many free sites.

Sure, you can create something unique at Canva. But if you’re impatient like I am, you don’t want to struggle with a site you don’t use often, especially when you’re in a hurry.

Welcome to PhotoFunia.com, my favorite, number one, five-star, go-to website for creating offbeat effects from a digital photo you already have, even if it’s just your head shot or book cover.

It’s drop-dead simple to use. Most images, also known as an effect, can be created in less than 60 seconds with no technical skills. And you don’t need to create an account or remember a username and password.

Just hop on over to PhotoFunia.com:

cruise through the offerings
choose your favorite image
upload your photo to insert into it
crop it
download it
save it to a folder

It’s that easy.

Because I’m The Publicity Hound™, I created this simple image in about a minute:

Choose from More Than 600 Images

This site is a goldmine for authors because, in many cases, you’ll be able to find an image that’s related to the topic of your book.

If you write about photography, you’ll find a Photography category with 37 images.

Romance novelists, choose from more than 21 images in the Valentine’s Day category and many more throughout the site.

Write murder mysteries? There’s a Zombie, a woman with a gun, a few “Wanted” posters and a slick “FBI ID.” Just insert a photo of what your FBI agent character looks like and you’ve got a fun image. You can find generic head shots of men and women at Pixabay.com, the best free stock photo site. That’s what I did when I created the image below.

If you publish art books, you have 38 choices in the Galleries category.

Write about celebrities? Choose from 24 images. My client, Rick Lenz, who writes novels with a Hollywood twist, created this image of Marilyn Monroe, who’s a major character in his book, “The Alexandrite.”

Cookbook authors, insert your head shot into a cup of latte. Or put it on the label of a wine bottle.

Need a holiday-related photo? Choose from images in the Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Halloween categories.

Even if you write fiction or nonfiction on a topic that doesn’t dovetail with any of the categories or images, you can put your head shot and book cover on a giant Times Square billboard. That’s what author Tim Patterson did with his nonfiction book Tradeshow Superheroes and Exhibiting Zombies: 66 Lists Making the Most of Your Tradeshow Marketing. He also placed the cover on a side of a double-decker red bus.

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