Author Resources – Page 3

Author Resource: Canva- The Ultimate in (Free) DIY Design✏️

Canva, everyone’s DIY design tool, is an Australian online design platform. It is designed for anyone, designer or not. The seamless design opportunity is made possible with an extensive image library, readymade templates, photo filters and a huge number of fonts. You can also share your work with your team or post it directly on social media.

There are two versions- free and paid if you opt for Canva’s Magic Resize tool.

Seven Ways in which Canva Benefits Authors

If you are struggling with design, you may want to consider a more easy-to-use design platform.
When you are stuck at various points in the design process, be it sourcing images, resizing an existing design, sourcing a variety of free fonts, Canva provides a variety of options.
Is the pricing of design options freaking you out? Even if you don’t hire a designer, you can use Canva on your own and instantly design posters, book covers, presentations and social media headers.
The templates available help you to create effective visual aids for marketing campaigns.
If you are in a hurry to get a book cover out or hiring a designer is out of your budget at the moment, Canva provides a variety of free book cover options.
There are a variety of illustrations you can access for free on Canva.
You can even design a quick website content to promote your book using the website templates available at Canva.

How to Use it- It’s Easy!

Sign up.
Scroll through the design templates on offer. You can also custom size the design.
In case of book covers there are many options including book covers for cookbooks,art journals, business books, Wattpad books, children’s books and many others.
The template box opens and you can choose the design, change the background, upload images, use existing images (free or paid) and shapes from the left-hand side. There are additional options to add music, emojis, maps and QR codes.
Once the design is ready, you can share or download the design in different formats.

screengrab of book cover designed at canva — A book cover designed at Canva

Canva: Recommended or Not?

Highly recommended.

Author Resource: How to Trim the Fat with Hemingway Editor

Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel Prize-winning American writer, is famous for his writing efficiency. “To be successful in writing, use short sentences,” he said. The Hemingway Editor app is based on this premise.

Write Sweet and Short Prose like Hemingway

If you’ve been advised to write like Hemingway, it’s one way of telling you that your sentences are too clunky and could use some trimming.

Keeping the desirable quality of the brevity of Hemingway’s writing in mind, Adam and Ben Long developed a writing app that grades the readability of your writing from 1-15. The lower the rank, the clearer your writing.

How to Use the Hemingway Editor

The Hemingway Editor is very easy to use. You can paste or type text into it. The app uses color-coding to convey how complicated the sentence is. For instance, if there is a red highlight, the sentence is dense and it would be a good idea to work on it. A purple highlight indicates that a longer word can be replaced by a shorter one. A formatting toolbar is also provided.

In this example, the highlights focus on adverbs and the use of passive voice. Readability is also graded. You can use this app to assess your own content. A few tweaks based on the suggestions provided can clean up your copy.

Hemingway Editor: Recommended or Not?

Highly recommended tool.

Author Resource: How to Be Unpredictable with the Cliché Finder

In the Author Resources series, we explore the different author tools at our disposal. Be it editing, formatting or designing your cover, there are quite a few options that you can explore online. Today we look at the Cliché Finder.

How the Cliché Finder Fixes Your Text

Clichés are stale and overused phrases or expressions that are best avoided in the original copy. Some examples of clichés in sentences are:

When he told her he wanted to touch base, she was walking on air.

“The apple has fallen far from the tree,” he said to her disapprovingly after examining her portfolio.

She was doomed to disappointment when he compared her to her twin brother.

The phrases highlighted above are not wrong at all. For instance, the phrase ‘touch base’ seems professional and is commonly used when you want to encourage someone to contact you. But if you write a blog post, memo or email with a huge number of clichés, it could make your language sound unoriginal.

While it is impossible to avoid all clichés, being aware of the number of clichés used helps. This is where a tool like Cliche Finder comes in. It uses an algorithm to analyze the clichéd phrases, words or expressions used in the text you provide and also highlights alternate words you could use.

How to Use it

You paste the text into a box and submit.

screengrab of how Cliché Finder Fixes Your Text — Enter text and catch those clichés

Once you click the Find Clichés button, you get a list of clichés Now you can rephrase your copy as advised.

Cliché results, spelling mistakes and replacement options — Cliché Results

Cliché Finder: Recommended or Not?

Recommended. This is a useful editorial tool that throws light on (whoops! cliché that 🤭) avoidable phrases. Word of caution: You need not agree with all the suggestions and choose to adopt the changes you see fit.