Book Blogger Hop

Topic for the week of September 17-23, 2021:

Where do you get background images for your posts or do you create them yourself? (Submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews).

The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, I relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to your own blog.

Book Blogger Hop topic Topic for the week of September 17-23, 2021:

Where do you get background images for your posts or do you create them yourself? (Submitted by Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews).

Well, that’s a deceptively simple question.

Well, the vast majority of my images on my blog are simply the covers of the books that I’m reviewing. I get those from one of the online stores that sell these books, Goodreads, directly from the publisher, or through a Google Image search. (The same goes for when I need pictures of an author.)

Obviously, at times like this, when I’m doing a weekly or monthly meme, list, or book tag, I’ll take the images that the original bloggers have used (like the one at the top of this post). However, when I’m not reviewing a book or writing on a topic from another blogger, there are several places where like to get my images. When I need to do a bunch of book covers all together (like for #6Degrees of Separation), I’ve found that the best way to do that is through uploading them to PowerPoint and then saving them as a picture (yes, really)! In fact, that’s how I made my first logo – the one with the chocolate lady behind the title – with good old, every day, PowerPoint!

But when those are not enough, I have other sources.

One of these is called Photofunia. This is a very clever site that has over 600 templates on dozens of topics, and the site lets you upload pictures (like book covers) and/or put in your own special text and then it generates an image for you. The site is free to use, and you don’t even have to sign up to use it. For example, I made my logo with the text on the book spines, as well as my graphic for #ThrowbackThursday, my poetry posts, and my #CountdownQuestions.

Another place is Canva, which I’m sure lots of bloggers will mention. My biggest problem with Canva is that I’m not willing to pay for a subscription, nor pay for their premium graphics, and what is free can be a bit limited. Lately, to make my Instagram posts more interesting, I’ve started out by doing a graphic on Photofunia and then uploaded that to Canva and cropped it to fit an Instragram post.

Finally, if I’m looking for something non-book specific, like for when I need pictures of food or places for my #CountdownQuestion posts, I’ll go to Pixabay to find something appropriate. I have also used this site as well in conjunction with Canva. Yes, the free ones can be slightly limited, but if you fiddle around enough, you can come up with something original in the end.

And, well… that’s it, really!

What about you? Do you have a special place to make or download graphics and images for your blog? Or are you really creative and make your own?

Thanks again to Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer for this blog hop, and Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews for the topic!

You can join this blog hop here!

This post is also my 11th entry in the 2021 Discussion Challenge, hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight!