The Publishing Performance Show

Kathleen Sweeney - 300+ 3D Book Mockups: Why Visual Marketing Beats Text Every Time

• Teddy Smith • Episode 112

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Kathleen Sweeney is the COO of Book Brush, a comprehensive design platform specifically created for authors since 2018. Book Brush specializes in helping authors create professional marketing graphics, book covers, 3D book mockups, video trailers, and social media content without requiring design expertise. The platform offers over 300 3D book versions, hundreds of cover templates, and access to 4.4 million stock images and videos through Pixabay integration. Kathleen leads the company's mission to make book marketing accessible and stress-free for indie authors, providing tools that help authors create professional-looking promotional materials that align with genre expectations and build author branding across all social media platforms.


In this episode:

  • Why some indie books look like bestsellers and others don't
  • The importance of professional cover design for genre alignment
  • Book Brush's author-specific design platform and tools
  • Creating 3D book mockups from flat covers with simple clicks
  • Using templates and graphics designed specifically for different genres
  • Font pairing and color psychology for book marketing
  • Author branding strategies and maintaining consistent visual identity
  • Video creation tools including vertical format for mobile viewing
  • Trope graphics and their effectiveness in reaching target readers
  • Common cover design mistakes authors make
  • The process of creating covers and marketing materials
  • Hidden features and creative ways to use Book Brush tools
  • Getting started with Book Brush: tutorials, support, and community


Resources mentioned:

  • Book Brush
  • Pixabay


Connect with Kathleen Sweeney:


Connect with Teddy Smith:

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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Welcome to the Publishing Performance Show, the podcast that helps self-publish authors turn their passion into a profit. Now, I'm your host Teddy Smith, and if you're serious about building a sustainable business, then you're in the right place. Every week I sit down with successful authors, industry experts, and publishing professionals who share their exact strategies they use right now to how they grown their business, grow their readership, increase their book sales, and essentially to make a bit more money.

[00:00:29] Now, whether you're just starting out or you're looking to scale your existing publishing business, you'll walk away from every episode with actual insights you can implement immediately. Now, if you are new here, it would really, really help me out. If you could subscribe either on Apple or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you are, just simply hit the subscribe button.

[00:00:45] It really helps to show to get more reach, which means we can get better guests for you and we can help you out in in more ways. Alright, let's dive into this episode. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm really happy to be joined by Kathleen Sweeney, who's the COO of book Brush.

[00:01:00] So thank you so much for joining us, Kathleen. 

[00:01:02] Kathleen Sweeney: I am excited to be here. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:05] Teddy Smith: No problem. Well, first question is, why does some indie books look like bestsellers and others don't? 

[00:01:11] Kathleen Sweeney: Oh, there's probably so many reasons, but let's talk about, look. So if it's, looks, it's cover, right? We're talking about the cover.

[00:01:17] and I think there are a lot of folks who, you know, try their hand at the cover design and it's not their thing. And so, you know, you can do your own cover, but if you wanna look like a bestseller, you wanna act like a bestseller. So if you're doing it yourself, try tools like our cover creator tool that has all these templates that will help you.

[00:01:37] Put things where they go. make sure that you've got things lined up like other books in your genre. You want to, stand out a little, but not so much that you don't fit in, I guess is what I would tell people. And then if it's in your budget to hire a cover designer, you may also be happier with the finished product.

[00:01:52] There. There are people who are great at writing, there are people great at designing, and they're not always the same people. 

[00:01:57] Teddy Smith: I'm really terrible at making book covers. I tried and now I just have to outsource it myself. but why don't you tell me a bit about how Book Brush works and exactly what makes it different from the competition?

[00:02:08] Kathleen Sweeney: Yeah, absolutely. So Book Brush has been in the author space since 2018 and we started with a really simple do it yourself platform, to create your own marketing graphics. And it's funny, when I look back now, it was so simple. We have so much cool stuff now, so we've really added a lot of things you can create.

[00:02:24] All the graphics from scratch for the social media platforms. You can do book trailers, Amazon a plus, content, all those things. And you know, the thing I tell people is there are a lot of nice design tools out there. But they're not all designed specifically with the author in mind. So when you sign into book brush, everything is author related every time you turn around, it's something in the author space.

[00:02:47] I just mentioned Amazon a plus content down to swag items. So when you're investing in your author career using tools and the platform that specifically for authors really makes sense. one of the things I think that stands out is we have over 300. 3D versions for your book. So when you see those people with 3D versions out there and you're like, what, how did they do those?

[00:03:07] They may very well have made those in book brush and they're from phones to e-readers, physical books, books with hands. I can't say enough good things about that because it gives it a physical presence so people can see the book in the hand and then they, they picture themselves too. And it's a really great, way to showcase your book.

[00:03:26] Teddy Smith: So those visual images that are sort of the 3D images that you basically just upload your book cover, that you've maybe created a book brush or actually you might have created separately and it creates like a graphic. And what, what do you use those graphics for generally? 

[00:03:41] Kathleen Sweeney: So wherever you came across your book cover, whether you made it yourself, had a designer or it dropped from the sky, whatever, you bring it into book brush, uh, the flat 2D cover, and then we make it 3D uh, with just a couple clicks of the mouse.

[00:03:53] And then you can use those all over the place. The plain 3D version with no background you might use on your website, on Amazon, places like that. And then the social media graphics that we have or that you can make for all the different platforms. Facebook, Instagram. Motion graphics can go on TikTok and YouTube, and of course you can put motion graphics on, uh, Facebook and Instagram too.

[00:04:17] But all those help just put your book out there and create that social proof. So if somebody says. Have you seen the book from Teddy Smith? And you look up Teddy Smith and there's nothing there, but like a cactus and one other post. Um, they might move to somebody else in that genre. But if you've created a lot of graphics, been doing a lot of posting, then when people look at you up, there's that social proof.

[00:04:38] You look like you're the author that you want people to know you are. 

[00:04:42] Teddy Smith: Right? And so these graphics, how, how can you decide which is the right one for your type of book? 

[00:04:49] Kathleen Sweeney: So it depends on your type of book and the platform where you're gonna post it. So yeah, you know, there are certain sizes for Instagram, Facebook, things like that.

[00:04:56] But then we have a lot of templates that are by genre. So you wanna make sure that if you're posting a graphic for, crime thriller, that you don't have a lot of pink and purple flowers and give off that confusing, message. So you want it to kind of align. And then we have font pairing, blog posts and things like that because the font makes a difference too, there.

[00:05:15] I'm kind of a font nerd. So some fonts might give off a romancey feel or a sci-fi feel, and you, and you kind of know 'em when you see 'em, but you might just be in love with a font that you're like, oh, that's, that's really pretty, or eye catching. Turns out it's giving off the wrong vibe. So you don't want this historical feel from the font for your sci-fi book.

[00:05:34] So all those things we put together in templates, and then we have blog posts and things to help with that so that when you are putting these graphics together, they help communicate everything. So it's a full picture for your reader. 

[00:05:45] Teddy Smith: A lot, a lot of people at MOMENT talk about tropes in book covers because I think a lot of authors are going away from tropes sometimes and trying to create something that's a bit more unique and that approach is often not really working.

[00:05:56] 'cause you are, you end up not really talking to the right target audience. Is it the same with graphics where you need to keep those, you know, the look and feel for the audience that you're trying to, get to. 

[00:06:07] Kathleen Sweeney: Well, we talk, sometimes about author branding. So you wanna keep your same look and feel for your posts.

[00:06:12] So figure out what your author colors are. Maybe you have a branded font and you have those kind of things reoccurring on your author page. Now, I love trope graphics. I call, I've coined the term, adorable flirty arrows. So we have those adorable flirty arrows that you can use and, and you've probably seen the graphics, maybe the books in the center off to the side, and then it lists out.

[00:06:32] Somewhere from three to six different tropes with the arrows. I think they're great because that helps people that know that they wanna read. A Cold War thriller, Friday night lights, enemies to lovers, only one bed, whatever those kind of things are, they put it right out there. So you're getting your book in the hands of the right audience.

[00:06:49] Those are the people that wanna read it, and it makes it easier for them to find that are more likely to leave a positive review, all those kinds of things. So I like trope graphics. 

[00:06:58] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. When it, when it comes to building your author brands, do you at book brush have like a process that you suggest authors follow?

[00:07:05] Is there is there is like a, a place to start with and then where you want to get to. 

[00:07:10] Kathleen Sweeney: We do have, a brand kit in book brush, so you can put in your, brand colors and your preferred fonts and things like that. And the first font that you enter in your brand kit is gonna be the default font when you start making your graphics.

[00:07:23] So that's a big time saver. And if you didn't remember to change the font, good news, it's, it's your branded. We do also have three brand kits. So we know people with different series or different pen names may have a little bit different branding that they need to do, and you don't wanna swap back and forth.

[00:07:39] But I think when you think about your genre and yourself, find what fits that. If you're clueless, look up some of the authors in your genre who do really well. What are their colors? What are their branding? You don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel. You can take, your spin on what they're doing so that you're fitting in, in, in that genre not standing out where it doesn't fit in at all.

[00:08:03] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. And you've, there's some of the top features we've talked about just now is about creating sort of graphic assets, but I think some of you've got some more, some more features coming out as well as the 3D tools such as maybe starting to create videos. do you wanna talk me through how exactly, how that works?

[00:08:19] Kathleen Sweeney: So I think that putting out, different kinds of videos, any kind of music, animation, motion, all that stuff that catches a reader's eye. And then my favorite is the vertical format, because guess what? People are looking at these on their phone. And so when you put that in the vertical format. You're making the most of that real estate, so that's a smart idea to make a vertical video.

[00:08:39] We have some real easy ones in our custom creator. You literally put your book cover in and download and it's already got the animation and video background and music all there. And, They appeal to all the different senses. So you don't know whether somebody's, an auditory music person or they like that motion, but it can keep their interest just a little bit longer by having those kind of things.

[00:09:01] And, then we have a trailer creator where you can create, those kind of things from scratch, a little more in depth. And if. You like the idea video, but it's not your cup of tea. We also have, we do it for you services. There's an hourly concepts that you can just order vertical videos. Submit the order.

[00:09:19] You buy the hour, submit the order, and you get those couple different ideas for those are like the book excerpt reels, or they're like a little mini book trailer that catch people's eye. And then we have full service social media where we do everything for you. If you're ready to just pass the baton and make sure your social media's humming along, we can handle the whole thing for you too.

[00:09:38] Teddy Smith: With those videos and graphics, are you seeing any particular trends that are working well with those, with those graphics, like which ones are having the most impact and generating the most sales, you're finding. 

[00:09:47] Kathleen Sweeney: Sometimes it depends on the author and the genre and the followers they have. we have a why a historical fiction.

[00:09:57] I guess it's really just not necessarily fiction, historical, why his, why a historical books. And those are doing great because in book excerpts where it's just sections of the book, people are looking on TikTok for those kind of things and researching. And so those do really well. In that case, we've helped the author clone their voice, so he.

[00:10:16] Gets to read it without having to spend the time reading it. And so it, it's almost smoother when you have a recorded voice versus him stumbling potentially over reading it. So those are doing great. some of those ma I call 'em a mashup video. Sometimes it's like, do I write children's books? No, I write, and then there's this spicy music and a collage of lots of great videos in the background.

[00:10:36] you know, whether it's motorcycles in bourbon or whether it's, you know, some romancey. Spicy scenes, things like that. people like those too. 

[00:10:45] Teddy Smith: So when you are creating those in book brush, how does that process look? is there a library of examples that you can get inspiration from or is it, does it does book brush help you to, choose the right scenes for your type of book?

[00:10:58] Kathleen Sweeney: For those, mashup ones, you would need to just put several in and we source our images. In videos from Pixa Bay, and I believe they have 4.4 million. So it seems like you'd find something that would work for you. And then on those book excerpts, that would be one where we would do it for you. you know, you could.

[00:11:15] Hire our, vertical video kind of thing and put it in the request and we can create it for you or the full service side, although I guess in the trailer creator you can upload your own audio. So if you wanted to do your recordings and then put images in there, you could tackle that in there too. So really, I never like to give no as an answer.

[00:11:33] I figure there's a way that you can do. 

[00:11:36] Teddy Smith: Have you seen any ways where customers have had particular success with using some of the tools on book brush? Have you got any good examples of where people have, have been working well before, but as they've used book brush and it's like gone on to, really help theirselves a lot?

[00:11:52] Kathleen Sweeney: I think it sometimes helped themselves, with the quantity and the number and the ease. So they wanted to be on social media, but they were tearing their hair out, trying to do it themselves on a platform that made it hard to do. Yeah. So what we hear people say is, you guys are a lifesaver. I, I can just.

[00:12:07] Spend a Sunday afternoon, do all the graphics, get 'em all posted for the month. And so whether that's a monetary return on investment or also just the social proof and the feeling that, okay, this is done. It didn't stress me out and I know I need it. You know, you can pay somebody to clean your house. It doesn't pay for itself, but it makes you happy.

[00:12:25] And so if this is something else that you want done and you can do it yourself and you have it, on social media, and of course it can't ever hurt to be on social media. That's where people are looking for the authors. 

[00:12:37] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Now going back to the cover creators, are there, are there any mistakes that you see a lot of, authors use when they're trying to create covers to their books?

[00:12:47] Kathleen Sweeney: Yeah, I think a couple of the mistakes would be, too many different fonts. And so, I would look up fonts for your genre and, and again, we have some blog posts with suggested font pairings and there's plenty of other resources out there. So pick what you would. Talk about font pairing. So two fonts in your genre that compliment each other, whether that would be, depending on your genre, one that's bolder and then the other one's maybe a sandsara, something simpler like that.

[00:13:12] And then those are the two that you use. You know, you don't wanna get excited, like, look at this, I've got five different fonts. 'cause I think they're neat. That's probably too many. Um, and then. Just making sure that you're looking at other books in your genre and what are the bestselling books doing? You know, what kind of colors are they using?

[00:13:30] And make sure that you're modeling some of those things so that you fit in with your genre so that the people who want that kind of book your, cover communicates that. 

[00:13:40] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. And, um, how long does it usually take to create a cover using book brush? 

[00:13:46] Kathleen Sweeney: I. You know, if you start with a lot of the pre-made templates, and that's what I would recommend to people.

[00:13:51] So we have, several hundred cover templates and for a wide variety of genres, they're in there. But what we tell people is use that as a starting point so that you're not staring at this blank rectangle of, I don't know what to put where and overwhelm, but change as many things as possible because those templates are for everybody.

[00:14:10] So if you go in and change one thing and you're done in five minutes, somebody else can do the same thing. Get, then your cover's gonna look a lot like theirs. So we would suggest, you know, making some different changes. I'm a big sleep on an overnight person, so I guess if you're looking for a speedy timeframe, I'm also thinking do your project and you could spend, you know, an hour in there, put that together, but come back and look at it the next day and make sure you feel the same.

[00:14:35] Also in there, you can save as many versions as you like. So, Save the one and then change the color, change the placement, change the font or all of the above, and save each iteration so that you can look back and compare. Yeah. And then of course if you've got, you know, a reader group, a fan group that you can put it out there, let them vote, or some of your other author friends too, it doesn't hurt to get some input that way.

[00:14:57] Teddy Smith: Yeah, get some, get some input from, you know, the people who actually read your books and the ones that are actually going to enjoy it. Um, so out of the features of Book Brush we've talked about so far, are there any sort of, are there any that we, we are missing that are sort of almost secret features that you think really people should be using that maybe aren't using as much?

[00:15:15] Kathleen Sweeney: Oh my gosh. I do so many videos that I call a hidden gem alert. Yeah. You know, like, oh, guess what? You can do this. So we like to think of outside of the box ways to use the tools we have. So there's just a custom creator that's our flagship tool, the first thing we built. But the possibilities are endless.

[00:15:32] So you can create all those static graphics for Facebook, Instagram, you can do bookmarks, coasters, all those kind of things. And then you can add motion to those. but then I. Tell people think of something different. So I did a, a Christmas one closer, you know, to the holidays. But you put a Christmas tree in the background, you're gonna find the image on Pixa Bay and then where each of those little ornaments are, put your books.

[00:15:55] It was so cute. You know? So nobody's gonna look like anybody else's 'cause they're your books. But it was just something different. You know, think of different ways to use those. So I think, maybe if you're thinking hidden gems, it's not necessarily a tool, it's just ways to use the tools and come up with something a little bit different.

[00:16:11] I did a video not that long ago of put your book in a bottle and so it was like the book was the label or it was in the bottle and it just was something totally different. Add a little transparency. and really cool. We got a lot of good feedback on that one. 

[00:16:25] Teddy Smith: Oh, nice. So how was the process then? Is it just you upload your book cover wherever you've created, and then you can make these, uh, decisions about exactly how you use them by going, just going through the steps.

[00:16:37] So is, is it that straightforward? 

[00:16:39] Kathleen Sweeney: Yeah, I think so. Of course I live in Breathe in book brush, but we do have a lot of people who say it's pretty easy. So you'll bring your book cover in and then it's in there for you to use over and over. You don't have to upload it every time you sign on. And the simplest is just grab the community templates when, and that, I mean, we make those for our book Brush community, so we've got thousands of those.

[00:17:00] You could sort by genre or by your need. You could search by giveaway graphics or something like that. And then click and put your book cover in. And if you like everything about the graphic, it's fine. You can download it, but you could edit for a sale price or dates or a different tagline, all those things.

[00:17:18] And then download, and you can download in. Multiple sizes. So if you started with a square and you're gonna put that on Instagram and then you're like, well, I think I'd like a horizontal for another platform, maybe Facebook, you can click on that and then just rearrange those same elements so it stays on brand, all the same pieces that you had.

[00:17:36] And then wherever people see it on social media, they can recognize that it's you. You know, like you see that a Harry Potter font. You know, a Harry Potter. So you see things that remind you, you know, authors or readers would see things that would remind them of you. When you say on brand. 

[00:17:52] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely have people who are just starting out.

[00:17:55] Maybe they're on a tight budget or they don't, haven't used many of these tools before. What are the three things they should start looking at creating first for book brush? 

[00:18:05] Kathleen Sweeney: I think the easiest are just some easy social media graphics, I guess, unless you need your cover. If you need to make a cover, then that it's a little hard to make some social media graphics about your book if you don't have the book.

[00:18:14] So, uh, one step would be the cover. Go doing your cover in the cover creator. That's probably the first thing. If you don't have it, if you're coming in with your cover, testing out, some of those social media graphics, putting your book in different scenes. We have instant mockups. People call 'em flat lays, things like that, that's probably our most popular tool.

[00:18:34] Drop your book cover in, choose a bunch of different images. Download in a handy zip file. Post on social media, like so easy and you can search by different genres in there, different seasons and different, types of words, so, or sizes too, so you know exactly what you need and then do the posting to try.

[00:18:52] We're trying to make your life easier. Your book marketing life should not be stressful. 

[00:18:55] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Do you have good tutorials on the website for teaching people where to get started? 

[00:19:01] Kathleen Sweeney: We have a pretty large FAQ bank, and then our YouTube channel has over 500 videos that you can do, like those bite-size.

[00:19:09] Let me just learn something in three to four minutes that would make my life easier. And then there's longer tutorials and we have book brush one oh ones every week that you can join live with me. And a lot of times it's a small group and so. You know, you can turn your camera on, we can find out what genre you write and look at specific examples for you, and then what questions you have.

[00:19:31] So if you are newer and you're like, wish you had centering tools, guess what we do? Let me just show you where those are at. And so you can get your, feet under you and feel like you're, you're doing a great job with the tools. 

[00:19:42] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Amazing. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Um, I think that's covered all of the things we need to go through.

[00:19:47] Uh, if web, if we wanna find you to get in touch with book Brush and to work out exactly what they needs to do, where's the best place for 'em to get started? 

[00:19:55] Kathleen Sweeney: just check us out. Our website is book brush.com and we've got a lot of examples on there. And then on YouTube we are also a book brush.

[00:20:05] That's where we have a lot of the videos to get. Just wet your appetite, check it out and think, oh yeah, I think I could do this. So let me try out, the book brush tools for my book marketing. 

[00:20:14] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Great. And also I think you've got your Facebook group as well. How does that work? 

[00:20:18] Kathleen Sweeney: So we do have the regular book brush, Facebook page, and then we have a Facebook group that you can join and we'll post, like sometimes an A or B example.

[00:20:26] We made 'em both with book brush and then say, okay, what do you think? What do you like about this one? What do you like about that one? and other people can post the things that they've created with book brush and get feedback from the group or just, show inspiration. Like, here, I watched Kathleen's video on giving your book a glow up.

[00:20:42] Here's my take. And then other people are like. Oh, I can do that too. So the Facebook group is kind of a nice supportive community there too. 

[00:20:50] Teddy Smith: Oh no. And do you have to be a member to join that Facebook group? 

[00:20:53] Kathleen Sweeney: there's just like a two question, are you a member and you say yes. And, most time I don't really know that we have anybody that desires to be in there if they're not in there.

[00:21:01] So, we usually get everybody approved in there and then they can join in the fund. 

[00:21:06] Teddy Smith: Great. Well, thanks. Coming on Kathleen. It's been a great chat and we'll speak again soon. 

[00:21:10] Kathleen Sweeney: All right. Thanks for having me. 

[00:21:12] Teddy Smith: Bye. Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing Performance Show. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring.

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