Creating a Rotating Banner

I’ve been asked this question a lot lately and thought I’d share this tip with you. It’s actually really easy to create a rotating banner or a rotating series of book covers/images.

Best of all, it’s free! Why do you need to do this as a writer? Publicity and Promotion. It’s not enough to write a good book anymore. You need to know how to promote. For those of you who may be attending the NJRW Conference in October, Lisa Renee Jones and I will be doing a workshop titled Promo or Perish during which we will discuss the many avenues of promotion that writers should consider.

So here’s how to create a rotating web banner:

First, download Microsoft Gif Animator using this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_GIF_Animator
This program is freeware and really easy to use.

Next, make sure that you’ve got gif files of all your covers (or whatever images you want to animate).

The images/covers should all be the same size. You can use PAINT to make them GIF files if you don’t have any other graphic software. You should be able to resize them using paint as well.

If you plan on loading the banner to a specific site, you may wish to check their requirements. Otherwise, 170×269 pixels is a good size for a banner that looks like a book cover (see below).

For a traditional web banner, the typical size is usually 468×60 pixels (see below for a sample of a traditional web banner).

The problem is that the bigger you make each cover/image, the larger the rotating file becomes which can make it too big for some sites or your own website.

Once you’ve saved all the covers in the one size, open Gif animator and click on the OPEN icon. Open the first GIF file you created. After that click on the INSERT icon until you’ve got all the covers you want to rotate in the order you wish for them to appear. You can move them up and down later if you change your mind about the order.

Do a FILE SAVE AS (using the Icon that looks like multiple disks). Give the file a new name so you don’t write over your first GIF file.

Now it’s time to get the covers/images rotating.

For the first cover/image, click on Animation and then on Looping, and finally on Repeat Forever.

Then go to Image and use a Duration of at least 120 (2 seconds).

Do this for each cover and then Save the file.

When you are done, you will have a rotating set of covers/images.

To test, insert this new GIF file into Word and say – Web Page Preview. You should see the covers rotating on your screen.

Hope this Tuesday Tip was of assistance. If you’d like to see more Tech kinds of tips for writers, please let me know.