Thoughts At One In The Morning is proud to present a blog post series for unpublished writers on the self-publishing world. I have asked four indie authors to share with you the different steps they have taken on their journey. They will discuss the writing process itself, the steps in between, and publishing itself. Please join us every week for a new topic on the journey to becoming an indie author!
Our Indie Author panel:
Marie Landry, author of Blue Sky Days
You can find her on her blog Ramblings Of A Daydreamer.
A.M. Hargrove, author of The Guardians Of The Vesteron series
You can find her on her blog A.M. Hargrove.
Avery Sawyer, author of Notes To Self
You can find her on her website The Teashop Girls.
Michelle Flick, author of The Owens Legacy: Revelations
You can find her on her blog Oh! For the LOVE of BOOKS!.
~*~
This week on The Journey of Self-Publishing:
~First Drafts and Revisions~
Did you make a book trailer?
Marie Landry: I did. I knew it wasn’t necessary, and that a lot of people really don’t care about them, but it was something I wanted to do - I wanted the ‘whole experience’, and the trailer seemed like part of that.
Michelle Flick: No - I haven't but I haven't crossed it off my list.
A.M. Hargrove: No book trailers yet. When I get to the point where I think they'll make a big difference, then I'll consider it.
How do I make a book trailer?
Marie Landry: Windows Movie Maker is a great place to start, but it can take a while to figure out how to use it. There are other ‘movie maker’ programs, but I honestly don’t know much about them. For me, I basically created the trailer in Photoshop and Animation Shop, then moved it over to Windows Movie Maker to piece it all together and add the music. Kind of a roundabout way of doing it, but it’s what worked for me since I was familiar with design and animation.
Where do I find the pictures?
Marie Landry: You can buy images on the same sites I mentioned for cover design (Dreamstime, Shutterstock, and iStockPhoto.), you can use your own photos, or you can search for free creative commons photos on Google, Flickr, and other photo sharing sites. Again, just make sure to read the fine print about image usage. I did all three - a few of the pictures were my own, some were creative commons, and the rest I bought.
Where do I find the music/sounds?
Marie Landry: Search for ‘Royalty Free Music’ on Google. There are tons of sites that you can either buy the rights to use the song, or simply give credit for using the song. I got my music from DanoSongs.com - he had a great selection, and you can choose to use the song for free with credit, or donate $10. A lot of the other sites I came across wanted a minimum of $25 per song.
~*~
Thank you for the great advice on book trailers!
Join us next week when our Indie Author panel will discuss in more detail Establishing Yourself Online, where you should be and how to go about it in promotion of your novel.
I went to a conference that had a panel on making book trailers. It was very interesting. As was this, of course. ;)
ReplyDeleteLol. I probably won't make one myself, but I think they are pretty cool. :)
DeleteI don't know whether I'm surprised or not that I'm the only one who did a trailer. I don't think I'll do one in the future, but to me it felt like part of the *whole author experience* and it would have driven me nuts if I didn't do one. Even though it was a ridiculous amount of work, I'm still glad I did it, but I really think this will be my only one.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great series, Jess, I sure wish I'd had something like this when I was starting out! ;-)
Hehehe, I think it's great that you did... otherwise I wouldn't have had anything to share! But seriously, it does look like fun. I'm glad you were able to do it once. :)
DeleteI'm hoping at least a few of my followers are able to get on the right track with this series! :D