Creating videos for your blog or your book #BYBin30

Adding video to your arsenal for marketing your book or drawing more readers to your blog can be a real boost. More and more people are turning to vlogs instead of blog reading as well as book trailers to decide what they want to read next.

Although I am new to attempting the video platform, there are a few tips I can give you. First off, begin simply. If you don't know much about video editing software or how to create your own videos, don't start with a complicated software program that requires some previous experience.

The following two videos are examples of some very simple video software programs.

Here's one that my husband and young daughter created for the Chapter Book Challenge using an app called Adobe Voice which they downloaded for free to my husband's ipad.

Chapter Book Challenge

Here's one, using the same app, that I created to go along with my previous post about creating book covers.

Which brings me to another tip: If you are creating a vlog for learning purposes, be sure to include a transcript of the video. While video is the growing trend, there are still many people who don't have the luxury of listening to a video  and still others who prefer to read the post rather than watch it through a video. Adding a transcript gives them options and prevents any of your readers/listeners from leaving your blog without learning what they came to learn. (In the case of the above video, the transcript can be found here.)

Check out the free software that is out there. There are hundreds of free video creation,slideshow creation and video editing software apps out there and many of them are free. If you have a Mac computer or laptop, then you will most likely have iMovie on your computer already. Here's a slideshow style video that my husband made for Melusine Muse Press using iMovie on his Apple laptop. My husband also likes using Microsoft PowerPoint to create slideshow-style videos. If you have a non-Apple computer, then you might have MovieMaker on it. Not all of the Microsoft computers have this program but some of them come with it already loaded.

When it comes to book trailers, your trailers need to be interesting enough to make people want to buy your book. A slideshow of photos won't always be enough to draw your potential reader in. Video clips combined together will work best, but there are other ways to make your video interesting. Here are two examples of video book trailers that use simple illustrations and artwork to create an interesting clip about the book. (Both books are anthologies, and both book trailers were created by Julia Stilchen.) 





Needless to say, videos where you create movement within the video from your own or others' artwork need a little bit more skill to create. There are several programs out there for teaching you how to create your own book trailers or for learning to create more complicated videos. One of the best ones out there (particularly for children's writers) is the Video Idiot Boot Camp by Katie Davis. So what do you think? Are you ready to try out some video blogging for your blog or a video book trailer for your book? ***** 

This is just one of the prizes that you might win at the end of the challenge. (Not all book marks look like this. It might be a fairy book mark or something else, but it will be created in a similar style. Bookmarks are handmade by me. One of these will be added to the collection of prizes that one signed up member will win during the drawing on April 30th.)