James Minter's Blog: Writers do it in Public... - Posts Tagged "self-publishing"

By: James Minter
As part of my book marketing strategy, I took a lead from Joanna Penn's book, ‘How to Market a Book for Authors from an Author’, and opted to go down the video route. Acutely aware that writers are financial poor, time strapped and not necessarily very technical, I’ve put this blog post together to help cut through the video making minefield yet maintain quality. Nothing turns off prospective readers more than a poor quality video.

My experience is based around using an iPhone 4s and an iPad. The iPhone has two cameras. By using the front camera you capture the image and see yourself on the phone’s screen at the same time. That way, as you are working by yourself, you can see how well framed you are in the picture.

IPhone Setup:
Taking video is resource intensive. There are several things you need to do to your iPhone before your start to shoot video:
1) In Settings switch to Airplane mode
2) In Settings go to General, scroll down to Auto-Lock and set to Never.
3) In Setting go to General, then Usage and check how much available storage is on the iPhone. You’ll need a minimum of 1 gigabyte (GB).
4) Kill all other apps running on the iPhone in the background.
Your iPhone is now ready to go.

A stable shot is paramount. Wobble video will turn your viewer off very quickly. To enable you to take steady footage, you’ll need a mount for the iPhone so it can be fixed to a tripod. On any Amazon site, you’ll find a host of affordable mounts such as Photo Plus Mobile Phone Tripod Mount or the Big Bargain Universal Bracket Adapter Mount for a few dollars or pounds. They both attach to any existing tripod you may have. Remember, the camera lens needs to be at the same height as your eye line.

With iPhone mounted, you will want to get started, but alas there is more setup. First, is lighting: as the sensors in smartphone is small, they require good lighting to work efficiently. In low light your video will look gloomy, poor/flat colours and if playing on a big screen, grainy. Sitting near a window will help but if there’s bright sunshine streaming in you’ll have strong shadows on you face from your nose, around your eye sockets, and under your chin. Avoid all harsh lights. With the window you could hang a sheet over it to soften the glare. Reading lamps can be used: two are better set at 45 degrees left and right of you. Direct, straight on lights tend to flatten your features.

Second, sound: the internal microphone of the iPhone will record sound but does nothing to enhance your speaking voice. An external, affordable microphone found on Amazon will improve the sound significantly. The iRig Mic Handheld Microphone at $40/£26 is a good option or the Rode SMARTLAV Lavalier Microphone at $50/£35. However, both these plug into the mini-jack headphone socket of the iPhone rather than the 30 pin connector. The Samson Meteor USB Microphone at $75/£50 is very good but you need a USB to 30 pin converter, as well. With a good quality microphone, you can make audio samples of your books or complete audio books so spending $75/£50 on a microphone is a good investment.

Third: choosing what you wear, any make-up, the room location and what’s behind you impacts the “watchability” of the final video. On Google there are many tips on clothes, makeup and jewellery. The room you’re using needs to be quiet, away from traffic noise, family noise, TV/radio/computer games, and nature —no birds twittering or dogs barking. All these sounds will find their way into your video. Also keep children and pets out of the room, they are distracting to you and your viewers. Finally, locate yourself so over your shoulder is not too busy – you want simple lines, plain walls, no clutter. Because you are looking at the camera and cannot see what’s behind you it doesn’t mean the camera or your audience can’t.

Preparing to Read:
You are shooting a reading video so you need something to read. Reading from the actual book can be difficult because of page turning – noisy, distracting and the pages won’t behave by not wanting to lay flat but curl. The answer is to use an autocue or teleprompter like television news readers. There’s a free App for this: Teleprompter Pro Lite. Once you’ve installed it you will need to import your Word file of the scene you’ll be reading.

Tips on using the Teleprompter software:
• Set the speed control for the rolling text at 12 - you will need to practice
• Insert a countdown into your text i.e. type in 10, 9, 8, 7, etc. into the top of your file, one number per line. A countdown lets you press the record button on the camera and compose yourself before you start reading
• Limit the amount of text to around 1000 words or 5 minutes of reading
• Set the iPad on a table as close to the camera as possible but beneath the camera’s field of view. As you read, your eyes will naturally look at the teleprompter and not at the lens.

Framing yourself in shot is important. Make sure you mount the iPhone in landscape orientation with the home button on the left otherwise your image will be upside down. Position yourself according to the rule of thirds (checkout on Google). It makes your video more interesting and more importantly, it leaves space to the side of your head for a graphic object such as your book cover to be added in the editing process if desired.

Now go for a practice run: open the camera app, choose the front camera and lean back in your seat. Adjust the camera/your position for the best framing position, look for shadows, any speckles on your clothes, and check for glare reflecting from glasses if you wear them. Also, men thinning on top, reflect light – move yourself, move the light or apply some makeup until it’s no longer visible.

Before pressing the record button, there’s one last important setup action. The camera will want to automatically refocus as you move. Again moving will change the exposure (the amount of light coming into the lens) so the camera continually compensates. You need to set both, before turning these automatic functions off. To do this, sit where you will eventually be sat and stretch towards the iPhone screen (not the camera). Looking at your image, touch and hold the screen where you want the camera’s exposure/focus to be; usually your face. A yellow square is displayed which pulses after a second or two of holding. This tells you the camera has registered your preferences. Also, a small yellow banner appears on the bottom of the screen saying AE Lock.

Now press the record button (the big red blob) and the start button on your Teleprompter, sit back and compose yourself. Watch the countdown and wait to begin reading. Don’t start reading as the first line appears wait until its scrolled up a couple of lines otherwise you’ll run out of words to read. But this is a practice session, one of many I suggest until you get use to the setup and pace.

Reading aloud is different from reading in your head. It needs to be practiced, especially pacing, inflections and breathing. Now you’ve read your piece a dozen times you’re confident to go for a take.

The next stage is post production, but if you've got everything right there should be no need. So now you can upload your video straight from your IPhone to the YouTube account you created earlier. Now tell the world its there…

The Author's Guide to Working with Book Bloggers by Barb Drozdowich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is another ‘How to …’ book from Ms Drozdowich – long may she write them. For me how to books are essential reading to gain a quick insight into the topic under discussion – in this case book bloggers – as they take away the very time consuming drudgery of doing your own research. As a fiction author I have many demands on my time, so books like this are an excellent way to make efficient use of a scarce resource.
First published in 2012, but as is the huge benefit of eBooks, they can be constantly updated, and given how fast the self-publishing industry is moving, this is essential for books of this nature. This edition is right up to date.
Based on extensive research - Ms Drozdowich surveyed 215 book bloggers, and she is herself is a romance book blogger (http://sugarbeatsbooks.com/ ) – she speaks with authority.
Until now my interaction with book bloggers has been minimal – it’s been one of those things, are part of the self-publisher’s arsenal for discovery, I've been meaning to undertake but been put off because of the commitment needed to researching who I should contact. This book couldn't be timelier for me, and within the first the first few pages I’d justified my investment.
Ms Drozdowich writing style is empathetic with author’s needs – she is an author after all - direct, to the point and with minimal superfluous narrative. She has a genuine need to help authors which she does time and again with this book; her website’s strap line is ‘helping one author at a time’ (http://barbdrozdowich.com/ ). Authors developing relationships with book bloggers is essential; so buying, reading and acting on her book is too. Highly recommended …




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Advanced Twitter Strategies For Authors: Twitter Techniques To Help You Sell Your Book - In Under 15 Minutes A Day! by Ian Sutherland

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Advanced Twitter Strategies for Authors to Sell More Books – Ian Sutherland

‘How to …’ books are a blessing for busy people – there is so much to learn and so little time to learn it in. Books on using Twitter are many and varied in quality and usefulness. As an author myself, my view of the role of Twitter was it’s a great tool to schmoose the publishing industry but of little use for selling books. Ian Sutherland has changed my mind. ‘Advanced Twitter Strategies …’ was written by Ian from hard won experience, and the proof is in the number of twitter followers he has, and in his book sales rank available for anyone to see on Amazon. Okay, he is not number one but he is respectable placed given the millions of fiction books out there. It was after checking out these figures and noting his claim ‘I’ve struck gold!’ I decided to read and follow Ian’s techniques to the letter. Although at present I cannot report the same level of success (Ian went from 1,500 followers gained over four year period to plus 60,000 in a few months), it’s early days yet but already I’ve seen a marked improvement in the number of Twitter followers, I’ve divested myself on many laggards because of better targeting of whom I follow / unfollow, and I’ve seen a significant increase in the number of ‘lists’ I’ve been added to. What is more, Ian is ethical in his method – SHARP – is his byword (an acronym) which sums up his approach.
This book is not for the fainted hearted as you need a good basic understanding of and previous skills in using Twitter before adopting his techniques. Also it’s not a book to read in a few minutes – I suggest a reasonably detailed first read taking notes as you go, and then opening the book on your Kindle / Tablet alongside you PC screen so you can work through the setting up and configuration of the tools he recommends and illustrates in the text.
Once you’ve mastered the tools Ian gives a detailed plan of how to manage your Twitter account in 15 minutes per day freeing yourself up to do what fiction writers are supposed to be doing – creating jaw dropping stories.
I’m sold on this book, and very happy to give it five stars and to recommend it to all serious Twitter users be they authors or not.





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Because Self-Publishing Works by V.V. Cam

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Self-publishing is now a very accepted way to bring your novel to market – even the most successful authors like JK Rowling are using this approach. However, writing a novel to the standards demanded by readers is, in many writers minds, the biggest and principle issue they face. As a self-published author of twelve books, believe me when I say that writing an attention-grabbing story, though significant, is only one step to becoming a successful author. The demands of the self-publishing process are high, complex, time-consuming, frustrating, bewildering and at times, make you question is it all worth it.
Any author going down the self-publishing road needs all the help they can get. As V.V Cam says in her introduction, there is a heap of information out there on the internet, but what she has done is make a good attempt at bringing it all together into a single place. By doing so this she’s made the information more accessible, as well as presenting it in a logically structured style – you only need to read the Table Of Contents to see that. Moreover, it is heavily spread with her own hard-won knowledge and experience gained by going through the process with her husband’s book. That’s why I love “How to…” books. They capture hard-won knowledge and experience and make it available in an easily consumable form so saving you making the same mistakes or going off tangent.
People write for many reasons, but not everyone attempts to publish their work. A useful device V.V Cam employs throughout the book is self-assessment questionnaires. In chapter two she offers one appropriate to answer the question – is self-publishing right for you. I recommend you complete this since you will better understand why your writing and if you’ve the time/tenacity/money to bring you book to the general public.
Self-publishing is a big, evolving process, and a guide such as this cannot be complete or totally up to date. As with all eBooks, it can constantly be corrected, amended, or added to. V.V Cam makes a good use of live links to allow the reader to explore some of the software products and tools she mentions.
I’m a visual person, and for me, I would like to have seen a diagram covering the whole process. That way each chapter could reference the diagram as the book unfolds so you can monitor your progress. By its very nature the publishing steps are interrelated, and on a few occasions reference is made to an item like ISBN’s or Tax Identification Number but not discussed until much later. Also, some recommendations like grabbing your Author page on Goodreads and Amazon were weak suggestions rather than being presented as a must do. Additionally, I felt chapters 6, 7, and 8 were rushed/sketchy and needed more attention.
In conclusion, a book worth purchasing but there are gaps, but in fairness writing the definitive guide would be near on impossible.
The author supplied me with a copy for the purpose of a review.



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The Complete Mailing List Toolkit: A box set by Barb Drozdowich

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


For authors, the humble mailing list has been described as the ultimate book marketing channel. With an email list, you can promote and share new ideas, products, and services and then direct readers to a place where they can make the purchase – your website, Amazon, etc. Moreover, email is the fastest, cheapest, most powerful way to engage with your readers in large numbers. No other service, not even social media, is as personal as email, and if done right, you have the potential to sell way more books through email than you can any other way.
Ms Drozdowich has an impressive portfolio of author related “how to …” books and a well-deserved loyal following. With this latest offering, she provides help navigating this extremely important book marketing tool. Sold as a box set of four books Ms Drozdowich covers Strategies To Grow Your List, The Nuts & Bolts of MailChimp, Get Your Emails Delivered, and Newsletters That Rock. Although she focuses on the MailChimp software, many of the lessons learnt cover other popular mail handlers like AWeber email management.
I am a great fan of this type of book since most of the work has been done for me – it is now down to you to put this hard-won knowledge and experience to good use. It is not definitive, but it is another very useful addition to the toolkit for authors to achieve sales success and I believe well worth the price. Get your copy, work it, and see your book sales increase.
The author supplied me with a copy for review purposes.




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