Should you make your own book trailer?

Book trailers have become very popular important tools for both print and eBooks. I recently made a book trailer for my book Writing Historical Fiction: Advice for the Digital Age.  You can view it here.  For my book trailer, I used the free online tool Animoto.  My trailer used text rather than images, so it was fast to make, and I didn’t have to worry about getting permission to use copyrighted images. Since I uploaded the trailer to YouTube, I had to purchase a license for the music I used in the trailer so as not to violate copyright. (More about finding music and copyright free images in another blog.)  Although my trailer was easy to make and not very expensive, it is also not very professional looking.  Lesson learned: It might be better to hire a professional to make your book trailer. But if you want to make your own, check out models at http://www.booktrailersforreaders.com/.

Other free online tools for creating book trailers are Stupeflix, shwup, flextime and masher.

Set your goals in writing historical fiction

I like to make lists to keep track of things I hope to accomplish in a day, week, month, and year. That’s why I was tickled to find a free task tracker called LazyMeter, which helps track my progress on a writing project. It is essentially a checklist that uses metrics to show you visually how much you have accomplished compared to what you set out to do.

There is a good article on the LazyMeter blog that explains how the tool can help you track your productivity, and why6 you just might prefer it to the old-fashioned pen and paper method.

Bookshelves

Recently my publisher decided to forego the publishing of print books for eBooks.  It is cheaper I suppose, and technology enables readers to download reading material instantly. My last book was published as an eBook, in fact.  All of my print books are now available as eBooks.  It makes me a little sad to think that I will never be able to hold one of my books in my hands again.

Although I own a Kindle and an iPad on which I have downloaded many books, I do prefer to hold a paper book in my hands.  I like the smell of the ink and the way the pages feel.  I like the sound of those pages when I turn them. I like to organize them on my bookshelves at camp, and I like the way the colors of the covers brighten the room. 

You can see my bookshelf here.

When I am visiting others folks’ homes, I like to explore their bookshelves to see what they like to read. That’s why I was delighted to find a website called Breathing Books devoted to showcasing photographs of other readers’ bookshelves. Call me old fashioned.

Here is the link for bookshelf voyeurs: http://breathingbooks.tumblr.com/

Mind map your story

Learn by watching rather than reading

Recently I found a wonderful tool for research at snagfilms.com.  You can access free documentary films to view from this site.  I downloaded a free app that allows me to view films on my iPad, but you can view them on a computer as well.  I tried the site tool “movie matcher” that allowed me to narrow my search.  I was interested in the history of the “go green” environmental movement in the U. S. (you can also find Canada, UK and international documentaries using this tool), so I clicked on “go green” and “history” and the tool located six results for me.  This might be a hit or miss way to research something you want to write about, but if you like to get your information via film rather than via reading, it might be worth a try as a research aid.