HOW I MADE MY NEW BOOK TRAILER FOR DREAMING DANGEROUSLY

Because the book trailer was outdated, I decided to redo my book trailer for DREAMING DANGEROUSLY. I used my MacBook, so I could use iMovie. I've found the program to be much easier to use than Windows Movie Maker. If you are interested in the book, just click on the book title link above.

1) I made all of my pics 1024x768 using pixlr editor, a free site for creating images. Most of my pics were from either those I bought from Shutterstock.com or free images from other parts of the internet.

2) I uploaded all of those pics into iPhoto.

3) Next, I put all of the iPhoto pics in iMovie. I arranged those like a story board. 

4) I wrote a script in Word because I knew I wanted to narrate instead of using text only.

5) On Garage Band, I recorded my voice using an echo effect, so it sounds like the voiceover is coming from Cassie's mind. I saved the file, and it appeared in iTunes.

6) Then, I imported my voiceover from iTunes into iMovie. Next, I made all of my clips the correct length for the narration. This took a lot of time because you have to do each one individually.

7) Next I looked for royalty free music, and found it at incompetech.com. The cool thing about getting music here is that you can search by type of music as well as by emotional impact. I chose "The Complex" by Kevin MacLeod in the Soundtrack genre.

8) I just adjusted the ducking so that the music didn't drown out my voiceover, and then I saved and uploaded to iTunes at Dreaming Dangerously book trailer 1080p

9) I also uploaded it to my Amazon Author's Page for DREAMING DANGEROUSLY.

 I love how it turned out. It's amazing how much I've learned about video making since the last time I made a book trailer. It took me a total of 8 hours, at the most. 

I taught myself how to use pixlr editor from watching Youtube videos a few months ago. That's how I was able to redo my book covers. I just didn't like the thought of having to pay someone $300 for a pre-made book cover. I didn't like any of the covers I saw, so I started playing around with making my own. I became proficient at iMovie when I helped my daughter with her History Alive project last year about how the Beatles impacted American history.

If this post was helpful, please leave a comment. If you are interested in knowing when my next book will be out, subscribe on the right side of my blog. I only send out newsletters when I have something to release, so I won't spam your email every day, I promise.

Also, I have a Facebook page called Dreaming Dangerously: Children of the Psi Series, go there and show your love by liking the page!

Update on Book 3 of Children of the Psi series

So excited! Almost finished with first half of book! 

My advice to anyone who writes. Don't wait for the muse to strike in order to write. Just write, even if it's horrible. Even if it's only 500 words at a time. I've been averaging 500 words a night after being a teacher all day, a mother all afternoon and most of the evening. If I can do it, so can you!

NaNoWrimo Winner!

I just finished my Na No Wri Mo, 50,000 word challenge for Book 3, When Dreams Will Come! Yeah!!

Darkness Descends Paperback Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkness Descends

by Kathleen Harsch

Giveaway ends August 25, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Amazon YA Book Marketing Experiment #1

Through Hoot Suite, I hand scheduled tweets for every half-hour starting at 9am until midnight later today. Weekend sales are supposed to be better on Amazon. We shall see. Anyway, my starting number for this month on KDP sales is 11 of DREAMING DANGEROUSLY. I want to see if the number goes up just from tweets alone.

I will report back on here tomorrow after midnight as to whether or not my experiment worked. Who knows? I might just annoy the hell out of people instead. We shall see.

My First Interview!

Win a free copy of DREAMING DANGEROUSLY by entering the contest at Young Adult Book Haven!

I've been interviewed by Kristin the webmaster of Young Adult Book Haven. Check out the ten questions she asked me to get some insight into how I wrote Dreaming Dangerously. Then, enter to win!

Young Adult Book Haven Review

Dreaming Dangerously broke 200 in book sales!

I'm so happy to announce that so far, I've sold over 200 copies of Dreaming Dangerously. This is with no real advertising budget and mostly word of mouth. Of course I am looking for more ways to expand, but I'm also writing Darkness Descends, which I hope to have out before this summer! Will is dying to tell his story!

Waiting on Kindle Review

I've finally published Dreaming Dangerously on Kindle. However, it takes 24 hours to review and put up on the site to go on sale. Also, I revised my proof copy for Create Space and uploaded it to that site for review. I will have to order another proof copy before I can actually put the book up for sale. The moment it goes on sale. I'm letting everyone know.

My next post will include the Book Trailer for Dreaming Dangerously.