Getting back in the Video Editing Swing

This is a mockup of a video trailer for my WIP, Wesley's Women. It's a mockup because I'm still looking for images for the final cut. I'll use many that are in the mockup, though.

Also I will use other music. The music on the mockup are free cuts from Jewel Beat. They are about 15 seconds long and I just string them together on the video edit screen's timeline.

My editing softeware is old and not supported by the manufacturer anymore. Nevertheless, it is quite capable, with  number of fancy transitions -- checkerboards, blinds, page peels and such. I don't particularly enjoy seeing those in videos, so I don't use them in mine. I prefer straight cuts or dissolves.

The video below is quite rough. There are missing fades and such I intended to go back and remedy, but the program crashed and I'm probably going to have to reinstall it and deal with some other problems. involving third party codecs, about which I know nothing. I don't even know what a codec is. Many Internet searches  lie ahead for me.

But it IS a rough so ...  it's rough. You can still get an idea about what the finished trailer will be like -- and hopefully, what my novel is about.

Wesley's Women is about 1/3 to 1/2 finished. The video depicts events from the first half of the book. So, there's still quite a bit of writing to do.

(Mockup removed. See next blog post for finished video.)
I have already posted an image of the cover on the blog -- scroll back to see it. Once this video is completed, I think I will go back and make video trailers for Storm Surge and Little Sister.

A New Direction

In the ten years since if first uploaded Southern Man to Amazon.com, I have sold enough books, of all my titles, to buy a Happy Meal. Well, it's not quite that dismal, but it's pretty bad. The problem is not my writing -- far more badly written fiction gets published and sells ... the problem is that I cannot stand to do marketing and promotion. And it just HAS to be done.

As P.T. Barnum said....

"Without promotion, something terrible happens.
Nothing."
So I am I'm learning how to promote my titles. I have made a Facebook author page. I have completely redesigned my author website, and it is ready to upload when I find a new webhost. I am learning about "reader magnets" and newsletters. I am going to republish some of my older books, and re-cover and re-blurb all of them.

There are other aspects of promotion and marketing I will have to learn, but this is a start. We will see how it goes.

Here are two of the re-designed covers, for my romantic suspense titles. All I did was add people to the cover, but the folks in my writers groups think this change makes them look more like romances. 

 

Meanwhile, I'm working on Book Four of the Legacy of Fortitude series... It is turning out to be a real heart-tugger.

And waiting out there in the future, the Walravens....