Book Trailers

In case the quality isn't too good, here's the link for the video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyui1kfCd_8

I enjoy doing these book trailers far more than I do a synopsis, or even a book blurb. I think it's because there's a combination of words, pictures and sound instead of just words. and I love the fact that I can juggle all three around endlessly until I get it just as I want it.
For the story encapsulated in this book trailer, it was wonderful to be able to go out and take pictures of the actual places and buildings where the story takes place. As the pictures suggest, most were taken in high summer when everything is green and lush in the Tyne valley.

What I need to know is this: do book trailers help to promote books? Is there any evidence for or against?

Book trailers

You can probably tell that the weather here is not as good as it should be by the amount of time I'm spending writing for my blog! We've got wind and rain showers and it is definitely c-o-o-o-l.

I checked my You Tube trailers last night to see how they're doing. If you're interested here are the links -

one
two
three

The two later ones are definitely better than the one I did for Dark Pool - whatever possessed me to use pink font over a scene of Viking raiders? Sigh. One lives and learns...

A minute and a half seems to be a good length of time to get across a simple message. There's a difference in amateur trailers and those produced by professionals, but we do what we can with the limited resources we have. It is something I enjoy. Maybe if I was twenty and looking for a career, it might have appealed. The young people of today have so many opportunities for fascinating careers ~ things that were only to be found in science fiction sixty years ago!

The pics are from the batch taken in Perigeueux yesterday.

Do I have time for Edits?

I received edits for FAR AFTER GOLD yesterday, and immediately set to work. By 8pm I reached Chapter Twelve and found that I was reading than checking, so I stopped. Today I was due to meet friends in Newcastle for a days shopping, which was great for friendship but bad for edits. (We devoured a white wine spritzer with Eggs Benedict in the new eatery where the old French Salon used to be in Fenwicks while Bill carried on with the kitchen re-vamp. Some days it feels as if I have all the fun!)
True to form when something important comes along - like receiving edits - I had also received a request for a full ms of Heiress's Dilemma from a publisher in America, I have a coffee date tomorrow morning, and I have just begun to play around with pictures for another YouTube video. I should also do some critiques for the group.
However, back to edits. No time to waste. When they are done, I'll get back to everything else.

My video and The Making of Me

Well, I've done it. Someone said something, I got curious and the result is I have completed a "video" for Youtube all on my own. You might want to fall apart laughing but here is the link -
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7QehG-a6c


I've done it, but I'm not sure I could repeat the process! If it gives a flavour of the book, if it makes anyone want to read it, then perhaps I ought to think hard and do more! One for Banners of Alba, and I could prepare others for the books patiently waiting in the pipeline. Except that that might be the kiss of death - perhaps I'll wait until I have a contract!

First it was John Barrowman, then Colin Jackson and last night Vanessa Mae in a programme called The Making of Me. I find it fascinating, and you might too. It is the old argument of Nature v Nurture. The first programme brought up an interesting theory on why homesexuals are as they are - not genes, not upbringing, but a hormonal imbalance while the infant is in the womb. Too little testosterone for a male, or too much for a female can make the child "different." The theory make sense, but I can see that mothers will not want to feel they are to blame for their child's orientation.

As for Colin, he was born with 25% super fast twitch muscles, way above the level you or I might own. But without all his hard work, perseverance and a supportive family and environment, those muscles would have done very little for him.

Vanessa Mae admits she did not have a normal childhood. Immersed in music from age four, she finally broke loose from her mother at the age of twenty one and has not spoken to her for eight years. As I understood the programme there is nothing Vanessa was born with that has led to her being a maestro and worth 30 million today - except, perhaps, that she has very sensitive hearing. The rest is down to thousands of practice hours, an excessive drive for perfection and an extrovert personality that thrives on risk.

Reading and YOUtube

I love this image courtesy of PDPhoto.org

Two thirds of the way through Save the Cat (STC from now on) and it is an entertaining read even though I don't think I'll take to writing screenplays. A lot of the theory behind it applies to fiction writing as well, and that's why it is interesting. Already I'm making notes! One cryptic scibble in my notebook reads: "How does F cope when she realises she NEEDS Jack? She can't tolerate it!"

Ah well, no doubt it'll work in somewhere.

I'm surprised and pleasedf to find that I'd already figured out that certain things need to happened at a certain spot in the category romance (and possibly with all fiction with the exception of literary fiction which these days seems to have no plot at all but strings words together beautifully as it meanders along.) The screenplay is 110 pages, no more, no less. So if I multiply that by 3 to get a rough approximation of category romance, we have 330 pages with which to play. (Not quite that many, but near enough.) Then he breaks it down into 15 beats or Places Where Things Must Happen, and lo and behold, these too fit the category novel.

As for You tube: it is something I have fought shy of, believing it to be the home of restless cyber kids. But as of today, if you put DARK POOL into the video search box, up pops a two minute video about my book. Let me know what you think, and hurry, because I don't know if the person who did it is going to leave it there!