Marketing Your Book with the KDP Free Promotion, Book Trailers for Non-fiction Books, This Week

Hello and welcome to the J.Q. Rose blog! 

I bet you had a blessed Easter and/or Passover. Now spring is officially here! 

Many folks' thoughts turn to vegetable gardening this time of year. My DH, Gardener Ted, and I joined forces to offer information in our guide, Quick Tips on Vegetable Gardening: Starting Your Garden, to help them get inspired and to offer practical advice on gardening. 

Vegetables from J.Q. Rose and Gardener Ted's garden

I had a blast putting all the articles together and working with my hubby on the final product. I uploaded the file to Amazon on February 15, 2015. The eBook hit the Amazon bestseller lists the next day!  I was thrilled. But after the first rush, sales fell off. 

I decided to try the KDP promotion of offering the eBook for free. I don't have the second book in the series available yet, but I decided to use part of my 5 days of free promotion at this time since 'tis the season to start a garden. 

I was blown away with the response to the three day "sale." I gave away over 1100 eBooks and reached #1 in crafts/hobbies and seasonal categories of Amazon's free kindle eBooks. 

I decided to use the free promotion for several reasons:

• Create buzz to earn real sales after the promotion
• To gauge the interest in vegetable gardening
• To garner reviews for the book

I chose the dates because in Michael Thomas eBook, Crush It on the Kindle: A Guide to Publishing and Maximizing Sales, advised offering the free promotion at the end of the month. He explained "The biggest jump came from people borrowing my book at the beginning of the month, which increased its sales rank, which increased its visibility, which increased its actual sales and profits." I figured if he achieved great results when giving it away for just one day, I'd offer it for three days to include the end of the month and the beginning. Perhaps this was erroneous thinking on my part. (Just like the assumption that if fertilizer is good for a plant, give it more than the directions say, and it will grow faster. No, don't do that,)

I'm sure I made an error when selecting the days for the give away because by making the promo 3 days, I bumped up into Good Friday, Passover, and Easter weekend. When the give-away ended on Thursday, April 2, the next day to actually purchase the book was Friday and the beginning of the weekend. As I write this blog on Monday morning, I have not sold one eBook. So the "buzz" didn't translate into actual sales. 

Do I have hope this week will see sales? You bet I do because the royalties are going to support local food pantries in my area. Have I missed the optimal time to sell a book on Starting Your Garden? Not in Michigan! It's still snowing there and in many northern states. I also rationalize, people always have that desire to get their hands dirty. Gardening is not just a few weeks in the spring.

Another tidbit for you to tuck away in your marketing tool box--I notified several websites who feature FREE eBooks so I could rely on not only Amazon's promotion, but also those sites. Shelley Hitz Places to Submit Your Free KDP Select Promotion PDF made it easy to find and enter the eBook info. The link to the PDF is in her eBook, Marketing Your Book on Amazon: 21 Things You Can Easily Do for Free to Get Exposure and Sales.

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Besides the give-away as a marketing tool, I decided to make a book trailer for the eBook. I worked on it and got it ready, then it dawned on me that book trailers are usually for fictional books. Have you ever seen a book trailer for a non-fiction book?? Hmmm....well, after all that time I spent on this video, I'm going to be brave and share it with you below even if non-fiction trailers are not done! 

VIDEO: Quick Tips on Vegetable Gardening: Starting Your Garden

Book Trailer for  Quick Tips on Vegetable Gardening

Have you tried using the KDP Select Free Promotion in your marketing efforts? Is it in your marketing plan? What do you think of book trailers for non-fiction books? Please leave a comment below. We'd love to hear from you.

This Week:

Thursday, April 9--Author Kyla Phillips is my guest. She suggests four points when world-building in your stories. Come back for this helpful information and to discover her new urban fantasy, Agent of Light, releasing in May.

Be sure to get notices of new posts on the J.Q. Rose blog by submitting your email in the box in the right side bar. I promise, NO SPAM!!

Tips for Creating a Video (Book Trailer) for Your Book and This Week's Events

Tips for Creating a Video (Book Trailer) for Your Book

by J.Q. Rose

H0w DO you put together a book trailer? Does putting together a video seem like an impossible idea? Well, I'm here to tell you it is possible. Like everything you want to do well, it takes practice. I'm still learning, but I love a challenge and truthfully, creating a movie trailer is a lot of fun. 

Today I'm sharing a list of helpful information I've discovered while learning. Please note,  I'm still learning. I am no professional. I use the Windows Movie Maker already on my laptop. To find it in Windows 7 and 8, click on the colorful start button at the bottom of the screen and type in movie maker and it will pop up for you. Click on it and your screen will be filled with this amazing FREE program. I cannot explain how to use Movie Maker. It is intuitive if you have any computer knowledge at all. Otherwise Google for a tutorial for the program.

There are other Free programs, iMovies for the Mac and Slideroll which works with any computer. But I have no experience with either one of these. These hints though will help you with whatever movie program you use.

Let's get started:

• Begin by writing the copy for your video. Actually, if you have a blurb or back of the book piece done for your book, use that for your video.
• Photos are the main feature of the video trailer so selecting he right ones to tell your story is crucial. You can download your own, buy them, or find some excellent ones at Dreamstime and Public Domain Pictures. Google "royalty free" free photos and you will have a lot of sites to choose from. Most sites allow you to use the photo, but request an attribution to the site and/or photographer.
• While writing a book, I pin photos of places and faces and anything related to the plot into my Pinterest board. No, you cannot use anyone else's photos to sell your book, so you must get permission from the site or photographer due to copyright laws to include them in your video.
• When I pour over photos, either my own or from a site, I save them in a file labeled with the book name e.g. Coda to Murder Movie Trailer. Because they are all in one file, it's easy to go to that file and upload the photos you want to use into the story board on Movie Maker. 
• Don't make your trailer more than 2 minutes long. Tell your story in as short of time as possible. 
• I like to place the caption on the photo because using a blank slide for every image lengthens the time. However, a caption on a plain colored slide is a good break when needed or if you just couldn't find the right picture for that part. I used the slide below in my Coda to Murder trailer. I use Print Shop 22 to make a plain or textured slide by opening to a blank page, then selecting the background. Save it to your movie trailer file and you can use it over and over.    
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• In movie maker, you have the choice of captioning or using a credit slide. The difference is the credit slide rolls like you might see in a real movie. I find it difficult to get all that important information on the roll and make it easy for readers to absorb everything. I suggest using the caption slide to display the name of the book and author, author's links, buy links, credits for photos and music. Yes, definitely include those credits!!
• I love, love, love, Kevin McLeod's Infotech.com music site. He has the music according to genre, so if you want horror or mystery or comedy, it's easy to find the right sound to give your show the right atmosphere. I could listen all day to the music. He is brilliant!
• Be careful you don't pick annoying background music. The longer the trailer, the more chance the music will become unbearable unless you choose more than one tune.
• Be sure to SAVE your work as you go! It takes a lot of time to put this work together, so you don't want to lose it if there is a hiccup in the system. --Yes, I'm speaking from experience.
• Once you are happy with the trailer, and your eyeballs are weary of watching the 15 slides or more and your ears are ringing with that snappy soundtrack music, you are ready to save it and download to You Tube or several other options. I don't use the recommended file for publishing it on You Tube because it takes forever to upload. It is such a big file, I worry it will not load quickly on websites, so I use the 960 x 720 selection.
• Now you are ready to notify your friends the trailer is up, and let them know you are open to suggestions for fine tuning the presentation. This is the time to find embarrassing spelling errors, typos, awkward captions, and length of slides. You definitely want to have enough time for viewers to read captions and credits.
• When you are happy with the entire trailer, then shout about it to the world via social media, your websites, and even send your family an email about your accomplishment.
• I don't just use Movie Maker for book trailers, I have fun with my photos and sharing them with friends via a video. We took a trip to Alaska last summer....no, I haven't made a video out of the 100's of photos, but maybe this winter? 
• If you have experience with Movie Maker, please leave your tips and suggestions in the comments section. We all want to learn how to do a better job. Thank you!

Here's a peek at my trailer for mystery, sweet romance, Coda to Murder. This is my second attempt. That's the beauty of this program. You can have do-overs when you discover something new to try. So, if you have suggestions for improvement, I'm ready!

Coda to Murder, mystery/sweet romance

This Week:

Monday, August 19--YA author Kaitlin Bevis and I are swapping blogs. Her blog on her pathway to writing is up at the Girls Succeed blog. And my guest post on what inspired to write the non-fiction book for girls is up at Kaitlin's blog . Hop on over this week if you get a chance a leave a comment for us. Thank you!

Thursday, August 22--Karina Fabian shares her hobby of circuit training.(She says it could be labeled circuit torture. Ouch!) She'll be here with her always entertaining writing.

Saturday, August 24--Carolyn Howard-Johnson features Sue Pernz (Perkins) 5 star review for Coda to Murder on the New Book Review blog. Yep, I'm poppin' my buttons with this review.