To market, to market . . .

Part of the Stream of Consciousness blog has emphasised marketing, whether it is done by the writer or for the writer by the publishing house.  With that in mind, I have decided to venture into booktrailer-dom.

The essence of book marketing!

I’m in the really fortunate position of having the right sort of family connections.  My brother is a working partner in a post-production company, my daughter is a graphic designer (in fact her company, Salt Design, did the covers of the books) and my husband is an ex-doco maker for the national broadcaster here in Australia.  Can I pull this off without fracturing the family relationship and given that I am the author of the books and have a certain idea of how I want this to be? And that I am a luddite par excellence? Heaven only knows.

But over the next few blogs I shall let you know.  In the meantime, I have been in touch with the graphic designer and she is providing the font ( a special one she bought some time ago) and making it suitable for use on a PC as she works with a Mac. She is also providing stills images from the shoot she did for the covers.  In addition I have just had five enthralling days looking for royalty-free music on the internet and finally found five tracks on the Creative Commons of Wikimedia.  These will be played and played over the next day or so against an imaginary shot-list to see which has the most rise and fall and the best tempo.

In addition, I have accessed wonderful stock images of classic art on Wikimedia and have filed them and my brother, who uses Avid software on his PC and has an Avid suite at work, will take out what ever tiny parts of those images we may decide upon and cut them into the whole.

I have also to find one or two remarkable passages from the books and key words which will be rendered into the special font and overlaid.

A fan of the books from America (www.bopressminiaturebooks.com), who has since become a kindred spirit, has designed and ‘aged’ some amazing cartography which she has contributed to the file.

All that remains is for husband and self to get a thought pattern going and translate it into a shot-list.  Brother says it will take next to no time.  When it is ready for uploading to Youtube, the excellent www.Tech for Luddites.com has given some advice on how best to manage that stage.

So here we go.  As I said . . . to market, to market . . . wish me luck!