Take the Opportunity to Use Video to Promote Your Work

Last week, I read a Publisher's Weekly article about the poem “And the People Stayed Home” by Kitty O’Meara. O’Meara wrote about how staying home because of COVID is an opportunity to slow the world down. When a friend asked to post it on Facebook, the poem went viral. This November, it will come out as a picture book from Tra Publishing. 

It isn't surprising that this article has me thinking about opportunities. The article is about a picture book that focuses on opportunities. The same article talks about a writer who took the opportunity to share a poem and then recognized a new opportunity for it to become a picture book. 

With this in mind, I read a blog post about book trailers and immediately started thinking about the variety of videos I could make. 

For The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and The Murders of Tupac and Biggie, I could focus on the crimes themselves with a true crime-style story. Or I could discuss live television and how various television stations, including Channel 11 Lubbock where my father worked, covered the assassination. 

I could interview my son about the geology class he took as a preschooler. They got to make fossil casts, hunt for fossils, and clean fossils before taking several home. That’s how we came to have a cluster of fossilized mollusks the size of a dinner plate. That would be a great introduction for The Evolution of Reptiles and The Evolution of Mammals. 

If not that, I could record an evolutionary trivia challenge. Which animal is most closely related to the hippo? A whale, a rhino or a manatee? 

Instead of focusing on my books for my first video, I decided to create a trailer for one of my WOW classes. I teach both "Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults" and "Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults." I decided to start with the writing class. What do you include for a class trailer? I started with the title of the class, who should take the class, why they should take it, what they will study, and a bit about me. 

I did this on Adobe Spark. There were many things to love about this program. Not only was it free but it was fairly intuitive. You can also use it to make slide shows, Instagram stories, web pages, and a variety of graphics. So far my experience is limited to videos. 

The worst part was the microphone feature. You have to hold down the microphone graphic button. Easy peasy? Not when you are using a touch pad. Tap. Tap. TAP. “I know how to hold down a bleeping button. Of course it recorded that.” Next time I will make sure I have a mouse handy. 

I’m not going to claim perfection but I think this turned out pretty well for a first effort. 

How could you use a video to promote yourself and your work? Try to think outside the box. 

--SueBE

Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 25 books for young readers.  To find out more about her writing, visit her blog, One Writer's Journey.

Sue is also the instructor for  Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins September 7, 2020) and Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins September 7, 2020).