The Team

Hiya!

I'd like you to say "Hi" to the crew!

I've spoken about these guys for a while and now I think it's time that I gave them a real shout out and give you some background info and how you can follow what they're up to, mostly because they, like me, are creative little lovies and also because this is something I could not have done with out them.

So, in no particular order... here's the team.

Aaron: Editor, writer, and winner of the most organised PA this side of the Milky Way. A gorgeous man who will forever be the most organised person I know. Besides helping me out with the novella's copyediting he also works five days a week for RMIT.

He's currently working on a Zombie fic based in the Northern suburs of Melbourne called "112". When it comes out I'll be the first in line to grab it.

Tom: Editor, Writer, and winner of the worst penmaship ever award. Lovely, but tall human being who moved from Queensland for some bizarre reason to hang out with us Melbournians. His day job is working for Busybird Publishing, but he took some time to help me copyedit the novella.

He's currently writing articles, short stories and novels! You can check out what he and Busybird are doing at busybird.com.au, and what he's doing on his own at http://artofalmost.wordpress.com and twitter @Conveniently_So.

Helen: Editor, writer, proofreader, and winner of the Footbal Fanatic of the year award. She hangs out with Tom a lot at Busybird Publishing and interns with Writer's Victoria, just down the road from Aaron. She lovingly agreed to proofread the novella.

She's currently working on a novel, a novel, some short stories and a research project for Writer's Victoria!

Louise: Photographer, Librarian, and winner of the best Bulldogs fan award 2013. She works as a librarian so she has the best access to plenty of books and snotty teens.

She's currently working on her photography portfolio and her tan.

How long is this thing meant to be?

Or, here's some really cool videos that have distracted me...

So, since this is due in… okay, on Monday. I’m still freaking out about the length of the trailers. They’re turning out to be two different lengths, and I have both audios worked out; however, I can’t seem to put basic mp3s on here, so when it’s all said and done, they’ll be up and running with the trailer.

But trailers seem to be anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes, I’m having trouble finding the perfect time. Every time I think, “cool, I’m done” I second guess myself and go back to YouTube and find something else that would be awesome and I start tweaking.

I know I shouldn’t but I do. I’m an habitual tweaker. It’s just my luck.

But I’m gonna stop tweaking.

I already posted thee video to The Karma Club, which is the longest trailer that I’ve found. Another long trailer I found is Plague. And I found that most trailers that go for over a minute are all live action trailers that have cast members and story lines and plots and generally need a decent amount of time between point A and point B for you to understand what is going on.

The shorter videos are mostly animation. While some of the shorter ones are also live action it’s not the kind of story telling that happens in the longer ones. It's more of a means to an end.

The book trailer to Lauren Kate's Torment is like this. It's live action sequences are more about showing brief emotions than it is about showing a story. It's a teaser. 

The one for Divergent by Veronica Roth is around the same length but it's kind of like a blurb. It 's more of a teaser in the sense that it gives you a feel for the whole novel, centering on the choice that Beatrice has to make.

Both of these trailers are thanks to HarperTeen's YouTube page. You can find the link in the Useful Sites and Handy Videos list.

Still researching

Hiya!

By now you would think that my research is well and truly done, but nope. I'm still checking out anything with buzz words like "book trailer", "how to make a good book trailer", "how to make a successful book trailer". The awesome thing is that I keep getting new results, every time. Love it.

Today I found a few new goodies, that I've added to the handy hints list on the right so check it out if you want more info. I always paraphrase here to give you the direct info, but truthfully, they probably say it more eloquently than I could anyway.

I've watched a lot of trailers of the past few weeks to really decide what would be best for the trailers.

If I haven't already spruiked HarperTeen then check that out in the Handy Hints section.

But the best way to really see the amount of research type "book trailer" into Google, though if you're trying to do this and you've found me you probably already have. I've hit page five of the results and there is still so much more to see and read before I call myself knowledgeable.

Happy researching!

Voice Over Track

So, I've been trying to decide just what poem to use for the trailer and it's a tie between the first and last ones, or I can simply use the blurb. I'm currently going with the first track which introduces O'Hilligan Manor but no one else.

But with each of them I have to decide what will be visualized in the trailer, which is the harder part. Each time I change my mind about what the voice over will say I have to change what happens in the trailer. I really have to make a decision quickly about what's gonna happen.

I think with the time frame I might just use the blurb.

I used my voice for the original trailer, but now that I've come down with this stupid cold I'll have to find someone else to do the voice over for me. I've had a couple friends offer, but it's never worked out timing wise or their voice is seriously weird when recorded.

So, for the moment, back to the drawing board.

Criticism and Changes

So I played the background music for my dad... He said it sucked. Well, he said it in Dad Speak, which means he didn't get it. So I went back and redid it!

I'm thankful I did, I think the new one is much better and that it's more what I wanted than the first one. But damn, his honesty.

The other one with random sounds was good, just not what I needed or what was really appropriate to the trailer itself. The new one is definitely better suited to the trailer, just need to wait for J to finish the faces and it will be up and running. It will be the longer of the two tracks, about one minute in length, while the other will be about thirty seconds long.

A cute little thing I found on WavePad is that you can download audio files from their library and they're totally free. You just go to file and you'll find the Download from Sound Library. This is what it looks like. They have hundreds of files to choose from including, music, household sounds and human sounds. Everything you need to create your own audio file.

Background Music

Hiya!

So this morning I decided to give creating a backing track ago with relative success! I used Wavepad and sampled three seconds of a drum beat. I stretched it out and jumbled it around a little for this creepy, eerie little fourty second ditty that will be  used for the background music trailer.

If this is something that sounds more interesting you can download Wavepad and some of it's friends from http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/! There's some really good software in that family that includes video editing and music editing.


When J has finished with the faces, I'll be able to get it all put together and have it up and running within a day or so! so cool.

Brimbank Leader Article

Hiya,

So a couple weeks ago I had an interview with Alesha Capone from the Brimbank Leader. Here's the article. Clicking on the picture will take you to the paper. She asked a lot of really great questions and Adam, who took the photo, did a really great job in my opinion.

I love the fact that it has details of the book launch this Sunday. Which I hope that some of you reading this blog will come along and say hi!

Voice Over

Hiya,

Sorry I haven't written in a while, school's been extremely busy. So the next few days will be completely focused on continuing with work on this blog and the book trailer.

But I haven't completely forgotten about you all or the trailer. Things have been ticking away in my brain and I'm just working out a few kinks before I upload the voice over trailer. I just need to figure out a few things...

1. I need to figure out what text I want for the trailer. I had something in mind, but it is very short and I don't know how long I can really stretch it out before I give it a go. Plus there are so many verses that I could use. I don't want to give too much away but at the same time I need some intrigue to make people interested.

2. I need to figure out exactly how to do it. I'll be using Windows Live Movie Maker so I've found a video for it, on YouTube of course. I haven't watched it yet, bur if it's shocking I will find a better one, but it looks good. Now just put it into action. 

3. A voice! This probably should have been first on the list for the sheer fact that without this one you kind of can't have a voice over. I have a few friends that have volunteered to do it, but scheduling wise it seems like I'll be doing it myself, because we can never seem to be in the right spot at the same time.

That's where I am at the moment and I'll be making my way through those steps in the next few days to get everything up and running before it's all due in a week and a half. 

Book Launch

Hiya!

Just a reminder to all friends and family and random like-minded strangers in this universe that the book launch for Murder at O'Hilligan Manor is being launched this Sunday at 2pm at the Granary Cafe in Sunshine!

Please come along, no obligation to buy a novel but a nice group of like-minded people who can have a chat about anything and everything over a drink would be a fantastic way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, don't you think?

InDesign and PlugIns

Hiya!

So I use a PC all the time, Mac's confused the heck outta me so this will be kinda skewed because I'm currently using a Mac that has InDesign on it, because my trial expired before I thought to do this. So while I'll have photos up so you can somewhat see where I'm coming from I'll mention what I find that is different on a PC!

Cool?

This post came out of the idea that someone else may want to know how to do all of the layout and stuff that I did with the novella. So here we go, J this is for you!

InDesign

So InDesign is pat of Adobe suite, CC, what ever it's called. And I fist leaned to use it of university for laying out page spreads of print material. It took me a while to grasp it (I'm not really a computer person) so when it came to the assignment I actually read the InDesign for Dummies book. My teacher at the time, not so good. 

But I went along with the flow and after a while I found my self knowing what to do and how and where. The entire suite is actually really helpful (except Dreamweaver, that's the Devil).

Show and Tell

Okay! On every computer and OS it will be different to find this program. For me at home I go to the start menu and there it is, in between PowerPoint and Movie maker. But here on the Mac it's in finder surrounded by all it's Adobe friends. 

So opening it is simple and you come to a blank scene so going to "new" you can decide what you want to do from "document", "book" and "Library". Not sure what Library is but I'm sure I have just had no need for it. So I usually start with document. It's the only one I've used personally and I'm sure that for what I've need to do on InDesign it has been okay to use it.

This is what InDesign looks like. The top gives you the specs for the layout and format of your document. The side gives you all the tools that can enhance what you've created. 

The best way to learn this in my opinion is just to go for it and try it out because reading the Dummies Guide wasn't as helpful as just playing around on a separate page to my project and when I figure out what I wanted to do I just repeated my steps on my project. 

Good thing is that InDesign like word and such has a button so that if you stuff up, not all is lost. You can just hit the edit button up the top and there is undo. I'm sure there is a keyboard shortcut but I can't remember it just now! 

Fabulous aren't I?

Blurb PlugIn

So when I did the layout for Murder at O'Hilligan Manor I had to get a Blurb PlugIn so that it would transfer into their systems. It was simple enough, after I realised that  PlugIn had to have the program already installed because the PlugIn isn't the program. 

So when you go an download the PlugIn you decide what type of book you want to create and you can download the PlugIn for it! I downloaded InDesign because that's what I needed to do!

Signing up with Blurb is really quick and simple. And completely free. They make nothing off of you unless you purchase either your own book or someone else's!

So I think that's all I have to say on the subject. It seems ridiculous to go though every tiny aspect doing the layout in InDesign. If you have any questions, just ask. I'm not saying I'm an expert on it now, but I do know more than my sister. If I don't know the answer, there is always Google!

How it all began...

So... I don't know if I've mentioned my Mum before...

Anyway. I need to tell you a bit about my Mum or, as a friend has coined the term my "Mumager", because she is the one who has taken this novella and planned a book launch, gotten twice as many sales as me and now she's gotten a lady from the Brimbank Leader interested in interviewing me for the next issue of the Local.

So that's weird, but it got me thinking that A: I've never really told you guys about the novella (where it came from, what was the inspiration and all of that) or B: what it's like now that it's kinda popular.

Bare with me because I'm part "woo-whoo" and part "yeah, okay". So I may sound ridiculous!

Inception

Murder at O'Hilligan Manor started with a prompt from a teacher. To emulate another's style of work. I'd decided to try something completely not me and give poetry a go. I also decided to make my life extra difficult and see if I could also emulate Agatha Christie. And Murder at O'Hilligan Manor is the product!

I'd fallen in love with Dorothy Porter because a teacher had recommended that I read The monkey's mask. I loved the novel. It was so different from anything I had ever read and I thought it amazing. If you love poetry or are looking for something different here's the link to her page at the Australian Poetry Library. It has links to all of her poems and novels.

Agatha Christie was a love that my grandmother started. She loved the old Whodunits and she introduced me to Agatha Christie through Murder on the Orient Express, still my favourite Christie to this day. Christie's works always had me questioning who the killer was right until the end, where one of her sleuths would give this complicated and intriguing dialogue as to who the murderer was and how the murder was committed. And I still love curling up with Poirot and feeding my need for a little mystery.

Execution

So the assignment was 3,000 words to be work shopped over three separate weeks. So each week I wrote 1,000 words of poetry and got critiqued by the lovely and amazing people in my Myths, Symbols and Poetry class. The words came easily enough but it was all written with no storyboard, no idea as to who the killer was. I had no idea who the killer was until my detective said it. The characters came alive on their own and I loved every second of it. I should try it again.

So really, the manuscript I had at the beginning of my little adventure was written in six weeks and was somewhere around the 3,000 words mark. No where near that of either of the writers I was trying to emulate, but I love what I accomplished and I got some great feedback on it! Yay!

Then I decided to use the poetry as filler for another assignment to create an e-book. (That's a lot harder than I imagined). I grabbed some photos off the web, wrote a copyright page, an acknowledgements page, a blurb, a bio; all of it. Done. I packaged it up into this nice little e-book and then went cool.

Two years later I decided to really publish it so I could hold it in my hands. That process was "ah..."

Making a book

So I had the frame work of the novel; the guts and gore. But I had no clue how to publish it. A friend of mine had self-published a novel and a novella so I looked to see where he had self-published, an online company called blurb (click on the pic and you'll be transported to their Aussie website). 

So I checked it out and it was reasonably priced and I knew that the quality was good so I started to think that this was really gonna happen. I just had to get the prose up to scratch! Therein came the call-out to all of my old NMIT peeps to see who would be willing to do some probono editing for me. Three of my dear friends, Aaron, Tom and Helen answered the call. 

Helen said she had no experience with poetry but would love to proofread it in the end so Aaron and Tom were roped into giving it a real good edit, which they did! Some characters changed slightly so they were easier to tell apart and clunky sentences became smooth and clear, the general story stayed exactly the same and voila I was ready to put it together.

I rewrote the acknowledgements so that it was clearer and thanked everyone necessary (I also took out a lot of filler that wasn't needed). I rewrote the copyright piece so that it was actually legalized. I kept the bio the same and off I was in the land of InDesign. A lovely program once you get your head around it. I'll write another post on that for anyone who, like me, wants to do this.

Helen's sister Louise was kind enough to say yes when I asked her to take some photos for the novella. I'd seen some of work and thought she was fantastic. As well as the cover photo she also took some extra ones which I use to create section breaks for the novella. These are two of the section break photos. I think they're phenomenal!

So all of that was done so yeah, now it was just putting it all together and sending it to blurb where they printed and bounded it for me! That's also another long post so I'll let you digest this one first!

It's kinda popular

So now that I've made money off of it and had to do another print run it's starting to feel like I'm an actual writer now (who has copyeditors/proofreaders/photographers so this page looks nice). It's daunting when my mother says well I did this and I spend a second in shock before I'm like "yeah, I wanted to do this for a living". But she's incredible when it comes to being a manager (she's done it for years in mental health so I'm a piece of cake)! Gotta Love her!

Food for thought...

So I presented the two drafted videos for my class last week to some really great feedback, but also to the comments of "slow it down" and "make sure that the images are royalty-free or out of copyright. Both very excellent comments that I have taken on board.

So as not to bore you I won't upload the two videos again without another improved aspect on them. But I will give you some advice that was given to me about the images I was using...

I've been trying to find decent photos of Manor Houses that I'm allowed to use so I usually just type into Goggle "Manor House/s" depending on what my fingers want to type.

It comes up with this usually. Which is cool, that's what I want. But it's hard to figure out what pictures you can use and which you can't.

So a friend showed me a couple buttons to push so that I won't get yelled at for using someone else's property! Under the search bar is a menu (Web, Images, etc). Select "Search Tools". And this will come up, without the red squiggly lines.

That little button comes up with it's own little menu so you can narrow down the choices and find the perfect images. Hit "usage rights". It'll come up with five options - labelled for reuse with modification, labelled for reuse, labelled for noncommercial reuse with modification and labelled for noncommercial reuse. 

I've selected the simple "labelled for reuse". I'm not really sure what the difference between them all are. So I Googled "differences in google's usage rights" and this came up. 

Still not sure what it means so here's the link so you can find what I found and some other useful links.