Category: Tutorials

How-to articles for writers.

Kindle Scout

kindlescout logoAmazon, in its continuing quest to come up with innovative ways for us to sell books, has created a program called Kindle Scout. Think of it as a cross between the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards and regular ol’ KDP. As with KDP, you upload your book and cover image (with a few tweaks to your info that I’ll get to in a sec), and the Zon puts it up on their site for you. But as with the ABNA, there’s a crowdsourcing component, and a prize at the end – in this case, a $1,500, five-year contract with the Zon’s new Kindle Press.

Say what you will about it, but I think Amazon’s heart is in the right place with this one. Two of the hardest things for an indie author to do are to get noticed in the Zon’s giant slush pile and to grow your fan base. Kindle Scout is all about helping you market your work. Continue reading “Kindle Scout”

Making a Book Trailer with Windows Movie Maker – Step #2 Adding Music

books-moviesLast month’s article was a tutorial on how to make a video trailer with Windows Movie Maker (WMM). Today we will cover adding music to and finalizing your video.

Lots of sites offer royalty-free music (and images) that you can use for your video trailer. You can find out more about these on the Indies Unlimited Video Trailer resource page. I used Incompetech to download royalty free music for my six book trailers. Kevin MacLeod has done an excellent job structuring that site to help find the type of music you are looking for. You can easily play music there before downloading. Once you click on the download, it places the music on your computer. Kevin doesn’t charge for the music, but donations are certainly appreciated!

Go to your project by opening Windows MovieMaker. You should see the screen below for a project in process. Continue reading “Making a Book Trailer with Windows Movie Maker – Step #2 Adding Music”

Tutorial: How to Create Image Quotes

regret_tlt_quoteYesterday, we talked about using image quotes as a way to get your book-related text out on image-based sites. Today, we’ll go through a very simple method of creating these quote images.

You can make your own image quotes on programs like GIMP (free download), PhotoShop (a paid program), or even PowerPoint. You just need a program that allows you to add a background color and save your document as a JPEG. (You can even use the techniques in this MS Publisher book cover tutorial.) The process is not particularly difficult, so I’m going to offer some barebones instructions on how to do this on Google Drive, which is free, internet-based software available to anyone with a Gmail account. Continue reading “Tutorial: How to Create Image Quotes”

The Anatomy of a Box Set

PWC Omnibus 2 FINAL smallOnce you’ve written a series, one of the things you can do is promote the books as a set. You can do this in one of two ways: 1. by lowering the prices on each book individually; or 2. by putting some, or all, of them together in a single file and calling it an omnibus or a box set.

I would have had to charge upwards of $20 per copy for the Pipe Woman Chronicles Omnibus if I’d gone the dead-tree route. But as an eBook, it’s doable, and not much more difficult to format than an individual book. Basically, you open a new document; create (or copy, paste, and edit) your front matter; copy-and-paste the text of each book in the series into your new document, using a “next page section break” at the end of each book; create (or copy, paste, and edit) your back matter; and save the file. Poof, done. Continue reading “The Anatomy of a Box Set”