Promote your book with a trailer by AuthorsBroadCast.com

**While this is a paid review, all opinions shared are honest and my own.**

A new trend in book marketing is using book trailers, similar to those used to promote movies. Book covers and other still photography are used to illustrate the story's plot and to introduce the characters to potential readers. Basically, they make the book blurb just a little bit more exciting.

If you follow any of my blogs, you will have seen many of these book trailers over various posts. Most of them consist of words going across the screen, accompanied by music. They only last a moment or two, and hope to get the point across and to entice you to purchase and read the book.

I have to say that I am impressed by the book trailers that I have previewed from AuthorsBroadCast.com. They offer basic promotional book trailers, and then so much more. But these basic promo videos are much more exciting than many that I have seen. The graphics are better and much more exciting. They also do trailers that interview authors, and longer episodes featuring multiple excerpts and titles and marketing tips. All genres, including both fiction and nonfiction, are represented on their site. Check out one of their videos that demonstrate their services:




Peruse their YouTube channel to get a better feel for the book trailers that they have created in the past, and to inspire you to have your own made. Then, visit their website at www.AuthorsBroadCast.com to view featured books and authors, read testimonials, and to see their price list. To make your book successful, it is worth the investment to have quality promotional materials to share on your social media and to embed in your own website.

#AtoZChallenge Creating characters

Creating characters is something else with which I tend to struggle. Yes, you are supposed to write what you know. Your characters almost inevitably end up being a reflection of you in some way. You are a part of them and they are a part of you. I keep finding that I put too much of myself into those characters. I get so wrapped up in their lives as my own, that I get stuck, because perhaps that situation in my life is stuck. I would love to create an alternate universe in which I can get every outcome that I want. But, I'm not sure how healthy that would be.

On occasion, I have come up with completely different characters. I have an early reader chapter book type storyline on which I have been working. Those characters speak to me in their own voices. Unfortunately, the last time that I was working on them, I wasn't at home. Someone deliberately interrupted me, thinking he was being cute. I haven't been able to find their voices again.

Again, I know that if I just keep writing and writing, I will find their voices again. That is part of the reason that I undertook this challenge on *cough* 12 *cough* blogs this year. I am hoping that by having to be more creative on these, I will better lubricate those wheels and channel those characters again.

Thanks for all of the words of support. It's helpful! :-)  

#AtoZChallenge Bunches of beginnings

Does anyone else have these laying around the house?

That is just a handful of the notebooks that I own that hold the beginnings of many stories and lists of other ideas. Every back to school season, I stock up on dozens of notebooks. Most of them end up being used by the students in my classroom. However, I always save a selection for myself. I prefer to use purple, which is my favorite color, but occasionally use a different one for variety.

I know, I know. Holy crap, woman, get busy and finish writing these!

If only it were that simple...

Beginnings are always easy for me. It's the endings with which I have a problem. I often have an outline in mind. A direction in which I want to go. And then for some reason, the characters and the story don't want to go that way. Sometimes, I end up at a crossroads and am not sure which direction is the right one. I have a hard time with that. It's a personal issue. :-P

Now that the first story is actually finished, though, I have more hope of actually getting the inspiration to finish more of these. I am spending more time this spring break week on my A to Z challenges than I had originally anticipated. (Gotta love it when life throws you curve balls that distract you from the task at hand.) I had hoped to get more original writing done. I have also come up with about a dozen new starts. One of these days...  

#AtoZChallenge: Am I an Author?

Ah, the A to Z Challenge is here, yet again. This year, I have added new blogs in order to make some new friends. I also figured this would be the perfect way for me to really kick my butt into gear with writing my own books and stories.

I have been contemplating these posts for a couple of months now, since I launched the blog back in January. I was working on several stories at the turn of the year. Unfortunately, life has regularly gotten in the way and my muse likes to come and go.

I began to question if I was really an author or merely a writer?

To me, a writer writes. It can be blogs, fiction, nonfiction, content, you name it. But an author is someone who actually creates a new world and new people, giving birth to a new creation. I haven't had a shortage of ideas, but could never get them to fruition. Was it premature to start a blog and Facebook page? Was it ever going to happen? Am I a poser for trying to call myself an author?

Finally, last night, I felt justified. I was naughty on Easter Sunday, as I was taking notes in my bulletin on new story ideas that kept jumping in my head. (Should the pastor be happy that someone was still being inspired by her words, even if not exactly in the way that she had hoped?) I had been working on numerous ideas for a couple of anthologies, whose deadlines were midnight last night. Nothing was really flowing, though, and I hated everything I was writing.

But one idea kept spinning around in my brain. Even though I was at Easter dinner with my adopted family, I still spent most of my time glued to my laptop in the living room. I lubricated the writing wheels and just kept at it.

And then, there it was. A fully completed short story. The first one I had finished that didn't require any further additions. I had some of the "family" read it, as well as a couple of friends. With their stamps of approval, I sent it off for submission. There is hope that more stories will reach fruition, especially with this week being Spring Break.

Welcome to new friends from A to Z. I look forward to getting to know more of you!

Now I feel justified as an author.