First up, let’s remind ourselves what the trailer’s like.

OK, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about how I put it all together.

If you’ve read my how-to guide on how I made the Mr Mumbles trailer you’ll know it involved some dressing up and sourcing props on my part. For The Book of Doom trailer there was none of that. I literally made the whole thing without leaving my desk.

On the other hand, the Mr Mumbles trailer cost me nothing to make, while the trailer for The Book of Doom cost me actual real life money – albeit less than ten crisp British pounds – so laziness comes at a cost. Quite a low cost, though, and if I can pony up a tenner towards the production budget, I’m fairly sure you’ll be able to, too.

For the purposes of this guide I’m going to assume you have access to some sort of video editing equipment and have at least a basic grasp of how to use it. If not, don’t worry, you can find loads of free editing software online (here for example), and one of the best ways of learning to use anything is by using it, so pick your poison and get editing.

As with any project it’s important to have at least a vague idea at the start of what you’re hoping to achieve. With video, the more precise you can be at the planning stage, the less time and effort you’re going to have to invest in getting it right, and the cheaper it’s going to be.

I had a very specific idea in my head of how I wanted my trailer to look. I knew I wanted a voiceover reading a passage from the novel that describes the central concept. I also knew I wanted to reflect the fact the story takes the main characters from Heaven to Hell.

More importantly, I wanted to give a feel for the story. Not the specifics, necessarily, but the style and genre. I wanted it to have a bit of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sort of feel to it. Oh, and I also wanted fire in there somewhere, because fire always looks exciting, dunnit?

So, armed with this list of requirements, I headed over to the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Fiverr.com.

For those of you who don’t know, Fiverr.com is a website full of people who will do pretty much anything you want (within legal limits) for five dollars. Want your picture inserted into a scene from The Cosby Show? No problem. Want to be taught two different ways to fly? Consider it done.

You get the idea.

Hidden in among all the madness, though, are some real gems. It was on Fiverr that I found my voiceover guy, Jonathan Keith. Jonathan absolutely nailed the voiceover, and was worth several dozen times the £3.30 or thereabouts that he cost me.

I’d gone onto the site specifically looking for someone to do the voiceover, but once there I started wandering through the Video & Animation section. It was here I found people selling the footage that eventually made up the bulk of the video – the swooshing through darkened clouds with all the text, and the flaming Book of Doom logo at the very end of the trailer. Again, these cost me just over three quid each, and already my video was beginning to take shape.

The blue sky/flying through clouds bit at the start of the video had been sitting on my hard drive pretty much forever. It was something I’d paid two or three quid for a couple of years back, planning to use it for something else I’ve long since forgotten about.

With that added to my asset list there was just one thing left to get: music. After a couple of hours of searching around for some cheap royalty free music I stumbled upon something even better – FREE royalty free music from composer Kevin MacLeod.

Kevin has some amazing tracks on his site, and the Soundtrack section proved particularly useful for my needs. Whatever sort of book trailer you’re making, there’s a good chance there’ll be music on there that will fit with what you’re trying to do.

In Summary
All things considered, this was not a difficult trailer to make, and I think it looks reasonably professional. Like all artistic endeavours there’s always scope for improvement. I think it’s a little on the long side, for example, and would’ve benefitted from a bit of judicious trimming here and there. It’s not terrible, though, and considering how little it cost and how quickly it was put together, that’s a victory in itself.

I hope this has helped inspire you to try putting your own book trailer together. If you’ve done one, pop a link in the comments below so we can all take a look.

The first award ceremony was the for the GCBA, so on Wednesday I headed up to Aberdeen where I met up with Dave Cousins, Mark Lowery and the ever-lovely Cathy Macphail. The ceremony was great fun, with easily a couple of hundred pupils all crammed into the hall.

After each doing a talk about our books (at least that was the plan, I wandered into largely unrelated territory for most of it, as I’m inclined to do) and a Q&A session, a big drumroll began and the winner was announced.

It wasn’t me. It wasn’t any of us present in fact. Instead the award went to Patrick Ness for his novel, A Monster Calls. Considering the number of awards the book has picked up already, it was no great surprise, and I reckon if you’re going to be beaten by any book, A Monster Calls isn’t a bad one to lose out to.

Oh, we also got to announce the winners of the poster design competition. Check out some of the entries below.

The next day I headed out to do some school events, including two at Dyce Academy in Aberdeen. These were my second set of events at Dyce, as I’ve been part of their book marketing project which I’m going to blog about properly in a day or two. It’s a fantastic idea, and something I think other schools across the country could draw inspiration from.

With some of the pupils from Dyce Academy

After a visit to Oldmachar Academy just along the road in the afternoon I headed to Edinburgh, so I could head along bright and early on Friday morning to the Lennox Author Award ceremony.

I was up against Lari Don and Lucinda Hare for this award, which is voted on by school children across East Lothian in Scotland. After another brilliant ceremony – including a presentation by pupils from Law Primary School in which they showed off trailers they had made for Raggy Maggie, Doc Mortis and The Beast – the winner was announced, and I’m proper chuffed to report that it was me. Hooray!

Here’s the award, isn’t she a beauty?

Nice, eh?

This is my third award to date, with the North East Book Award ceremony still to come in June. Will I have to make room in my trophy cabinet (actually just a small shelf) for another award then? Only time will tell…

3. Scrivener
I came a bit late to the party on Scrivener, after hearing me old mucker Tommy Donbavand banging on about it time and time again. It’s a word processing programme, basically, but one custom built for authors and scriptwriters.

Tommy has been using the Mac version for a while, so when a Windows version came out I decided to give it a go. The Windows version isn’t yet as fully featured as the Mac one, but within a day of using Scrivener to write with I vowed never to go back to using Microsoft Word.

Short of actually writing the book for you, Scrivener does everything you could want. From creating index cards for all your scenes and chapters to keeping tabs of how close you are to reaching your daily word count targets, your ever writerly need will be met.

Format scripts, create and organise character sheets, insert notes, write your manuscript entirely out of sequence – whatever you want to do, Scrivener will be there to hold your hand. About to embark on a major rewrite? Take a snapshot before you do and you can flip between the old and the new versions to see how they compare. It even comes with the most comprehensive character name generator I’ve ever seen, for those times when you just can’t think what to call the people in your story.

Scrivener costs $40 (about £25) but there’s a one month free trial so you can have a play around with it first and see if you like it. I can pretty much guarantee you will, and considering my description above barely scrapes the surface of what Scrivener is capable of, it might just be the best money you ever spend.

4. Kindle App
Putting aside all the controversies surrounding Amazon for the moment, there’s no doubting that the Kindle has been one of the driving forces behind the ebook explosion of the past couple of years.

I very rarely read ebooks myself, but I’ve got the Kindle app installed on both my phone and my Nexus 7 tablet. Rather than buy books on it, though, I use it to read my own manuscripts, thereby saving myself the time and cost involved in printing them out.

You see, when you register with the Kindle app you get an @kindle.com email address. Any files you send to this address get added to your Kindle library. So last week, when I finished my latest book, I emailed it to my Kindle address, and it was then available to read on my tablet exactly like I’d read any other ebook.

What’s more, the app allows me to make notes, so as I read through and spot things I want to change I just long press in the area I want to change, select “Note” and can type a few words on the changes I’d like to make.

All these notes are then available to view separate from the manuscript, so I don’t have to trawl back through looking for them when I’m done. I can just call up the notes on the Kindle app, then make the changes on the manuscript in Scrivener (which, I should add, allows you to compile your manuscript into any number of Kindle friendly formats).

What’s more you don’t even have to feel guilty about supporting the tax-dodging behemoth that is Amazon, because you aren’t. You’re using their free software for your own selfish ends, and they won’t make a penny of profit from you doing it. Your conscience can remain blissfully clear, and by not printing you’re helping do your bit for the environment, too. It’s a win-win! Or a win-win-win, depending on how you look at it.

The app is available via iTunes or Google Play – just search from your phone or tablet to find the handy little bugger.

Got any apps you think other writers might find helpful? Share them in the comments below.

I’m sharing them now because this is a big week for the book, as it’s up for the Grampian Children’s Book Award on Wednesday. Competition is stiff, so it’ll have its work cut out for it if it’s going to win, but win or lose the ceremony should be a laugh, particularly as the lovely Cathy MacPhail is on the shortlist with me, and it’s always great to catch up with her.

As if that’s not enough award action for one week, on Friday the winner of the Lennox Author Award is announced in a ceremony in East Lothian. I’m up against Lari Don and Lucinda Hare, so once again competition is tough.

I may not get a chance to blog about whether I win or lose until I’m home on Saturday, so if you want to be among the first to find out go Like my Facebook Page or follow me on Twitter.

But now those reviews…

Literature For Lads
“If you like Terry Pratchett you will love this book. The characters are original and the banter between the horsemen is constantly comical.” – Read Full Review

Buried Under Books
“This book is an unbelievably funny action-adventure romp through young adult fantasy. Right from the start I was laughing out loud at the characters and the sticky situations they find themselves in.” – Read Full Review

The Scotsman
“Of course there are comparisons to Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin, but Hutchison matches them laugh for laugh. It’s not easy getting a teenager to LOL, and in a market which is often condemned for it’s gloomy earnestness, Hutchison’s win is a breath of fresh entertainment.” – Read Full Review

Andy posted a trailer on Twitter earlier today, and I wanted to share it here. If you haven’t checked out the books yet, then I can really recommend them. Visit Andy’s site to find out more.

It got me thinking that maybe I use some other software that other writers aren’t aware or, or have never found time to try. And so concludes the largely unnecessary backstory for this post.

Over the next few days I’ll be revealing some of the apps and software I use regularly. I find them all helpful in one way or another, and so there’s a good chance you might get some use out of them, too.

Without further ado, then, let’s get to the first two.

1. Evernote
There are literally… um… many apps out there for note-taking, but Evernote is the mac daddy of them all. I first installed it on my iPhone about a year back, mucked about with it for a few minutes, then thought nothing more of it.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later when I was bored and sitting in my car outside a school (which isn’t as sinister as it sounds, honest) that I decided to play about with the app a bit more.

At its heart, Evernote is simply a bit of software that allows you to type notes and save them. That would be reasonably useful in and of itself, but it’s everything else Evernote does around that central concept that sets it apart.

Want to create folders for all your projects? No problem. I set up two folders in my Evernote – one called The 13th Horseman, and one called The Book of Doom. All my thoughts about each book went into their respective folders, keeping things nice and tidy.

But here’s where Evernote really shines, because as well as filing your notes you can tag them. Whenever I added a note about a character I tagged it with that character’s name. I did the same with locations. I also added the tags “characters” and “locations”. This meant with a single click I could bring up a list of my notes on my characters – descriptions, lines of dialogue, personality outlines, etc – with a single click, or I could choose one – War, say, and find notes on him from both The 13th Horseman folder and The Book of Doom.

Even this is just scratching the surface, though. Evernote also allows you to take audio notes (handy when an idea strikes while on the move) and insert photographs into your notes, too. It then lets you scribble on those photographs to add comments, circle important areas – whatever you like.

But this is where it gets REALLY good. Brace yourself.

If you’re anything like me you have a number of notebooks lying around, each with a few pages full of notes and ideas. They inevitably either A) clutter the place up completely or B) get lost. Well no more – Evernote lets you photograph those handwritten notes, and then thanks to the application of powerful magic by the company’s wizards (or something) those notes then become searchable just like normal text! Search for any of the words written in those notes and up comes the picture of your note alongside any typed notes you’ve made containing the search term.

And did I mention the whole thing syncs your phone, tablet, desktop, laptop – pretty much anything you like? It’s available for Android and iOS and if you only check out one entry on this list, make it this one.

2. Dropbox
Something else I’d struggle to cope without these days is Dropbox. Unlike Evernote, which is crammed full of great features, Dropbox really just does one thing, but it does it better than anyone else, in my opinion.

When you install Dropbox it creates a folder on your computer. Anything you put in that folder – photos, audio files, or in my case manuscripts – are automatically synchronised with the Dropbox server in the background. You just save it in the folder like you would any other, and quietly and without any fuss Dropbox will back it up.

If, like me, you work from a number of different devices, you can install Dropbox on all those, too. This means that if you save a file in the Dropbox folder on your desktop, it becomes available in the Dropbox folder on all your other devices, and vice versa. It means I never have to worry about losing files, and don’t have to faff about copying files to USB sticks to transfer between desktop and laptop.

Dropbox also keeps backups of files in case you accidentally delete them. If you somehow manage to save over your current Work in Progress with 200 pages of “All work and no play makes Barry a dull boy” have no fear, because Dropbox has kept every previous version you saved, and can restore it with a few clicks of a mouse.

There are other services similar to Dropbox – Skydrive from Microsoft and Google Drive being just two – but Dropbox managed to establish itself before these two came along, and as such it feels a bit more polished than the others. Lots of other apps and software now link in to Dropbox, too. For example, every photo I take on my Android phone is automatically backed up to my Dropbox account – handy if my phone ever gets lost or stolen.

Add in the fact you can share folders within your Dropbox with friends or colleagues – or even make them public – and you can see why I consider this another must-have bit of software. You can grab 2GB of storage space completely free, and earn up to 14GB more just by referring friends, so go get started now.

Come back tomorrow when I’ll be revealing two more pieces of software I’ve developed unhealthy attachments to.

I first heard about Box of Awesome quite a while back through my son. He’s always finding random stuff and getting ridiculously excited about it, so I must admit I didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to begin with.

From what I could gather the concept went something like this:

1. Advertisers send things to Box of Awesome.
2. Box of Awesome puts said things in a box.
3. People apply online to be sent one of the boxes.
4. Box of Awesome sends them a box. Of Awesome. For free.

Now, being a cynical adult, I of course proceeded to tell him the box wouldn’t be awesome at all. “It’ll be full of leaflets for eye surgery” I said. “And 5% discounts off lawnmowers”. I told him not to waste his time, but being 10 he didn’t listen, and eventually badgered me into signing up for it.

I promptly forgot all about it. He didn’t. When it was announced on the Box of Awesome site that the first box was being sent out he became impossibly excited. He paced the floor like an expectant father, waiting for the postie to come.

A couple of days later the box arrived. He sat down to open it and I watched on, my smuggest expression at the ready, an “I told you so” forming on my lips.

Only it turns out that the box was… pretty good, actually. There was stuff in there. Proper stuff. Good stuff we would have – and had in the past – paid money for. I won’t list it all here – check out some of the unboxing videos on the BOA site to see for yourself – but it was a long way from the flyers and discount vouchers I had expected to clatter through the letterbox and clutter up the house.

As a cool little collection of freebie gifts I’d recommend Box of Awesome, but the news that S&S are supplying free books to go in the next box makes me genuinely excited about BOA as a means of getting books into readers’ hands. The fact that one of the first books to go into the box is Zom-B by horror maestro, Darren Shan, is just the icing on the cake.

Darren’s books are brilliant, and are a great way of getting the most rabid of book-avoiders into the reading habit. As a delivery method for getting the books into their hands, Box of Awesome is perfect, and kudos to whoever it was that first suggested putting the two together.

My son is already counting down the days until the next box goes out. It’s not long now, so if you want to get in on the action you’ll have to be quick. Go check out the Box of Awesome site to find out how to get your hands on all the free goodies.

Writing A New Thing is terrifying for a lot of authors because it means venturing into previously uncharted territory, and possibly out of your comfort zone. It’s terrifying because there’s no guarantee the people who liked your other books are going to like these. If you stick to one genre there’s a good chance your fan base will stick by you through every book, but by meandering between genres, age ranges and styles that no longer becomes a given.

Most first drafts are a fairly terrifying experience in and of themselves, mind you. That blank page at the start is massively daunting, then there’s usually a bit in the middle when you wonder if you’ll ever reach the end, followed by a messy frantic dash for the finish line when it finally looms into view.

Because this was the first draft of something completely new I was doubly nervous, and I found myself doubting every story decision I made. The voice was wrong. The characters weren’t working. The plot was ludicrous. I was practically set for giving the whole writing thing up and living under a bridge when I remembered my own advice (although many others have said similar things in the past). I’ve mentioned it here on the blog before, and I’ve said it countless times at school visits, but because it really helped me through this past week I thought I’d make it look all nice an’ that and post it here.

By keeping the above in mind I freed myself up to make as many mistakes as I needed in order to get the draft finished. All the problems above are definitely still there, along with many others. The story and characters don’t fit quite right yet, and some of the pacing is way off.

But that’s OK. It’s not right. But it’s written. And with a first draft, that’s all that counts.

I encourage you to make mistakes in your first drafts. You’re not just allowed to, you should try to. From those mistakes great things may grow in the next draft. You may discover new elements to your story you wouldn’t have without those mistakes having happened.

There are plenty of mistakes in my first draft of… let’s call it Project BB for now. There may also be flashes of brilliance in there (but I’ll almost certainly remove them by accident during the rewrites). At the moment it’s all a bit of a mixed bag of words and sentences and punctuation, with something vaguely story-shaped lurking deep within. And that’s fine. That’s good. That’s just how it should be. It is written. It is officially a thing and – with a bit of luck – the next draft will take it one step closer to being “right”.

Cat Anderson writes…
Whilst David McCormack’s post is informative and hopefully alleviates the concerns some authors have around approaching bookshops, it hasn’t really addressed the issue which Barry originally expressed frustration with; that of books from North of the Border not for sale South of the Border due to presumptions on the part of booksellers (although probably head offices in truth, booksellers want to stock everything).

I too have encountered the quite frankly bamboozling decision by bookshops in England not to stock a children’s book written by someone in Scotland because of some presumed ‘Scottishness’ This ‘Scottishness’ I have been informed is stuff like the setting…if it’s set in Scotland, apparently children in England won’t want to read it. Eh? We are a multicultural society for starters and children really, honestly don’t care that much about location, location, location. Believe me, I’ll explain further below.

Then there’s the whole haggis and bagpipes debate. Apparently children’s books in Scotland make reference to our cultural history like kilts and stuff. Really? And truly, I have had one bizarre conversation with a ‘book industry person’ whereby I was informed that books by Scottish authors don’t do well because they’re written in Scottish…Words did indeed fail me at that point. Now I want to bang on about who the heck do these people think they are making judgements about someone’s work and about children’s preferences? It all feels a little patronising to be honest, particularly as right at the heart of this is the fact that the books in question haven’t even been read by the decision makers. Um…*scratches head*.

Let’s get something clear here. Children read what they read because they a) like the look of the cover b) the blurb on the back has enticed them c) the inside doesn’t look too overwhelming. If you watch a child shopping for a book they will go for face-outs first, because, as research shows us, we are visual shoppers. Then they will read the blurb on the back and then they will flick the pages, not unlike a pack of cards. They’re deciding if they like the look of the inside. That’s it. That’s a child’s book reading decision made.

If a bookseller gets their hands on a child, they will (they should), with their passion and the fact that they have read a book, encourage a child to take it and give it a chance. How do they do that? If I think about how I sell a book to a child, my main aim is for them to want to read it. Nothing like putting a child off reading for life by insisting they read a book. If I talk about the book’s contents, not once do I think about the storyline location or whether the author is Scottish, English, Chinese, Italian etc etc etc. It’s irrelevant at this stage. Children want a good story. End of.

So booksellers need to be given the chance to read these brilliant books for themselves and decide if it is something they can genuinely sell, because children can’t be fobbed of with lies and half truths. They know if you haven’t read or don’t like a book.

So where can authors, agents and publishers help? Well for a start give us (and by us I mean booksellers around the world) a sample. If you can’t afford to part with a whole book, the first three chapters suffice, or a PDF copy would be great. We’re not all living in denial that reading books on gadgets is a passing phase and everyone will get over it. To have all my reading copies on my tablet would make life a lot easier!

Then tell us how we get hold of your book, what the terms and conditions are such as the trade price, the minimum number of copies we need to buy (one if you’re a small indie), the sale or return conditions and sadly, yes, the cover. If it’s awful, we’ll be kind, read the book and hand-sell it.

Check out the wonderful Nicola Morgan’s websites for information on how to provide a brilliant summary plot of your book. Whilst we’d love to know more about you and your 3 dogs, your walks in the hills with your partner, your enjoyment of line dancing and how you studied English Lit in Paris, we’re not that interested really. Not until a wee glass of wine after a successful event with you anyway. As long as you are lovely and prepared to do events where books get sold and children get passionate about reading because they have met a real live author then we’re good to go.

What can booksellers/librarians do? Well, we talk to one another. So we need to keep doing that, share the book love. I have set up a new blog which will be good-to-go just as soon as I am over this head cold *blows nose* which will be highlighting Not ‘Scottish’ Just Brilliant Books. If you want to get involved, email me at cat.childrensbooks@gmail.com

To quote a bookseller friend, although in a different context; geography alone is no reason to stock a book or not.

As for Amazon; I kind of like my hard earned cash to stay in the UK as UK tax, paying for nurses, teachers, bin collections, street lighting etc etc etc. If I buy from Amazon, I wave my cash bye-bye. If you have to shop online (and many do have to), try an online bookseller who isn’t them. There are many: Blackwells, Waterstones, Foyles, Daunts, not to mention many small Indies who will happily post books out to you. Like our diets, perhaps our shopping habits should be ‘everything in moderation’.

Between authors believing bookshops will not take or have their book on the shelves, and the apparent pit of despair that comes from highlighting Amazon, the stress of being a published author seems to be more heightened than actually getting your book published, at times.

As a bookseller I love nothing more than chatting to and discovering new authors, and I will give as much time to a newbie as I will to a Rankin, in fact probably more, as we need to encourage new writers as much as possible. I have loved discovering the writings of authors such as Daniela Sacerdoti, Jess Richards and Kerry Hudson in the past few months, and I actively highlight these authors now in my recommends right next to authors of the calibre of Ali Smith, Janice Galloway and James Kelman.

Only yesterday, my first day in my new shop, I met a chap who was looking to buy a new copy of a Scots dictionary. He was a poet and writes in Scots, he has work published and it is selling well in his local bookshop. He has never thought about asking Waterstone’s if they would take on his book. I asked him to bring me a copy, and if I think I can sell it, I will get it into my shop, and I will also highlight this to other shops in our region.

I love to get behind authors, to promote them and I do so for many different reasons. Barry Stone, an author from the north east of England came to my shop and we sold 70 copies of his book as he is passionate about his work. Stuart Reid, a Kids author from Falkirk has been to my shop twice, and we sell a bucket of his books and part of it is because we have done as much as we can to promote his book. Lastly, this one has followed me in every shop I have worked in, because I love it; The Hills are Stuffed with Swedish Girls by Richard Happer. I worked for a year in our Edinburgh George St branch, my manager at the time told me it wasn’t a George St book,

I recommended it and for three weeks in a row it was our best selling book. In the year I was there I hand sold between 2 and 3 a week. Then when I went to the Dunfermline branch I continued to highlight it, and it sold just as many with one week seeing 9 copies sold. And now with Barry Hutchison, after a couple of late night online chats I will do my best to promote his books even more in my shop. In fact, I have just bought a couple to read, which I did because of the passion I felt from him about his craft, and his craft is also my passion.

Most booksellers I have met are like me, we are easy to win over, give us a free copy, buy us a coffee and have a blether with us, and we will do our best to get behind your book. Between us we can ensure that the future of bookshops continues for a long time. More author events will see a better return for you, the author. Rather than hoping people will borrow your book with Amazon prime, or buy a kindle edition for 20p – what hope do authors have when people only buy a book because it is 20p? - customers may just be able to discover you whilst browsing and reading a passionate recommend card by an enthusiastic, coffee driven bookseller.

Please come into your local bookshop at any time, we should always make time for YOU. These are my thoughts as a bookseller and not an endorsement of my employer, and I do believe that ebooks are here to stay and there is a place for them, but not more than physical books.