Happy Birthday to Debbie De Louise & You FREEBIE & 99 Cent Sale

To celebrate my birthday, I’m giving away free copies of my first Cobble Cove mystery, A Stone’s Throw, and also offering the second book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, for only 99 cents. Both these offers are good on my birthday, Tuesday, May 9, and the day after, Wednesday, May 10. In addition, both books including my latest, Written in Stone, will be on tour with Great Escapes Book tours from May 5 to May 13.

A Stone’s Throw

Free on Amazon 5/9 – 5/10

myBook.to/Stonesthrow2

Widowed librarian Alicia Fairmont needs answers… After her husband is killed in a hit and run accident, Alicia travels upstate to his hometown of Cobble Cove, New York. She hopes to locate his estranged family and shed light on his mysterious past. Anticipating staying only a weekend, her visit is extended when she accepts a job at the town’s library. Secrets stretch decades into the past… Assisted by handsome newspaper publisher and aspiring novelist, John McKinney, Alicia discovers a connection between her absent in-laws and a secret John’s father has kept for over sixty years. Her investigation is interrupted when she receives word her house has burned and arson is suspected, sending her rushing back to Long Island, accompanied by John. Back in Cobble Cove, cryptic clues are uncovered… When Alicia returns, she finds a strange diary, confiscated letters, and a digital audio device containing a recording made the day her husband was killed. Anonymous notes warn Alicia to leave town, but she can’t turn her back on the mystery—or her attraction to John. As the pieces fall into place, evidence points to John’s involvement in her husband’s accident. The past and present threaten to collide, and Alicia confronts her fears… Has she fallen in love with her husband’s killer?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

99 cents on Amazon 5/9 – 5/10

myBook.to/CobbleCove2

Librarian Alicia McKinney has put the past behind her… Two years ago, Alicia discovered both a terrible truth and lasting love with John McKinney in the small town of Cobble Cove, New York. Now a busy mother of twin babies and co-author of a mystery series, Alicia couldn’t be happier. Alicia’s contentment and safety are challenged… Walking home alone from the library, Alicia senses someone following her, and on more than one occasion, she believes she is being watched. Does she have a stalker? When the local gift shop is burglarized, the troubling event causes unrest among Alicia and the residents of the quiet town. John and Alicia receive an offer they can’t refuse… When John’s sister offers to babysit while she and John take a much-needed vacation in New York City, Alicia is reluctant to leave her children because of the disturbances in Cobble Cove. John assures her the town is safe in the hands of Sheriff-elect Ramsay. Although Alicia’s experience with and dislike of the former Long Island detective don’t alleviate her concern, she and John take their trip. Alicia faces her worst nightmare… The McKinneys’ vacation is cut short when they learn their babies have been kidnapped and John’s sister shot. Alicia and John’s situation puts them between a rock and a hard place when the main suspect is found dead before the ransom is paid. In order to save their children, the McKinneys race against the clock to solve a mystery more puzzling than those found in their own books. Can they do it before time runs out?

Check out the tour schedule for my Cobble Cove Mystery series on these blogs for spotlights, reviews, interviews, and guest posts:

May 5 – My Journey Back – SPOTLIGHT

May 5 - Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW

May 6 – StoreyBook Reviews - GUEST POST

May 6 – Socrates' Book Reviews – REVIEW

May 7 – Lisa Ks Book Reviews – REVIEW, CHARACTER GUEST POST

May 8 – Dee-Scoveries – SPOTLIGHT

May 8 – Mochas, Mysteries and Meows – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

May 9 – Cozy Up With Kathy – SPOTLIGHT

May 10 – Books,Dreams,Life – SPOTLIGHT

May 11 – Valerie's Musings – REVIEW

May 12 – deal sharing aunt – INTERVIEW

May 13 – My Reading Journeys - REVIEW

#Giveaway #GuestBlogger #FREE #Deal

New Release: Plots & Schemes Vol 1

Mystery and intrigue, your local town to international locations—mysteries abound in this collection of stories from ten very talented authors!

https://bookgoodies.com/a/B072L7KZ6K

Her child vanishes in a puff of smoke.

When Murder is on the Itinerary

An eavesdropped comment leads to an impossible scheme!

Mysterious events pull Dana into danger.

A rock star’s murder leaves Emlyn Goode questioning everything she knows about herself.

Murder most foul puts this cop to the test

One murder, one plan, two possible outcomes.

Losing your mind is scary...

If you're not at the beach, the Tough Luck stories will take you there.

Trail Town Texas leans heavily on their sheriff

Murder, kidnapping, mysterious events, and more are our treat to you in this wonderful anthology from Solstice Publishing. Discover the talents of K.C. Sprayberry, Debbie De Louise, Donna Alice Patton, E.B. Sullivan, Susan Lynn Solomon, Johnny Gunn, K.A. Meng, Leah Hamrick, Lois Crockett, and Stephy Smith.

Special Bonus!

Wildcat Crew returns with their next adventure. Marnie, Garth, Tish, Les, Brad, and Suzie are celebrating the summer solstice as only true sun worshiping California teens can!

https://bookgoodies.com/a/B0722P7Z89

The summer solstice has arrived. Being the sun worshipers they are, Wildcat Crew heads to the beach for a day of fun and a picnic. But first, Marnie gets a huge surprise. Her parents have replaced her Camaro, destroyed in their first case.

At the beach with thousands of other Southern Californians, the crew stumbles over a small, crying child. Instead of checking out the waves and working on their tans, they go on the hunt for the little boy’s parents.

#BookSpotlight #Anthology #ATOMs #New

How to Create a Book Trailer for FREE

Just like I told you in my post, How to Create a Teaser Image for FREE.

I’ll be showing you how to make a book trailer for free. This will be more of a step by step process.

Decide if you want to do a book teaser trailer or the book trailer.

Like a movie about to come out, having a teaser about your book might benefit you. A book teaser trailer is short. I heard the max is 30 seconds. I’m going to make mine at 15 seconds because studies have been done that people lose interest if it is too long. 30 seconds. Sometimes 15 seconds is too much.

You can make it before your book comes out like teasers do or you can make it about your book. This is open for you to decide. I’m doing before, and I’ll make the bigger one too at the same time.

First step, download Windows Movie Maker program (or app) to make sure you can make it.

I’m not sure if this will work on Apple, but it should for most Window computers. If it is an older version of Windows, it might not work. Windows 10 works fine. I have it. You should be able to find other movie makers programs if this one won’t work for you. Go for free.

Second step, decide what to put on your slides.

The first slide should be the introduction, the second to last slide can be your book cover, and the last slide the credits. I just helped you make 3 slides. I’ll say for the teaser trailer to skip these three. You don’t have a lot of time. Well, besides the book cover. Keep that one. Along with the credits. The places I have found for the free images and sound require it.

For the book teaser trailer make about 2-4 slides. If you don’t get two, you’re fine. The max should be 30 seconds. Teasers are short. Remember what they look like when a movie is about to come out six months or a year from now. The number of slides don’t matter.

For the book trailer make about 8-12 slides. If you don’t get eight, you’re fine. The number of slides don’t matter. The maximum you want to do for time is a one minute and ten seconds. If you can, keep it under a minute. This is for ONE book. Anthologies will be much longer, more people.

A big help to make these is the blurb. You can decide what to put on the slides. You can change them. Don’t stress out over it. Do what interests you. There is no right or wrong for this. If it doesn't work out or if it doesn't gain interest, make another one.

I’ll design mine first, and you can see how I do it. Mine is on my second book in my series, Superior Species. Titled Superior Species Book 2: Finding Karen.

Teaser Trailer (15 seconds)

1. Ivory Ames is back.

2. She is on a mission to save her friends from the monsters that run the town of Los Roshano.

3. But the monsters have other plans.

4. Coming soon Book cover.

Book Trailer

1. K. A. Meng Presents Superior Species Book 2: Finding Karen (Intro)

2. Ivory Ames has learned the truth about the town of Los Roshano.

3. What she learned isn’t what she expected.

4. Monsters are real.

5. They run the city in secret and kidnap freshmen to fill their ranks.

6. Ivory vows to keep her friends safe.

7. As soon as she makes that promise, her best friend, Karen Bakke, disappears.

8. Now Ivory must find Karen before she is killed or worse.

9. Book Cover with links

10. Credits

Write yours now.

Now decide what images you want.

I’ll break mine down for you to see what I want to do. The best advice I can give you is don’t overthink it. Find a few images that relate to a word in what you have made posted.

For the Teaser Trailer, my first image will be a blonde girl with her back turned. I hate faces just me. You can do whatever you want. My second image will either be the town or a monster. My third will be a group of people or monster. My fourth the book cover. Here’s the breakdown:

Teaser Trailer (15 seconds)

1. Ivory Ames is back. (Blonde girl)

2. She is on a mission to save her friends from the monsters that run Los Roshano. (Town or Monster)

3. But the monsters have other plans. (Group of friends or monsters.)

4. Coming soon Book cover. (Book cover)

For the book trailer, my first image will be a pretty scene. That’s how I start them out. You can decide what you want to do. Do the book cover if you want. My second image, town. My third image, town again (I’ll repeat it.). My fourth image, a monster. My fifth image, city or college or someone kidnapped. My sixth image, a blond girl without a face. My seventh image, a brown-haired girl. My eighth image, her gone. My ninth, Ivory again. My tenth, book cover. My eleventh, black screen ( this will be the credits). Here’s the breakdown:

Book Trailer

1. K. A. Meng Presents Superior Species Book 2: Finding Karen (pretty scene)

2. Ivory Ames has learned the truth about the town of Los Roshano. (town)

3. What she learned isn’t what she expected. (town)

4. Monsters are real. (monster)

5. They run the city in secret. They kidnap freshmen to fill their ranks. (city or college or someone kidnapped)

6. Ivory vows to keep her friends safe. (Blonde girl)

7. As soon as she makes that promise, her best friend, Karen Bakke, (brown-haired girl)

8. disappears. (brown-haired girl gone)

9. Now Ivory must find Karen before she is killed or worse. (same Blonde girl)

10. Book Cover with links (book cover)

11. Credits (nothing but a black screen)

Leave yourself options for the images. You’ll never know what you will decide to use. I’m going to keep images the same for the two trailers because this is the same book, but you don’t have to. There isn’t a rule. A lot of what I do are suggestions.

Find images for your trailer.

I won’t post them all here, but you’ll see the finished work when I am done with it.

There are plenty of websites with images out there for you to use and pay for. I've found a few websites which give use for free under complete Creative Commons CC0 license. You can do almost whatever you want with them. You can read about it more here.

If you know anymore, drop me an email, and I'll add to this tutorial.

https://stocksnap.io/

https://unsplash.com/

https://www.pexels.com/ - each picture will say if it is part of the CC0

https://pixabay.com/ - each picture will say if it is part of the CC0 (This website you must join.) I found a lot of good ones on this one.

https://www.ukwebhostreview.com/free-stock-photo-sites - a website that has several places to go for free pictures and rates them. Check it out!

Find a song for your trailer or voice record yourself.

I would love to have my trailers with voice recording. I’m working on how, but until then I’ll use music.

I recommend making sure the song you decide fits for what you are doing. Find your theme. Both of mine are a tense. Don’t stress over it. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Decide what kind you are looking for and go with it.

Purple Planet is great for this one.

http://freemusicarchive.org/ - this one read the guidelines.

http://www.purple-planet.com/ - this one read the guidelines.

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/3 - this one read the guidelines.

A lot of these, you just need to give credit. Check them out though.

Making the trailer.

1. Open Move Maker.

2. Select on Add videos and photographs.

3. Select every image you need and open. You can add in the duplicates if you need to by adding in the images again.

4. After opening all the images, select on one at a time and move it to the correct location. You can grab it and drop it. There should be a line that tells you where it will be dropped after clicked on the image and dragged it.

5. After you are done, time to add in the captions.

6. Select the first slide and click caption.

7. Insert your text and play around with the format text area. You can change the color in the Font part with the A that’s higher than the others. Once you are done, move to the next slides by clicking caption until you are at the credits.

8. Now click on to add credits. Mine looks like this:

CREDITS

K.A. Meng Production

@KAMengAuthor

Photos: https://unsplash.com/ OR https://pixabay.com/

Music: http://www.purple-planet.com

THANK YOU for watching!

(Oops. I forgot the thank you.) It's not a necessary step but I think it is a good thing to do.

A few tips I can give you:

1. Don’t try and get fancy with the text. The important part is someone can read it. Don’t do a lot of animation with it either. The animation can get distracting. Depending on the length, three is the most.

2. Don’t get fancy with the slide transitions either. The important part is people need to read what’s going on. You can have a few but not too many. They get distracting. Keep it to three.

You can adjust the length of the slides and text tools for each slide by clicking on it and selecting edit or format for the text.

Have fun with it.

Now time to add in music.

1. Click add music and select the one you want.

2. You can adjust the slide lengths to time it better with the music. (To adjust the slide is under Video tab and edit.) Click on the slide, click edit for the video for the length. That’s what I did.

3. Make a slide or a few longer to time a certain change in the music.

The only tip I will give you for a slide is you need to read the slide within the time allowed.

Once you are done, click on File save movie for computer. Make sure the type is MPEG-4 (that is able to upload on youtube).

Here is mine teaser for you to see:

I hope this helps. I did edit a few of the pictures for my big trailer and my teaser trailer is actually 17 seconds but it had to be.

Later, K.A.

#WritingTips