Without a doubt, the 21st Century is the heyday of video-enhanced data. I don’t need to quote professional sources to postulate that kids today spend an inordinate amount of time playing video games or similar video-oriented games. I’ll go beyond that and say that many of their parents grew up playing video games, too, and the parents are a large chunk of the picture book market. We have become a society of give-it-to-me-in-cinematic-quality-HD-with-sight-and-sound and do that quick, quick, quick! Most of the book industry has suffered from the public’s proclivity for video-oriented material, but fortunately, the picture book industry has continued to flourish. Yet, video-produced materials are the best way to market those picture books, too.

Most authors today are expected to do more than write. Most authors today are expected to be their own marketers-in-chief, and yet, they don’t have a huge amount of time to throw at marketing. That is why Canva is a great resource for them. Canva has managed to automate the creation of marketing tools. They have even automated the process of making video output. Otherwise, movie-making has a tough learning curve. I made both of the following YouTube videos this week. Although I tweaked the second one in Adobe Premiere Pro, I created the first video completely in Canva–a resource that also has copyright-free music for creators to use. I found the music for the following video on Canva.

In the preceding video, I animated many images and texts in Canva with the animation effect Breathe. When you use the Breathe animation, the text or image swells. If you are careful, you can coordinate the swelling of the music with the swelling of the image or text. I managed that on the frame that only contains the word “Miracle.” At this point, Canva has no option to fade the music for its videos. In the following production, I added the music and faded it via Adobe Premiere Pro, which is a bear to learn.

Why Do Authors Need to Create Videos for YouTube?

1. Video data can be digested almost instantaneously.
2. YouTube videos help increase your page rank on Google search, and your Google page rank determines whether people on the Internet will find you or not.

It is a myth to think that once your picture book has been published, your job is done.

Success is like a mirage. Getting a book published is just the first pool that authors see on the horizon. Understand this: Once you reach that pool, you have other pools beckoning you–just beyond. Don’t fail to journey toward those newer pools, too.

If an author wants to be published more than once, his first book needs to sell. Publishing houses spend loads of time and money getting your book to the bookstores. If your book doesn’t sell……… Ooops!

It was just a few days ago that Random House Children’s Books announced that my debut picture book The Donkey’s Song is ready to pre-order, I immediately found myself free-falling into a well of need-to-do-next challenges.

1. I set up my author’s page on Amazon
2. I registered for Amazon Author’s Central [Before yesterday, I had never heard of Amazon Author’s Central.]
3. I created my author’s page at Goodreads. [Goodreads continues to insist that my picture book has no cover. On Goodreads, it looks like I copied the book from gutenberg.org and wrapped the cover in a brown paper bag, Oh well! They will catch on, but believe me, the sooner that you start trying to fix these issues, the better.
4. I changed my website to be nothing more than an author’s site: https://x55.68c.myftpupload.com
5. I wrote blog posts [containing images] about the release of The Donkey’s Song
6. I posted about that release on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
7. Most recently, I have created some video announcements for YouTube.

I have more fish to fry now. I need to finish and submit several other picture book manuscripts. I need to start querying to find an agent. I want to finish some children’s nonfiction books, too. But I need to remember that I must also continue to care for my book baby The Donkey’s Song.

Link to Pre-Order the Book