Tons of New Content Being Released into the Public Domain Area January 1, 2019

As of January 1, all works published in the US in 1923 will be in the public domain. We have been waiting 21 years for this date to happen in the copyright world. This will include poems by Robert Frost, and films by Cecil B. Demille. It includes books, musical compositions, paintings, poems, films, and photographs. There has been a 20 year freezing of content and that is ending a New Years. This also means we have tons of new content to make into books, films, and songs.

You can read more about it on the Smithsonian.com site.
For The First Time in More Than 20 Years, Copyrighted Works Will Enter the Public Domain

Mentioned in the article
HathiTrust Digital Library

Google.com/books

Learn How to Make a Picture Book Using PowerPoint and Kindle Create, Presentation by Bruce Jones

Had a lot of fun at the Boston Media Makers with Steve Garfield monthly meet-up this past Sunday, April 1, 2018 on how to make a picture book that you can sell on Kindle. I used PowerPoint to create the picture book, but you can really use any program that can create a pdf file. We created the pdf and used the new Kindle Create app from Amazon/Kindle to convert the file for publishing on Kindle. It was fun and got quite a few people excited about creating their own books.



Steve Garfield recorded the presentation live and hosted it on YouTube. The new Kindle Create is super easy to use and it is a fantastic program for publishing your pdf files. It also works great to create a regular book such as a novel or non-fiction.

Learn More:
Boston Media Makers
Kindle Create from Amazon for creating e-books

Bruce Jone is the author of over 40 books. His latest is I Want to Publish My Book But I Don't Know How. Takes you through all the steps for creating your own book

I Want to Publish My Book But I Don't Know How: Everything You Need to Know to Create an E-book or Print Book

Available on Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Want-Publish-Book-Dont-book/dp/1985322250/


Connection and Learning
Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 self-published books.

If you want to learn how to create your own book visit Publishing Mastery 101 and see my courses: https://bruce-the-book-guy.usefedora.com/

Come over and join my Facebook Publishing Group, ask me questions, show your books. Great place to connect with authors and self-publishers
Join at https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/

Question: How to Check Plagiarism of My Books, Does the Publisher Check It?

Question from my How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group.

How to Check Plagiarism of My Books, Does the Publisher Check It? 

I am not really sure what the answer is here but we had some excellent resources put up Brook Smith and thought I would share them. The person questioning is wanting to make sure all her content is original.

"This is a great question. Yes, they do check and if they find you in violation you risk some heavy consequences, banded and accounts canceled. Do everything you can to avoid this. If you have questions about any of your works, educate yourself and use several software checking services to check your work. Do not rely on just one opinion. Make sure you understand "how to cite your work and fact check" everything. Here are a few links to start your education regarding Plagiarism software that you can use." – Brook Smith

• ProWritingAid.com, Plagiarism Checks

• Grammarly.com Plagiarism Checker & Proofreader

• RealSimple.com How to Fact-Check the Internet

• MIT Libraries, Citing Sources: Overview

And if you want to search on Google for further info here are two good phrases for both text and images, "plagiarism checker free" and for images "image checker for plagiarism"


Connection and Learning
Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 self-published books.

If you want to learn how to create your own book visit Publishing Mastery 101 and see my courses: https://bruce-the-book-guy.usefedora.com/

Come over and join my Facebook Publishing Group, ask me questions, show your books. Great place to connect with authors and self-publishers
Join at https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/

How to Make a Simple Video Trailer for Your Book Launch

Video should be part of your book marketing efforts. It is a powerful tool that you can use on your website, in your social media and on YouTube to promote your book. Below are some tips to help make your an effective video. Your book trailer video should cover 4 basic topics and be 1 to 3 minutes long.

1. Who you are, your name.

2. What you have got, the name of the book.

3. What the book will do for you and what you will learn, use your Table of Contents to come up with your list of key points.

4. What you want the viewer to do next, buy your book on Amazon.com, go to your website, give them a call to action.

Smartphones work great for making nice simple, one take video book trailers. The quality is great and if you record in a quiet place the audio will be just fine. You can always improve but smartphones work very well for this purpose.

Key point for quality is to make your smartphone nice and stable, use a small tripod from Amazon.com or from a site like Caddiebuddy.com. Also turn off any radios or fans that might make extra noise.

Quick Tips
•     Almost any simple digital camera will do for making a video. This includes the smart phone in your pocket. The quality is amazing and most are connected right to YouTube.

•    A little tripod can really help with the quality.

•    Don’t have a camera, then use the Save as Movie option of PowerPoint or a screen capture program like Screenflow.com or Screenr.com.

•     Keep the video short. This is key; around 1-3 minutes is perfect.

•     If you can do it in one take, you might not need to do any editing. If you are editing, then make each shot at least 10 seconds; (count in your head). You can also add in still images, or video from a PowerPoint presentation.

Here is a video trailer I did for my Mandala Happiness 1 Coloring Book


•     Lighting is important. Turn on the lights or stand by a window. 
A dark video just doesn’t look very good. Watch out for backlighting such as a window behind you. It can kill your video.

•     Stay close to the camera for good sound, turn off any radios, and watch out for background noise. If your camera has a mic input, you can also add one for better quality, lavalier mics work well.
•     In your video, give viewers a call-to-action: ask them to do something, call, go to a web site, suggest something to get them to your web site.

•     Do some simple editing with iMovie on the Mac, MovieMaker on the PC, for more complex, use Premier. You can even edit right in YouTube or the new YouTube Capture app that works for iPhone. Many cameras also come with video editing software.

•    Add your web address along the bottom or lower third of the screen. Add contact info or a call-to-action at the end. Tell viewers that your book is available on Amazon.

•     Upload your video to YouTube, then link it to a blog, your website, Facebook and other social media sites.

The above text is from the International Best Selling Book by J. Bruce Jones, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle. J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books and training courses for authors who are self-publishing their books.

 To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below

Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan 

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Key Elements in Your Author Media Kit, Book and Author Photos, Social Media, and Book Info

In part 3 of your book launch and media kit we go over the actual pieces you will will need. Most of these elements can be assembled on a page on your website so anyone who is promoting your book can access them.

Key Elements in an Author Media Kit
Your Author Media Kit is an essential part of your author/book website and your marketing. It has all the elements that you need to promote your book. Not only is it for building up the elements that you will need to send out like promo book covers and such. But it also has the resources that fans, the press and anyone else needs to be able to download when they are promoting you.

Author Bio
Have several different length bios for different uses
• A very short bio you can use at the end of a blog post, remember to include your web address.
• 50-100 word bio
• 250-500 word bio

Take a picture of you with your book. Associate the two together.

Author Photos
Spend a little money and have a professional photo done. Also be sure to have some images done with you holding your book up near your head. Have several different sizes produced, 300dpi for print uses and 72dpi for web use. I would also have some larger ones and also a thumbnail size. I like a 2”, 4” and 6” image in both 300dpi and 72dpi. A head shot with and without your book.

Book Photos
Same as the author pictures a 2”, 4” and 6” image in both 300dpi and 72dpi. Be sure to ask your book cover designer for these images.
(Make this part of the original book cover project.)

Any awards, testimonials and reviews. Have a running Word document where you save these.

Contact Details
Phone, e-mail, Skype, website address, social media addresses

Interview Questions
Sample interview questions, these can be very helpful for the interviewer.

Social Media Links
All of your social media connections, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.

Recent Speaking events, maybe a video or two if possible

Your Book Info
• Info about the book, specs, ISBN number, pages
• Book description
• Photo of the book, several sizes and resolutions, 300dpi and 72 dpi, including one with you holding the book
• Where to buy your book, print and ebook with links
• Book Reviews
• Sample chapter

Resources
Online photo editing sites
• Picnik.com http://www.picnik.com
• FotoFlexer.com http://fotoflexer.com/
• Lunapic.com http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
• Online-Converter http://www.online-convert.com/


Good Examples of Author Book Media Pages
Media page for Michael Stelzner’s book launch
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/launch/media.html

Joanna Penn, from the Creative Penn, one of the top in this area
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/
Here is her media area http://www.thecreativepenn.com/contact/

Tim Ferriss, The Four Hour Work Week Guy
http://fourhourworkweek.com/overview/

Mardie Caldwell, has an excellent example of a interview questions pdf
http://www.mardiecaldwell.com/press-kit/

CJ Lyons, Thriller writer
http://cjlyons.net/contact/for-media/

Stephen R. Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, though
Dr. Covey has passed, but the site that promotes his books is set up very well and is a good example.
https://www.stephencovey.com/

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro
http://theproductivitypro.com/newsroom/

Book Launch Prep & Building Out Your Book Media Kit

You are ready to launch your book, how do your start, what are some of the first steps? There are lots of ways to launch your book, but one of the ways that is often overlooked is having a library of marketing materials at hand that you can access. These can be used for your website, social media, for interviews, and the local press. The best time to make these are just as you are releasing your book. This is usually when you still have access to your book and/or cover designer and can have them give you the pieces. Better yet make these materials part of the book cover project before you loose touch with your cover designer.

Graphics
___Produce some book cover promo photos made in 3 sizes 6” wide, 4” wide, 2” wide, rgb format, at 72 and 300dpi. Request these from your cover designer, make them part of the design requirements.

___Find a local photographer and produce some promo head shots.

___Be sure to have some promo head shots with your book cover.

Promo Videos
___Prepare a book announcement video, include a call to action at the end.

___Prepare a book trailer video, include a call to action at the end. You can do this with smart phone if that is the only camera you have. The quality these days is amazing. Be sure to stand close so that you get good audio.

___Upload the trailer and announcement videos to YouTube, include a good title, live http web links, good healthy descriptions and keywords. Also include a short bio and your social media information.

___ Connect your videos to all social media sites using the share and embed buttons. These can also be uploaded to your Amazon Author Central page.


The above text is from the International Best Selling Book by J. Bruce Jones, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle. J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books and training courses for authors who are self-publishing their books.

To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below
 
Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

How to Come Up with a Title for Your Course Using FaceBook Polls

My very scientific survey recording device.

I just ran an interesting experiment in several Facebook groups to come up with a title for my new course. This exercise can also be used to survy a book title or really anything that you want. Using the poll feature on a post you can test several different ideas and see which resonate with your audience. I posted 4 different titles in 5 different Facebook groups that related to my topic, Formatting Kindle Books. Almost within minutes you start getting results and they continue to come in over the next day. This is also another reason to build out your own Facebook Group, it is a very powerful tool. (I have a course coming soon on how to build a Facebook Group for your business or cause.)

The titles I tested were
• How to Format Your Kindle Book, 16 responses
• Kindle Formatting Success, 3 responses
• Formatting Your Kindle Book, 2 responses
• Kindle Formatting Simplified, 10 responses

I also researched Google and Amazon using the instant search box to see how the crowd and search sees this topic. I have settled on
How to Format Your Book for Kindle

Doing this does a number of things.
1. It announces to the world that you are releasing a product. It is a product announcement without being salesie. It give you some time to get all the parts working
2. You get feedback very quickly, sometime withing seconds.
3. People feed you new ideas. One title that was interesting was How to Format Your Kindle book in 3 Days. I didn't use it as a title but I might use something like in my course promo copy.
4. It gives you a great reason to interact with your audience. You are giving them something to do.
5. You see which of the groups you post in has activity and a good idea of where to come back to when you launch.

If you want to be notified of the launch date or other info around the course be sure to sign up over on the right. I will keep you informed as the course gets closer. Estimating launch for Feb 15, 2016.

Royalty Free Photo, Copyright Free Public Domain Photos and Creative Commons 0 Photos

Public Domain Image Bowling Alley Red Ball White P:ins Lane form the Public Domain Archive

Getting photos for your book and marketing efforts is always an effort. Do you hire a photographer, go to stock houses, look for free on the internet or do it yourself. Getting the right image, getting good quality and something you have the rights are all important goals.

Below are some links to some resources to check out in your search

Trying to save money, there are 3 paths to look at, Public Domain, Royalty Free and Creative Commons 0. This article from Inc magazine breaks there areas down and gives you 20 great places to look.
20 Sites With Free Images for Your Blog or Social Media Posts. Some of the leading site that people use are Pixabay, 1 Million Free Pictures and Flickr: Creative Commons, and one they don't mention is the Library of Congress. Be aware of all your rights and that your image is free and clear.

13 Sources for Free Public Domain and CC0-Licensed Images from wptavern.com also has some great sites, some of them overlap.

You can always go with stock images and there are tons of sites to look at. Advantages are that you know your license will be fine. A number of the stock houses like ShutterStock.com have changed their license a lot and now allow for using their images in ebooks and print on demand. They have also gotten much more competitive with pricing, so images are much more affordable. Check out the list in our Resource area

Image above from the Public Domain Archive with 100% Free Stock Photos, Every. Single Week