Two More Tools You Can Use

Pinterest and Everything: A pair of my customers, Nancy Diehl and Kathi Kemper (authors of Art-Based Curriculum) turned me on to Pinterest. Okay, I'm still a little short of turned on, but I'm looking at it with, uh, interest. Some publishing consultants and a ton of small-business consultants are saying, "You gotta be there." Pinterest is another one of those social-networking sites that seem to spring up overnight. This one allows you to "pin" items into various self-determined groups (categories) that entangle with other folks pins and groups and supposedly do you good. I have barely stuck my toe in the water, and I'm still trying to figure out how to keep my business interests separate from my personal interests, which would seem to muddy the waters. On that score, I found this post by Social Media blogger Betsy Kent, who seems to enjoy the game and have it figured out. Still, the whole concept seems a little chaotic, like the rush of consumers into Walmart on Black Friday. Still, it pays to pay attention.

My second find came about because I was working on a project with hundreds of images and no file or folder naming conventions. Much of my time was spent on searching for the customer's photos. And then the search mechanism on my Windows Explorer broke. Great. I went online looking for clues on how to fix it. When I got nowhere with that, I looked for an alternative. I found a free program called Everything. Well, that about covers it. I don't expect much from freeware, but Everything is a beauty. It's fast. Really fast. Like instant. It makes Microsoft's search look like a dinosaur. It's a little cumbersome to adjust your search parameters, but I'm finding little need to do that. I downloaded mine at CNet. Saved my bacon. The Publishing Pro.

Book Trailers: Are They Worth It?

Maybe if they're free: Book trailers—similar to movie trailers—have become de rigueur in some quarters, mainly in the quarters of those in the business of making them. The argument is that you need this medium in an age where attention spans are getting shorter. I buy part of the argument. Attention spans are getting shorter. I'm a reader, and I can't watch a book trailer for more than a minute. I can hardly wait out the fifteen second ad that precedes the minute-long video I might be willing to look at. As it turns out, many experts suggest a minute as the upper limit for a book trailer. Some even suggest thirty seconds, but I'm seeing many trailers that are two or three minutes. You must be kidding. If a book trailer is that tiresome, think about the book. The trouble with trailers—and why do they call them "trailers" if they precede the movie or book—is that they take time and they crawl. If I'm looking for information, plain words—I can read 700 words a minute—are better. If you let me hyperlink, I can absorb an encyclopedia by the time the average trailer is done.

On the other hand, book trailers are a thing. If you google "book trailers," you'll get a list of websites where you can post your book trailer. Many of the websites—YouTube.com is an exception—seem to be devoted exclusively to book trailers. I'm not sure how this works. I have trouble imagining that people go to websites expecting to browse book trailers. I can imagine having a book trailer on my website or sending people a link to the trailer and inviting people to view it. 

In any case, I'm not at a point where I'll pay someone to create a book trailer for me. On the other hand, it appears to be relatively easy to create one myself using free tools like Microsoft Movie Maker combined with Apache OpenOffice Presentation (a free competitor to Microsoft Powerpoint). Such a book trailer would be simple: a combination of text, images, and music. A good writer should be able to put together a decent trailer. I can see that once I get past the learning curve, I'll  spend most of my time searching for images and music, especially ones I can use at little or no cost. I figure: If I can make my book trailer for nothing, it could be worth every cent I put into it. I'll give it a try.—The Publishing Pro, LLC

Try These Tools.

Or not: Below are three tools that I either use or have run across recently:

Tracfone: I've had a Tracfone for several years because it's pay-as-you-go, doesn't require a contract, and is cheap, cheap, cheap. I use it as my office phone, and it's strictly for talking with customers (and auto emergencies). I'm required to buy some minutes every 90 days, which so far has cost me between $7.00 and $10.00 a month. For that, I'm happily not joining the ranks of smart phone users. Actually, my new phone is app-capable, at least with the addition of more memory, but it's still just a phone and will stay that way for a while. Oh,yes, it can text. I don't have much use for that either. One caveat. Because Tracfone is pay-as-you-go and requires almost no information, it's popular with drug sellers, criminals, and other ne'er-do-wells--and their short-term phone numbers are recycled. My last phone number was used by a serious deadbeat, and I began getting collection calls for him. When the calls got up to three-times-a-day, I let the minutes run out and bought a new phone--with a new number. So far, so good.

Square: Speaking of smart phones, you can now use your smart phone to take credit-card payments, which is handy for those of you selling books direct to your customers after presentations and the like. Square is just one of the devices I've heard about. It's getting raves about its ease of use and its cost, but there are concerns about its customer service. I haven't used it myself--hey, no smart phone--but I know people who have and like it. Our Toastmasters club is contemplating using it to make it easier for new members and existing members to pay their dues. Competing services include GoPayment from Intuit and ProPay, which is more robust. I expect PayPal, which I use for taking credit card payments online, will get into the mobile credit-card processing game sooner rather than later.

MagCloud: This is an HP business that is combining POD technology, social media, and magazine distribution. I wondered why I hadn't seen POD technology applied to magazines before, but printing hard copies of magazines (unlike books) is a challenge. While their 20-cent per-page price compares favorably to prices at local copy printers, it does not make printing hard copies of a magazine attractive. It is no surprise, then, that the emphasis seems to be on creating PDF magazines, which makes me wonder why we need HP. It's interesting, but I haven't figured it out yet. The Publishing Pro