2016 – New Year, New Updates!

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art of writing, authors, book trailers, books, eBooks, how to write, sequels, vampires, writer, writers, writing, writing a novel

Hello everyone!

I know its 17 days into the new year, but I haven’t been able to wish everyone a happy new year. So I’m taking that opportunity right now. I’ve been crazy busy this month so far with work and getting another job squared away, as well as taking steps to laying the foundations of what I hope – and expect – will be a productive year for me!

With that, I will now give some updates on where my life is now. I currently work as a part-time reporter for a local paper, and in a few weeks I will start teaching as an adjunct professor for English 101 classes at one of the public colleges here in New York. I am very thrilled by the developments in my professional life, and look forward to see them grow even more this year.

Along with those developments, I am eager to see my authorship restart and grow by leaps and bounds this year too. I recently completed book trailers for The Dark Proposal, and I am offering to do book trailers for other authors. I am excited by the prospects of helping other authors – particularly self-published authors – expand and meet their audiences in a variety of ways.

That being said, you’re probably wondering what is up with my long awaited sequel to my first book? Well, the good news is that I am still working on it. The bad news, my work stalled due to the holidays and my other commitments. But I’m finding ways to squeeze in time to write this second book, which is great because I really am excited by what the sequel has to offer. I’ve mentioned this in other posts, but I just want to reiterate that I am excited. I have to admit that I am nervous though, because I’m approaching the story of Claire and the vampires differently, even though the original story stays. I have grown so much as a person and as a writer that my approach is far from what it was a few years ago. It’s amazing how much I’ve developed since releasing The Dark Proposal over three years ago.

Anyway, I just want to say that I am still actively writing. My goal is to complete the first draft of this book by the end of summer. The sooner, the better, of course, and I know I might be compared to George R R Martin, author of the series that inspired the HBO show, Game of Thrones. But life comes first, that is the way it is.

But I will finish this story. I’m a passionate storyteller, and will always be. I can’t not tell a story, so the sequel to The Dark Proposal will be out someday. I haven’t forgotten any of you!

 

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The Book Trailers for “The Dark Proposal”

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book trailers, books, eBooks, novels, vampire books, vampires, video, YouTube

At last, I finally made my book trailers for my book!

I know its been three years since I released “The Dark Proposal”, but I have been meaning to do a book trailer for it. So finally, I made not one, but two of them.

The first is what I call the teaser/cover reveal. It provides a simple summary of what the book is about:

The second is the fuller length, since it goes into more depth:

I got the photos through Creative Commons, mainly through Flickr. The haunting music, which I really love, come from Freesound. I used the programs Final Cut Pro 7, Motion, and my iPhone to do the voiceover.

I chose to do the voiceover rather than captions, because I believe hearing a voice grabs the audience more than simple words going across the screen. And yes, that is my voice 🙂

I had a lot of fun making these trailers, and I definitely look forward to making the ones for my sequel. If all goes well, I’ll be preparing to release it this time next year.

Introducing…Video Services for Indie Authors!

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affordable, author interview, author interviews, book trailers, books, indie authors, indie writers, interview, self-published, self-published authors, trailers, video, videos

Hello everyone!

You’ve probably been wondering what I’ve been up to in recent weeks, since announcing I will be getting back to writing the sequel to The Dark Proposal. Well, I have been scribbling notes here and there, plus writing background stories on each character in order to flesh them out more. I am totally loving this process! Why didn’t I think of it before?

But I have also been developing something else to help the indie author scene. Some of you may be aware of my Author Interviews, where I conduct and post interviews of self-published authors. It’s been a thrill to do this, especially since the authors and the readers of this blog seem to enjoy them.

But lately, I’ve been working bringing my author interviews to the next step, and I know I am ready to unveil it.

I will be offering video services for self-published and small press authors. The services will be:

Post-production book trailers

Video interviews of authors.

You see, I have a background as a video journalist, and I would like to use the equipment that I still have to help authors reach their audiences. Book trailers seem to be the obvious route, especially since I have a video editing software. I would love to create book trailers that will include actors and cool effects, but alas, I could only work with the usual stock images and stock music. But maybe someday…

As for video interviews of authors, this is where I will take my author interviews to the next level. I will do short videos where the author simply talks about their books, the inspiration behind it, its writing process and what they hope readers will get out of it. It will be a promo video where the author voices their book’s journey to their audience. I don’t think many authors get the chance to vocally speak to their audience, so this would be a great chance for them.

However, there’s one small problem: I could only do this for authors in the New York City area. I don’t have the funds or team to do this outside of the Big Apple, so unfortunately, my target area is limited. Granted, there are many writers in New York, but it would be great for me to get those in, say, Michigan, Florida, Oregon, Canada, Europe, etc. Well, maybe next time…

Anyway, so here are my services and my rates. If my rates seem low, well, its because I understand that many self-published and small press writers have very tight budgets. I’m trying to be fair here.

POST PRODUCTION BOOK TRAILER:
– 1 minute trailer          $150
– 3 minute trailer          $200
– 4 or more minutes     $250

In addition, if the author wishes for me to purchase the music or stock images, that would be added to the tab. I am willing to discuss who should be responsible for purchasing such items for the book trailer. But if it is me who does it, I will have the author reimburse me when I forward an invoice.

VIDEO AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
– 3 to 6 minutes             $250

BOOK TRAILER WITH SNIPPETS OF AUTHOR INTERVIEW INCLUDED:
– An extra $100 included to whichever aforementioned service you choose.

I will be including each video – of either service – on not only this blog, but a YouTube channel I will set up. I will also promote it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. I will also allow the author to use the video of his or her website and author platform. There will be an agreement between the two of us over this so nothing gets confused.

Sounds interesting to you? Let me know by shooting me an email at megancashmanbooks [at] gmail [dot] com