I’m a cheapskate.

I’m also technologically impaired.

So when it came to making a book trailer for Sunwielder’s audiobook pre-release hype, I resorted to the old familiar standby from my years of selling office furniture – MS PowerPoint. The program’s been updated over the past 2 decades, but I still figured it out with some trial and error. And error. And a little more error.

The main thing I learned is regarding sequence:

1. Start with your text: Keep it pithy. I used my book blurb and pared it down to its bare essentials. That gave me about fifteen slides to populate with images.

2. Then add images: I took advantage of Pixabay’s royalty-free, attribution-free images for this one, frequently mashing them together to create a scene. Remember to check copyright details for the images you decide to use.

3. Add transitions: Don’t get too zany, but have fun. Timing is the hardest part. Just keep viewing and adjusting until you’re satisfied.

4. Add animation: Same as the above.

5 Add music: Once your presentation is done and the timing close to finalized, find a piece of music. I searched for royalty-free music about the length of the slideshow since editing music is beyond my brain’s ability. Again, check the copyright details. I added a slide at the end for the required attribution.

6. Tweak about 50-100 times.

7. Export from PowerPoint as an MP4 file.

8. Upload to Youtube, Goodreads, and Amazon.

Want to check it out?