Learning new technologies by Sheila Johnson

 In these Covid times when book promotion in person is non-existent, we are all having to learn new technologies in order to promote our books. Well, I know I certainly am. Before lockdown I had secured a talking spot on the Women's Institute speaking rota after passing their initial test of proving I could give an interesting talk about New Zealand and my book, Waireka. But all of that has now disappeared, at least for the present. So I am trying new forms of publicity now. 

Recently my publisher decided to help us out a bit by staging an event called 'Christmas in July'. The idea being that we could promote our books as early Christmas presents or just a good summer read. This inspired me to put up my first post on You Tube, which was very frightening but I got there eventually. 




I have to say that I am relatively pleased with the results, a series of slides with a talk.



This then encouraged my husband to get out his camera and to do another introductory video of my book, Waireka with his camera recording me. 

This was also uploaded to You Tube. 

Perhaps the lockdown has helped us authors to learn new skills. What have you learnt to do or do better during the lockdown?

Sheila Johnson lives in Cheltenham and is a qualified journalist who has written for a number of publications both local and national. She has also written two books under her pen name Sheila Donald, Alpha Male and Waireka. Her website can be found at www.journojohnson.com

 

Comments

  1. This is great! I love the idea of Christmas in July. Well done, Sheila. My main learning has been on Zoom. I can now set up and host meetings and do things like share screens and videos etc. Am very proud of myself!

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  2. Challenging times gathering good responses!

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  3. It was on zoom that I set up the slides, Deborah. Facebook Live doesn't let you video anything but yourself, so I filmed the slides on zoom and then posted it to the Facebook page of my publisher 'Christmas in July'.

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  4. Wow the thought of doing YouTube scares me! I have learned about Zoom and that's kind of it. Oh and Instagram. It has been a time of change and growth which I think is super helpful if a tad scary.

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