Focus in 2020
I have recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to open pre-orders for my new book. Videos are an important part of a campaign, I was told.
I am not a fan of having my photo taken, let alone sitting in front of a camera creating a video. I also didn’t really know how to go about it. Back in April as a part of the 30-day social media challenge for creatives, I did my first ever video. I sat at my computer and did about 100 videos and deleted them all before finally deciding enough was enough and uploading one to Facebook.
A few months on from that terrifying experience and I was faced with doing another one.
What was I thinking? And how do I do this? I knew that creating a video on my phone was meant to be easy. I’ll have a go. Okay, not like taking a selfie, I’ll need a tripod. As I don’t have a tripod what would work? Our cat Edward has an extravagant scratching pole/castle. If I added a couple of books to the top perch it would be the perfect height. I set up my phone and started talking to it. After deleting a few dozen I had one that wasn’t too bad.
To upload my video to the crowdfunding platform I needed a Youtube or Vimeo URL. How do I get one of those? Google became my best friend and it turns out as I have a Google account I have a Youtube account – who knew?
I uploaded my video and then realised, as my phone had been vertical the video was rather slim. That’s not going to work, so back to my tripod and with a few more book adjustments I started talking to the phone again.
This sounds like I knew exactly what I was doing and did this pretty quickly. Noooo, these videos took me FIVE DAYS!
As each day passed and I had a couple that weren’t too bad but not right. I panicked more and more. My lovely husband Peter and friend Jacqui were continually bombarded with videos and messages of despair. I decided to have one more go. I set up the tripod and started talking.
- I nearly had one and the doorbell rang. Delete.
- So close to the end and I forgot what I wanted to say next. Delete.
- Edward got cranky and jumped up onto the tripod/cat castle. Delete.
- I started looking at the dozen or so I actually, kinda, got through with no major mistakes. OMG what was I looking at in all of them. It certainly wasn’t the phone. Delete, delete, delete!
- I started talking again and Edward was getting more cranky and kept either jumping up or meowing loudly to get my attention. Delete, delete, delete.
- The phone fell off the perch. Delete
- I received a message letting me know I’d used up my month’s worth of data.
- It was getting dark.
- I deleted everything I had done.
- One more go. I sat at my computer and talked to it. I had three not too bad videos. The light wasn’t great but I said everything I wanted to say with few mistakes.
I uploaded them to Youtube and put one on the crowdfunding page.
I changed it the next day.
Then I changed it back.
Just before I pressed the launch button, I changed it again.
I pressed the launch button and started receiving messages saying the video wasn’t working!
I was off to Sydney to be inspired at the Writing NSW Kids and YA Festival. I had to not think about the video and have a fabulous time. Which I sort of did but it kept sneaking into my mind.
Home again and not knowing what to do about it I sent a rather long email off to Indiegogo asking for help.
Then I had a thought.
When I uploaded the videos to Youtube I put the settings on to ‘private’ as I didn’t want anyone to see them. Maybe that might be the issue. I figured out how to change the setting to ’public’, had a look at the campaign and … it worked, the video worked.
I AM NEVER, EVER, DOING THIS AGAIN!
If you haven’t seen the video, here’s the link.
https://igg.me/at/Sophie-Makes-New-Friends/x/18609874
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