timwburke

I have had my first author interview a few days ago. My friend (and professional journalist) Sally Weiner Grotta interviewed me via Zoom about “The Flesh Sutra” and the subsequent “Saints of Flesh”, and my fantasy novel “Fazgood and the Obstreperous Moosecrab Caper”. What did I have to do? How did it go?

Usually, I work or Zoom from a Panara Bread in my neighborhood. Obviously, it was time for me to grow up a little. My apartment has the bare minimum of everything, but I’m converting a corner of my unused dining area into an office. A small bookcase went against the wall. One of my two chairs went in front of it. I sat in the chair wearing a white dress shirt (which I’ve almost outgrown at the shoulders) and a blazer. My laptop went on an heirloom dropwing table.

Preparation is key and Sally sent me her questions ahead of time. “Oh yeah, I got this,” I thought and did not look at the questions at all. As a result, I stammered through my answers, which while understandable for my first interview, was pretty rude of me. Sally was gracious and the video ended at 26 minutes.

Now I am editing the video. I’m using ClipChamp, Windows 11’s video editing software. Turns out it’s very user friendly. Haven’t exported the results yet, but the video does look good.

The interview format is itself user-friendly. Book trailers can be tricky, and to be honest I don’t look at them. Does anyone? Don’t know.

What little I know is an optimum promo video is less than eight minutes long. I took the 26 minutes and have edited out nine minutes (mainly stammering) and may be able to get out another three or four. Speed up the finished product by 1.2, and it may get down to nine minutes. We’ll see.

I’ll pin the finished interview when its done.