Tasha's Thinkings

How to Efficiently Create Short Vids for Book Promotion on Social Media

2025-08-07T10:51:00.000+01:00

How to Efficiently Create Short Vids for Book Promotion on Social Media

So I am still in the stages of implementing the social media strategy outlined by Kate- Alyne Digital and am having to change up because slideshows for books don't seem to be cutting it anymore. It's all about vids now.

Now Kate gives a very comprehensive method for creating the vids in Canva, but it uses functions of Canva which are part of the purchased packages. Now, since I already have Adobe (which I use for many things), I do not want to have to pay for two packages, so I decided to try and figure out the most efficient way of doing it in Adobe.

Unfortunately this is not as easy to automate in Premiere Pro as doing slides was in Photoshop. This is where it becomes obvious that all Adobe products are not made equal, what is easy in one is not easy in another. This YouTube video gives a detailed rundown of how to import information from a CSV file into Photoshop to create many datasets of the same layout with different word content.

BUT we can’t do this in Premiere Pro. One option is to create text PNGs with transparent background in Photoshop using variable and datasets and then importing those into Premiere Pro to overlay the background video. This is perfectly valid, but there is a little faffing to do in Photoshop (repositioning text, adding back in first “ if using dialog because it loses it on the import etc). Only having to faff in one application is better, and having the text editable in Premiere Pro in case of a mistake is much better.

So we have to go around the houses. My solution requires the following steps:

Create text content in Excel
Export the content to individual CSV files
Convert the CSV files into SRT files
Import the SRT files into Premiere Pro
Edit the captions so they show in the manner we wish them to show.
Create vids

1. Create Text Content in Excel

We can use any editor that allows us to output to CSV, I use Excel because I have Office 365. Google Sheets or Open Office should work just as well, but I have not used them, so cannot vouch for them.

1.1 Format for Each Excel Sheet

Each sheet should have 3 columns (no headers):

Start time (00:00:00:00) – where we want the text to start in the timeline
End time (00:00:00:00) – where we want the text to end in the timeline
Text content

We are basically creating all the information needed in an SRT file.

Format of the CSV file

1.2 Create a Sheet for Each Set of Text

Unlike Kate’s method, we have to have each set of text on a different sheet in the workbook. The easiest way to do this is:

Create the first sheet.
Make a copy of the first sheet.
Change the name of the new sheet to something sensible.
Edit the text in the new sheet.
Rinse and repeat until we have as many sets of text as we need.

2. Export the content to individual CSV files

Now the easiest, but slower method to do this the following (the methods in other spreadsheet programs may be slightly different):

Open the workbook
Go to the sheet to export
Go to File > Export > Change File Type
Choose CSV and save

The only problem with this in Excel is that it messes with seeing the original document because CSVs can only cope with one sheet of data, so it can be a right pain. Having to open and close the original document.

Hence, an easier method is as follows (this is Excel specific):

Save the workbook as a macro enabled workbook (xlsm)
Go to View > Macros > View Macros
Type in “ExportAllSheetstoCSV” in the Macro name field, then hit the Create Button
The MS Visual Basic screen with open with your new empty macro as shown.
Copy the following code and paste it into your macro:
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim path As String
path = ActiveWorkbook.path & "\" & Left(ActiveWorkbook.Name, InStr(ActiveWorkbook.Name, ".") - 1)
For Each ws In Worksheets
ws.Copy
ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs Filename:=path & "_" & ws.Name & ".csv", FileFormat:=xlCSV, CreateBackup:=False
ActiveWorkbook.Close False
Next
Click the save icon and close the VBA editor.
Go to View > Macros > View Macros
Choose “ExportAllSheetstoCSV” (if you only have one macro is will already be selected)
Click Run – and all your sheets will be saved into the same director as you Excel sheet as CSV files. The filenames will be: FilenameoftheExcelSheet_Nameofthesheet.csv – so name the sheets something sensible.

3. Convert the CSV files to SRT

This is the easiest part, there is a free tool by GoTranscript to do this.

Go to this website: https://gotranscript.com/subtitle-converter
Click Upload and choose all the CSV files
Choose “SubRip (.srt)” from the Select Format menu
Click convert and save the zip files it gives you to you harddrive.
Unzip the zip file and there are all your srt files – one for each set of text.

4. Import the SRT files into Premiere Pro

In our Premiere Pro project we can drag and drop the srt file of choice into the media list. Then drop it onto our timeline. Premiere Pro will convert our srt file into captions that we can edit to our hearts content.

This Adobe vid gives lots of info on how to do this: How to Edit Captions in PremierePro.

5. Edit the captions so they show in the manner we wish them to show.

The only problem with captions in Premiere Pro is they can only have a max of 2 lines. When we are creating text for vids like this, we often want more than 2 lines. So we have to make them graphics.

Select all the captions
Go to “Graphics and Captions” in the main top menu
Select “Upgrade Captions to Graphics”

Now all our captions are text boxes.

This Adobe vid talks all about text boxes and how to edit them: How to Add Text to Videos in Premiere Pro.

We don’t need to add text because we’ve already done it, but it talks all about editing text as well.

6. Creating the Vid

Now we have our text we can put anything we want behind it.

Make sure the text is on the top most layer.
Drag and drop our vid background into a layer under the text.
Make sure the vid is the right length.
Add in a music track if required (Incompetech has some great royalty free music) – if posting to TikTok, use their music, but YouTube, Insta etc having music already on there stops the hassle.
Export the vid.

Because we can turn Premiere Pro layers on and off at will, we can load up one project with many sets of text and backgrounds and then just mix and match as required.

7. Summary

Is it easier in Canva – yes most probably.

Kate is a very savvy lass and her courses have lots of useful information, so go check her out if you are an author struggling with social media (her TikTok course is mind blowing). I did not create this post to replace any of hers, I just don’t want to forget how to do all this and if you’re locked into Adobe like me, this is the most efficient way I can come up with without buying third party plugins and having to deal with After Effects as well.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon TikTok

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Publishing Slideshows to TikTok for Book Promotion

2025-05-28T14:54:00.002+01:00

Slideshow Book Promotion on TikTok

Prerequisites: Windows 10 or 11, Android phone

So I am dipping my toe into TikTok these days (oh woe is me 😆) and I'm trying out a strategy from this successful young lady over here: Kate- Alyne Digital. It involves posting TikTok slideshows with significant scenes from a book to get readers hooked, and make them want to buy the book.

She has many YouTube vids about it, so if you want all the details check out her channel.

This post is simply a cheat sheet of everything I have learned through trial and error about posting slideshows on TikTok and what a pain in the proverbial it is! Please be aware there are many other ways to do it, but this is the easiest for what I have available.

Each slideshow should have between 25-35 slides for Kate's process - so it takes some work to get everything ready.

As Kate points out, TikTok does not mind word content being repeated, as long as something significant changes in each slideshow. For us this means changing the background and the music on each slideshow. The same scene can be used over and over again because TikTok has such a large audience it could be any instance of it that catches attention.

Choose the Backgrounds

The first thing I do is go and find my backgrounds. The following sites are really good for royalty free, free to use images:

Unsplash - just make sure to select the free licence option
Pexels - has stills and vids
Pixabay - just watch out for the AI created content which is usually tagged

Search for topics close to the theme of your book and choose the aesthetically pleasing ones. We don't want to misrepresent our books to our audience because then those seeing it won't buy it, so go with the right genre.

N.B. Kate mentions to avoid having people in the pictures because sometimes the TikTok algo can misconstrue what it is seeing, especially with romance titles and shadow ban the slideshow.

Having all my background chosen before I begin putting the slides together makes it a much faster process.

Choose the Music

Each slideshow needs different music, so I go to the "Unlimited Sounds" library in TikTok Studio and hunt out the tunes that feel like they go with the scenes I have chosen. Again this is very much to do with personal preference and genre choices.

TikTok Unlimited Sounds Library

Click the bookmark icon next to selected tunes to mark them as favourites to easily find them again later.

I also write everything down in a spreadsheet so I know what I have chosen, but then I'm a nerd 🤓😝.

I reuse tunes on different content, but not on those vids that contain the same scene. I have no idea if TikTok would object if I did, but I prefer not to take chances.

Create the Slides

Each slide has between 10 and 15 words except for the first one which is a hook slide rather than part of the chosen scene.

I've created myself a base file in Photoshop with has pre-numbered layers for all the text, and I place my chosen image at the bottom as the background.

Then using the script I found and have written its own post about - How to Batch Save Layers in Photoshop - I save all the text layers with the same background.

#1 Note: There is also a plugin for Gimp that can be used to get a similar output: Batcher. And I am sure there must be a way of doing it in Canva, but I'm afraid I do not know what it is.

Change Create and Modified Dates of Slides

This is optional, but it saves me a lot of time when creating the slideshows on TikTok, so I am sharing it. TikTok does not allow sorting by name, only but created/modified date when adding files to a slideshow, so I use this method to make sure I can do it inside TikTok if I need to for any reason (I don't often - you'll see why later, but I still do this on the off chance since it takes seconds).

What I have found when copying files from Windows to my phone to upload to TikTok is that getting them in the right order is a headache, and flipping around to add them in the correct order for a slideshow takes forever if they are out of sequence. Hence why I take this step.

This code sorts files by name and then edits the files' created and modified dates to be 1min apart from the starting time specified, so they will definitely appear in order when sorted by date.

Using Windows Powershell (right click on the windows icon and it's in the list), copy and paste in the following code:

# -------------------------- CONFIGURE --------------------------
$folder = 'C:\DIR-OF-SLIDES' # your directory of JPGs
$startDate = Get-Date '2025-05-25 12:00:00' # first file’s “Date Created”
# ? EDIT THIS to pick any starting moment you like
# ----------------------------------------------------------------

# 1. Collect and order the files once (static array keeps order stable)

$files = Get-ChildItem -Path $folder -Filter *.jpg -File | Sort-Object Name

# 2. Loop through the list, adding one second per iteration

for ($i = 0; $i -lt $files.Count; $i++) {
$newStamp = $startDate.AddMinutes($i) # +0 min, +1 min, +2 min, ...
$files[$i].CreationTime = $newStamp # write Date Created
# Optional: keep LastWriteTime in sync
$files[$i].LastWriteTime = $newStamp
Write-Host "[$($i+1)/$($files.Count)] $($files[$i].Name) ? $newStamp"
}

Make sure to edit the folder and startDate (bits in bold) at the top of the code so it can find your files and sets them to a sensible date. You can edit before you copy and paste the code, or in Powershell, if you paste then hit the up arrow and then left and right arrows you can navigate to the right place in the code to edit it in situ.

Upload the Files to the Phone

My phone is Android - I can only assume Apple gives you a way to do this too, but I'm afraid Apple products mystify me.

First of all - use a USB and open your phone so you can see the file system. It is the safest and quickest way.
Zip your slideshow into one file. If you do not do this, all the files will be copied over in a random order and the changing file times you did above will be worthless.
Copy the zip file to your phone in a sensible place so you can find it again.
Open "My Files" on the phone.
Click on the zip file and choose the extract option.
Now all your files are on the phone in the right order for addition to TikTok.

#2 Note - If you have Windows and Android, using "Phone Link" is so much easier for the next parts. Just remember to activate "Cross device copy and paste" in the Settings>Features, for ease of use.

Creating the Slideshow

As I mentioned above, you can create the slideshow inside the TikTok ap, but this is the slow way. It show you low-res previews of the files which are impossible to see properly and is a right royal pain.

The quick way is as follows:

Open "My Files"
Navigate to the right folder.
If you did the step with Powershell they should already be in the right order, otherwise select "name" from the sort option.
Select all the files in order starting from the top and going down (I think it works if you choose select all, by I am paranoid of technology my nature, so I take the few seconds to click each file in order to make sure that is the order they are added).
Click "share" and choose "TikTok"
TikTok will open will all your files in a slideshow.
It will already be playing music, but you can change this by clicking on the button at the top of the screen with the musical note:
Go the favourites tab to find the music you selected previously.
If the music is not audible when returning to the main screen after selecting a track there is a volume option under the settings at the side, it's just hidden. Click the little down arrow and you should see it.
Click the "Next" button and go to the details screen where there are spaces for the Title and description. Add these in - I find it easiest to write out all my titles and descriptions in a word processor first, then copy and paste them in. If using "Phone Link" I can do this right from the doc straight into TikTok.
#3 Note - we cannot type on a proper keyboard when filling in these fields, even when using "Phone Link" - TikTok just keeps losing focus and only takes one letter at a time before you have to reclick into the box. I tried it in "Phone Link" and via a dedicated Bluetooth keyboard with the same result.
Now we can post immediately by choosing the "post" option, but I like to upload all my slideshows at the same time and post on different days, so I save to "drafts".
#4 Note - while TikTok allows us to schedule vid posts via TikTok studio, it does not allow us to schedule slideshow posts. Hence we have to come back and post our drafts when the time comes. This is annoying, but only takes one click. HOWEVER - do not delete any files from your phone until your draft is posted - TikTok does not upload anything until you post it it is only saved on your phone.

There are some services that allow you to schedule slideshows, but I tried a few and they either don't have certain options, or the free ones only allowed me to upload 10 slides. I would suggest checking them out yourself if you wish to go that route.

And that is it - slideshows uploaded to TikTok. I am sure there are other, probably more efficient ways to do it, especially if you have specialist software to upload, but this is the way I do it and it now takes me a minute or two to upload rather than forever. Hope this is of some help, if anyone is running into the same roadblocks I did.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon TikTok

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Batch Saving Layers from Photoshop Easily

2025-05-12T08:30:00.001+01:00

How to Batch Save Layers in Photoshop

There is an option to save each layer as its own image in Photoshop, which is very useful if each layer is its own complete image.

File > Export > Layers to File

However, if, for example, we have lots of text layers we wish to save, all with the same background/foreground (see below), or we have lots of different icons we want to save all with the same background, this is not sufficient.

Example of text layers with the same BG

If we use the Layers to File option, we will end up with one image that is the background and all out text layers either without a background if we save with transparency, or with a plain background if we save without transparency.

Now we could faff around with Photoshop to create our own script to do what we actually want, but we don't have to, because a very nice person has already done it for us.

Photoshop-Export-Layers-to-Files-Fast

Go to the above link and download the zip file.
Extract the zip file into its own directory.
Copy the following 2 files from the directory:
Export Layers To Files (Fast).jsx
Export Layers To Files (Fast)-progress_bar.json
Navigate to the Photoshop Scripts directory, probably something like this:
\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2025\Presets\Scripts
Paste the files into the scripts directory.
Start Photoshop
The script can be found in the following menu:
Files > Scripts

When we run the script we get this screen:

As you can see there are lots of options.

We can have a background and/or a foreground
We can export all layers (except the background and/or foreground if we have selected them)
or a Group of layers
or just the visible layers
and we can pick what format to export to
plus much more.

This takes what can be a 15 min job:

turning on the right foreground layer,
exporting the layer with the background
rinse and repeat

Into a 30 second job of clicking a few buttons.

It has saved me so much time, I had to share it. Hope you are having a great week.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

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eBook How-To Updates for 2025

2025-03-31T10:37:00.002+01:00

eBook How-To Updates for 2025

So my pages on where to upload eBooks and how to format an eBook have needed updating for a while and I have finally gotten around to it. One has completely changed, since my methods for creating eBooks is now totally different, and the other has more information and some other changes. I hope someone might find the information useful, since when we're first starting out this can all be a bit of a mystery.

Where to Publish eBooks

Updates include:

the addition of what every site requires to upload an eBook
swapping out Smashwords for Draft2Digital as an aggregate site to publish to all the eBook sellers after their merger

How to Format Your eBook for Kindle, Draft2Digital & Google Books (2025)

Whole new page with all the steps I now take to create eBooks for distribution to all major eBook publishers.

This includes:

a link to the Kindle Create plugin for Word that Amazon KDP no longer support, but that still works a treat.
example Word files using the default 4 KDP templates for eBooks for those not interested in the plugin
and step by step instructions on how I have found it most efficient to go about the whole process.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

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Kindle Book Download - The Faster Way - Before the 26th Feb 2025

2025-02-21T07:21:00.004+00:00

Kindle Book Download - The Faster Way - Before the 26th Feb 2025

So I saw a post on Tumblr yesterday, which I am sorry I cannot find again. It was talking about how Kindle are removing the download ability on the 26th Feb and one response mentioned a Tampermonkey script to help with downloading all of our Kindle books. If someone can point me to the post, I will credit the person who mentioned it - thank you.

Well the script makes it about half as frustrating to download everything as the only way Kindle provide it and it took me a while to figure out how to use it, so I thought I would elaborate. I went from being able to do 8 pages of books in a day, to doing 37 - I have another 20 to go.

Tampermonkey is a plugin for the browser which allows a script to be run to alter the page - spent a good hour trying to work out how to run the script because I thought Tampermonkey was the name of the author or something😆 . It can be found here: https://www.tampermonkey.net/

There is an FAQ about how to install it here, along with how to install scripts: https://www.tampermonkey.net/faq.php

The script to alter the Amazon download page is here: https://github.com/chrishol/greasemonkey-scripts/blob/main/download-all-kindle-books.js

The script puts a button at the top of the page on the right that says "Trigger Download" (seen in green below)

This button when pressed will do all the button presses for the downloads for you so you don't have to click everything yourself. All you have to do is confirm the save to your computer.

On my PC I can set it going, wait for the first save to come up, then click away and leave it for about 3 mins while I'm doing other things and then click save 25 times once it's done. Others have to click the save after 8-10 saves have been queued up or it sits there just waiting - not sure why, but it happens.

If the script does not work and the button does not appear for you after you have told Tampermonkey to run on the page, check the line in the top of the code that starts with

// @ match (no space after the @ in the actual script)

The script is set up for Amazon.com, so if you are on Amazon.co.uk like me, or another of the Amazon sites, you will need to edit this, to have the right amazon in the URL.

E.g. mine looks like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/mycd/digital-console/contentlist/booksAll/*

The rest of the URL will be exactly the same.

The match line is basically telling the script what page the script should run on.

Also of note - in the code it allows you to change which Kindle device you are picking in the list if you have more than one. If your Kindle is first in the list, you're all set. If not, scroll down to line #77 until you find this part and follow the instructions in the comment:

clickElementWithin(dropdown, 'span[id^="download_and_transfer_list_"]'); // Choose the first Kindle in list // If you want the second Kindle in the list, change the above line to this instead (for the third, you'd change the [1] to [2] and so on): // dropdown.querySelectorAll('span[id^="download_and_transfer_list_"]')[1].click();

And those are the only things that tripped me up - so happy downloading. Hope it all works as well for you as it is working for me.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

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How to Check for DRM on eBooks in Calibre Really Quickly

2025-02-18T11:15:00.000+00:00

How to Check for DRM in Calibre

If you, like me, are downloading all your Kindle books before Amazon take away the ability to do so on the 26th Feb 2025 and are using Calibre to keep them all catalogued, you may be wondering about DRM.

Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that some books with have DRM, which makes them unreadable on anything except the Kindle anyway. The only way you figure this out is when you go to view the books and it says it can't open them because of DRM.

There is a really quick and simple way to highlight multiple books and find out which ones have DRM without having to open all of them individually:

Attempt to convert them

If they have DRM the conversion with fail.

Steps to Check for DRM

Import the books into Calibre by highlighting the files in your Kindle download directory and dragging them onto the Calibre book listing.
If you don't already have it as a column, add the formats column to your Calibre layout - this will make those that have failed easy to see.

Click the Preferences button in the main menu
Choose "Add your own columns"
Check the box next to formats (#13 on mine) and hit save

Now select all the books that need checking in the main book listing.
Click "Convert books" from the main menu
Choose the book format you wish to convert into from the dropdown - I use ePub because it is the most universal - and hit go.
Error messages will pop up for those books that won't convert - just click the close button, we don't need to remember which ones have failed.
Now all those books which don't have the additional format in the format col are the ones with DRM. I then added a tag to all the DRM books so I can find them easily again later when I decide what to do with them.

If there is a simpler way of doing this, please LMK, but I couldn't see one inside Calibre. This was the quickest way to do it all in bulk that I could find.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

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Don't Lose Face! Aka Writing Tip - How Not to Forget What Your Characters Look Like #writing #fiction

2025-02-17T15:02:00.000+00:00

Don't Lose Face!

Writing Tip - How Not to Forget What Your Characters Look Like

For much of my writing life, I wrote fanfic, before I decided to turn my hand to being a professional word jockey. I still write fanfic from time to time because it's fun, and the one thing we don't have to worry about it describing our characters, because everyone knows what they look like. Oh, we describe their wounds or their clothing in loving details, and maybe their moles because we can, but with TV and movies they have the face of real actors and in books they have been lovingly described by their creator.

This is not the case in original fiction.

I don't know about you, but I forget things. While some people have perfect memories, crisp and clear like the screen of the latest smartphone, mine is more like an old rolodex where some of the cards are water damaged and others are missing entirely.

Also, I don't see my characters clearly in my head when I'm writing. They're more impressions than real people, even though I know who they are and what they are doing. This is fine when I'm in the first excited glow of creation, but coming back after a little while away from a project and it can make things tricky. All this has led me to one conclusion that I think can be really useful for all we mere mortals:

Character Bios are our friends!

Now anyone who knows me will tell you I write like a chaos demon. As it comes to me it goes on the page. I jump around the narrative, I fill bits in as I figure out what needs to go there, and I don't have a plan. Sometimes I write the end before I have any clue what the beginning is at all.

This is the opposite to my twin sister who has scene outlines longer than some of my scenes at times😆.

However, I have picked up the habit of filling out character bios. Not when I start - that would be too organised😉, but I create them when I introduce a character and fill them out as I go.

Do you realise how embarrassing it is to find out your main character has been swapping eye colour all the way through your novel?

Well I do 😆.

Yes, a good editor will catch such things, but just writing it down when we first decide on it saves so much time. I promise! Even the spelling of a name, or a person's full name is good to record. Hands up everyone who decided on the surname for a character, had a gap in writing and came back only to reinvent the wheel and give them a whole new one. *sheepishly waves hand in the air*

Most writing software like Scrivener and yWriter have specific places for character bios, but a normal Word document or an Excel Spreadsheet works just as well. I usually start with a simple template:

Full Name:
Known As:
Age:
Gender:
Hair Colour:
Eye Colour:
Height:
Ethnicity:

If we have a fantasy or sci-fi setting we can add things like race and powers, or for real world genres more mundane things like job etc.

We don't have to fill everything in, just whatever is relevant. Then we have a reference to refer back to if our rolodex gets even more soggy😉.

This technique really helped me when I was writing my serial stories as Virginia Waytes for the podcast. It's similar to how TV writers have show bibles so they can come back in anytime or pass the job on to a new member of the team. These little bios are nothing so grand, but boy, do they help me from getting in a right pickle. I heartily recommend using something along the same lines even if your writing is chaos embodied like mine!

Have you ever managed to forget what you named a character, or given them two different hair or eye colours? Or are you much more organised than me?😆

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@tashaddrake.bsky.social Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

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The Easiest Way to Get YouTube to Auto-Sync Your Video Script

2024-04-07T15:08:00.001+01:00

Auto-Syncing Subtitles on YouTube

Subtitles are things that are often overlooked on YouTube vids, and as good as AI is getting at creating auto-generated subtitles for vids, there is nothing quite like having personally uploaded, accurate ones for quality control.

However, I have found they can be a little tricky, and doing them manually by hand takes forever!

One way of doing this is paying a company to create a subtitle file from your video and just uploading this. However, for those of us on a budget, this is often a cost we simply cannot afford.

Luckily, YouTube offers great tools to help us out.

The most useful of these for me, is the Auto-Sync option.

Below I'm going to share the most useful tip I have discovered on how to get this option to work quickly and exactly how I want every time.

What you will need to use this method:

the script of your video
YouTube Studio

Method for Flawless Auto-Sync Subtitles

Preformat the script file:

Open your script file in the word processor of your choice - as long as it has a search and replace option.
Add a new paragraph at every point you definitely want a new subtitle - YouTube will auto break longer paragraphs, but it can be very random how it does it and sometimes with large scripts it fails.
This is the important step - search and replace all single paragraph marks with two paragraph marks so paragraphs have a space between them. This will make auto-syncing work like a charm because it will take each paragraph as its own subtitle and has to do way less work.

Inputting the Subtitles:

Open your uploaded video in YouTube Studio and click the subtitles option.
Choose the Auto-Sync option.
Copy and paste the double spaced script into the Auto-sync box and wait while the AI automatically syncs the subtitles to the sound in your video. It should only take a little while (this varies on what time of day it is and how busy the system is).

What to Do If the Auto-Sync Fails

Occasionally the auto-sync fails - it just hangs and never manages to create the subtitles correctly or gives the message "Auto-sync is taking longer than usual" and still never gets there. I have found there are usually one of two reasons for this:

The video has not finished the checking process. In that case I close the subtitle window using the X and choose the "discard changes" option. This means we can start the process over again once the checking of the vid is done and the processes won't interfere with each other.
It's a large script file and it just can't do it. I use the same method of leaving and discarding changes, then I check my file to make script file to make sure there's nothing in it that could be pasting in incorrectly and try again. It usually works the second time.

What to Do If There Are Existing Subtitles and Auto-Sync is Not There

If there are already subtitles on the vid but we wish to add a whole new set, either because they are incorrect or incomplete, we need to first remove the existing subtitles before we can use the Auto-Sync option.

Hence we need to open the subtitles window as usual and choose the clear subtitles option. There are three vertical dots next to the EDIT AS TEXT option at the top of the subtitles screen. Click this and a drop down will appear with the "Clear Subtitles" option. This will delete all subtitles on the vid, so as a precaution, I would download the subtitles first from the same menu. Then if you decide you want them back again for any reason you can just reupload the file.

Once I discovered the double spacing the paragraphs trick I have not had a subtitle set fail to sync correctly, whereas before it could be a bit hit and miss. I use it for my shorts and my long form and I hope this info will be able to help someone else out if they are having problems.

If you have tips for dealing with some of YouTube's quirks, I would love to hear them in the comments.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories and jokes for all the family as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

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Delicious! Stuffed Potato & Parmesan Waffles

2024-02-25T17:46:00.002+00:00

Stuffed Potato & Parmesan Waffles

Gluten Free & Vegetarian

This is a partial repost, but also an updated recipe from back in 2020. The original recipe is for plain potato & parmesan waffles, but my lovely twin just gifted me and my hubby a stuffed waffle iron, so of course we had to try it out. These are so very delicious, I had to share.

As I mentioned, the original recipe is based off of Nigella's Garlic & Parmesan waffles from her book, "At My Table". This is just a different take on the recipe, with a stuffing of red peppers and mozzarella.

Makes 3x 5''(12.7cm) waffles

A serving for me was 1 waffle, but my husband ate 2 easily, so scale up to fit your needs

Ingredients

For the waffle batter (Gluten Free)

400g / 2 cups mashed potato (left over mash works well, or I used cooked frozen mash this time)
4 tbsp (60ml) butter
8 tbsp (120ml) milk
2 eggs
45g/ ~3/8cup finely grated Parmesan (or hard Italian cheese vegetarian equiv)
4 tbsp cornflour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp Dried Rosemary (I like the grind it in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder to make it distribute better and release its flavour)
salt & pepper to taste

For the stuffing

half a ball of mozzarella (vegetarians check the packet to make sure you have a veggie version)
half a large red pepper (capsicum) - I use jarred roasted peppers (I hate the skin on fresh ones), but if you are using fresh you will need to fry the peppers off before use, unless you want crunchy almost raw pepper in your waffle - which is an option for a texture change.

Instructions

Melt the butter (I microwave it for 30s then stir until completely melted, but you can do it in a saucepan) and leave to stand to cool down.
Preheat the waffle iron.
Prepare the filling by chopping the mozzarella and pepper into small pieces.
Microwave your mash if using frozen or allow to come to room temp if using leftovers, and, using a fork or something similar, break up the mash so that it is light pieces, not one lump.
In a large bowl whisk together the cooled butter, eggs and milk.
Add in the potato a little at a time, whisking it in each time. I used a flat manual whisk, but you could use an electric hand whisk, or a bowl mixer if you prefer.
Add the Parmesan, cornflour, baking powder, rosemary, salt and pepper and beat until smooth(ish).
Lightly oil the waffle iron.
Place a few spoonfuls of batter in the bottom of the waffle iron - enough to just cover the raised areas. After a couple of second it will begin to puff up a little.
Take 1/3rd of the filling and place in the centre of the waffle batter, leaving half a cm or so around the edge.
Carefully spoon batter over the filling, sealing it in and filling the waffle iron to a little over 3/4 full.
Close the waffle iron, invert it, and cook for about 7 mins total or until golden brown - different waffle makers will vary. After 7min check the cook and let it go a little longer if necessary.
Tip out of the waffle from the maker onto a plate (I discovered tipping was way easier than trying to lever it out with a spatula - just be careful not to burn yourself).
If making lots, pop the cooked ones in a low oven until ready to eat.

Depending what meal we are making these for, they go well with eggs or some suitable veg on the side (I imagine garlic roasted tender stem broccoli would be amazing). A piquant sauce on the side is also a nice flavour combo (Sauce Shop Honey Chipotle BBQ sauce is what I had with mine where as Rob ate his without anything on the side).

This is a very versatile recipe, so if you don't like the amount of cheese or want to use a different herb/spice, just go ahead and play. It one to have fun with.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories and/or silly jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

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Free Spine Tingling Horror Book for Halloween + Listen to it on YouTube Too!

2023-10-31T16:14:00.003+00:00

Free Horror Book for Halloween

Happy Halloween one and all.

As has become a tradition for me and Soph at Wittegen Press, we like to give away a free book for Halloween (link and instructions at the bottom). It started when we heard about Neil Gaiman's All Hallows Read way back in 2012, where the idea is to give books as a Halloween treat.

Soph and I created eBooks to give away from 2012 to 2021. We took a little break in 2022 for family reasons, but now I am back to continue the tradition!👻 (Soph's been too busy at work this year to join in, poor thing - hopefully she'll have more time next Halloween).

This year the book is called Mirror Mirror: A Haunting Tale of Horror, which is the first story, and it also contains The Crosses We Bear.

A chill runs down your spine as you enter your refurbished home in Mirror Mirror. Little do you know that glancing in a mirror will spell doom for you.

In The Crosses We Bear, meet Lyle and Susan, two ad executives who are about to discover that a remote Scottish hotel is only the beginning of their terrifying journey. Follow their story of facing terrible things in the dark as they confront the horror they find.

I also decided it would be fun to read Mirror Mirror over on my YouTube channel. I hope I come off as sufficiently spine tingling 😱 - although not too creepy or YouTube will bury my vid 😉.

The book is available from all the usual eBook sites, but to get it FREE you need to pop to Smashwords - and use this coupon code on checkout: HA85H

The offer is valid until 01 Dec 2023 - so grab your copy before it runs out.

🎃Please be aware the stories this year are not kid friendly - they are for older trick or treaters who enjoy a bit of horror.🎃

I do love writing a bit of dark horror from time to time. It balances out my usual desperate need for a happy ending I suppose 😉. Hope you enjoy the stories and have a fabulous Halloween.

If you are looking for more spooky horror, all the previous years books can be found here.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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Exciting Paranormal Murder Mystery to watch & download for free!

2023-09-23T15:12:00.000+01:00

Survival of the Fittest

I am celebrating my 100th week on YouTube and hence have created a longer story vid as well as all my shorts this week. It’s a paranormal murder mystery. Enjoy!

Watch to the end to find out how to get a free copy of the eBook too.

Survival of the Fittest: Werewolves & Witches & More

On the surface, a quiet sleepy town, but it has ancient and deep secrets. Lil, the sheriff of this small, supernatural backwater, is the only thing standing between the cheerfully oblivious humans and the powerful supernatural beings that live alongside them. When a body washes up on the shore of the lake, Lil must face off against the supernatural conflict that threatens to tear her town apart. With the stakes higher than ever, can Lil uncover the truth and solve the murder of the werewolves’ alpha before it’s too late?

Also available to buy from Amazon, Smashwords & Others.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday along with jokes and parody movie reactions - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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Short Narrated Stories - Funny Fantasy - Tales with Tasha wk93

2023-08-08T09:23:00.001+01:00

Tales with Tasha Week 93
Funny Fantasy

Last week at Tales with Tasha the aim was to make everyone smile with Fantasy Comedy Stories. Mostly I was in a mood for cute magical creatures and these are the shorts I came up with.

Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoy them.🥰

Defender of the Weak?

Some critter are not quite what they appear to be - this can be a good thing.

Pet Pet Pet

Dignity and diplomacy are not always viable bedfellows...

WARNING! Don't Touch!

When it comes to a witch's familiar there are certain expectations.

Protect The Puppy!

It's not your fault you didn't know he was a werewolf!

No! Bad Boy!

Dragon Whisperer, yeah right, more like glorified babysitter!

Don't Be DECEIVED!

Don't pet the unknown magical creature, even if it is cute!

Save Me NOW!

Outed by a unicorn!

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every now and then - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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Free Fiction Friday July 23 (a little late)

2023-08-03T12:45:00.001+01:00

Free Short Story

Mages: Magic & Mayhem

Join Dante, a rising actor, as he is suddenly thrust into a world of magic while taking a much-needed break from the pressures of his career. Unprepared for the dangers and secrets that come with it, he is faced with a mage in his debt and newfound knowledge he does not know how to deal with.

Dante must navigate a turbulent underworld full of power and possibility. Will Dante be able to survive in a world where magic is now part of his life and more powerful than ever?

Free to all the subscribers of my newsletter (no spam, I promise), in fact, at the moment, mostly just the free fiction emails 🥰.

Go here to sign up and the details of how to get your free copy are in the final welcome email.

If you would just like to pick up a copy it is 99c and available from:

Smashwords & Amazon

(more coming soon)

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮The occasional longer story perfect for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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It's Free Fiction Friday!

2023-03-31T18:00:00.001+01:00

It's Free Fiction Friday!

Greetings Lovelies!

Every month, usually the last Friday, I give away an original short story/novelette to all the members of my newsletter.

This month we have a paranormal romance with psychics and vampires and a rock band.

If you're not a member of the newsletter, don't worry, all the details of how to get your hands on the book are included in the final welcome email once you sign up, and the coupon is valid until 01-May-23.

Save a Cat, Bag a Boyfriend: Of Psychics & Vampires

Maisie is psychic. This is often a pain in her behind, but no matter how innocuous her visions may seem, they always have a reason. When the universe sees fit to guide her to rescuing a cat, it leads her into a situation that not only might gain her a boyfriend, but one which has a rock band and vampires as well. Romance and excitement await but so does danger. (Het with a gay side pairing)

For those just wishing to pick up a copy, here are the book site links:

Amazon | Smashwords | Apple | Kobo

If you would like to see a narrated, snapshot, very condensed version of this story, check it out on my YouTube channel, Tales with Tasha as a series of shorts (1min vids). The first one is below:

Many thanks for checking it out.💖

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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A Very Happy Christmas to One and All 💖

2022-12-24T11:09:00.003+00:00

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas season, or at least a peaceful one. Love and hugs to all.💖

Here's looking forward to a wonderful 2023 (it has to be, doesn't it ... the last few years must have just been saving up to make it amazing, it's the only explanation).

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story from time to time

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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Free Fiction - Fallen Angel: A Christmas Romance - Check it out on YouTube

2022-12-22T12:13:00.001+00:00

Fallen Angel: A Christmas Romance

BAD Timing? Now This Is AWKWARD!
🎄 😇 (Christmas Romance Short Story) #comedy

Hello, Lovelies. I hope you are all doing well, Long time no talk. Let's just say it's been a bit of a year and look forward to Christmas and 2023 💝

My YouTube channel Tales with Tasha, is still going strong and slowly building an audience. Please, do check it out if you haven't already. New stories every day as YouTube shorts :- some fun, some terrifying, some mystifying and more.

This week I have a longer story as well, in the spirit of Christmas. You can listen for free at Tales with Tasha and pick up a copy at all the usual eBook places as well. Great for sitting down to over a nice cup of hot chocolate, or you beverage of choice.

Fallen Angel: A Christmas Romance

LGBTQ+ Christmas Romance

Kay is preparing for her and her husband Greg’s annual Christmas party when the angel falls off her tree. She’d put him right back up there, only now he’s six foot two, naked and adorably confused. Not one to argue with Christmas magic, Kay sets about trying to figure out what is going on as well as make sure her guest is no longer sans clothes.

7 Christmas themed micro stories also included.
Buy Links

YouTube How To - Most Important Thing About Titles

2022-08-24T10:44:00.005+01:00

YouTube How To:
Most Important Thing About Titles

I have watched many, many YouTube how to videos on what to do to make the algorithm love a video, and I have tried lots of their tips. What I am coming to realise is this:

It does not matter how good your video content is if you are a small channel, the only way to get ahead is to play the game and chase the algorithm.

One proviso, is that I am talking about my experience with YouTube shorts, which is one of the best ways to grow a channel from scratch at the moment. Longer videos require other techniques as well, but there is a lot of crossover.

The number 1 tip that seems to finally be working for my channel is this:

❗Write the title before even starting the video.❗

I spent months deciding on my stories, then trying to come up with titles that would grab viewers, and I was getting a steady viewership, but it had completely stalled in new subs and viewing number. In the past 2 weeks I have completely changed my strategy and my views have gone up considerably, so has my like count, as well as gaining new subscribers. I mean, it's nothing astronomical yet, but growth is growth.

This is my strategy:

Sunday, go to "What is popular on YouTube" playlist.
Look at the most successful topics.
Create click-bait titles for my five shorts for that week, based on various hot topics.
Decide on my overall story themes (first week I did Midsomer Murder parodies, this week comedy horror)
Come up with stories that incorporate the title somehow, but fit the theme.

An Example

One of the popular topics was Minecraft, so I came up with the following title: Minecraft Mystery?! 🤯 #shorts (1 min story) (Midsomer Murders Parody)

Note that the end of my title does not hide the true nature of my short, I do not want to lie to people and make them feel betrayed. However, it does count on the fact most people scan the beginning of the title first and don't bother with the end.

The story itself is a ridiculous murder in a craft shop in an old mine.

It technically fits the title and it's supposed to be funny, so will hopefully make them smile and even if they have been tricked, they won't mind that much.

Results

From getting anywhere from 10 to around 100 views on a vid, using this technique I managed to get all of last weeks vids to around 200 views, and some of my older titles are getting some more views too. I link to a different playlist at the end of Monday's vid and the playlist for the week from every other vid that week.

Of course it does depend on the topic, and sometimes I get it wrong. This week, Monday's vid, only has 40 views and I'm planning on changing up the title some more once I can think of how to do it, however, Tuesday's, is currently at 1,150 and still going up.

It’s a SCAM! Grifter Alert! 👿 #shorts (1 min story) (FUNNY Ghost Story)

Changing the title can work too - one of last week's vids did not do well overnight, so I changed up the title and managed to bring it up to the same level as the others. It's a bit of a game against the algorithm, if you haven't realised that yet 😉.

Conclusion

There are many factors in creating a good title, but getting the popular buzz words in there, seems to be a really, really important one. So far the one that gets the most traction for me is "Scam/Scammer". It is a sad fact of life that negative connotations get more hits. However, if I can get a bit of humour into someone's life using a click-baity title, I count it as a good thing.

We shall have to see how this continues to pan out.

Updates

25-Aug-22: Wednesday's vid has ~480 views this morning, so not as good as "Scam", but "Scandal" seems to be a good word.

Still messing with Monday's title to try and get the vid seen - have not found a golden combination yet 😉.

SCANDAL at the PALACE! Princess of Nowhere!😲 #shorts (1 min story) (FUNNY Ghost Story)

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Friday - for fun quick viewing
Longer stories as specials from time to time.

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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AtoZ Placeholder for Y - coming soon

2022-04-29T01:00:00.040+01:00

Y will be coming later today

I'm very sorry that today's post is going to be late and that I owe so many people visits back and replies.

My father was rushed into hospital on Sunday at about lunch time and it threw the whole week out completely. He's back home now having been discharged on Wednesday, but I am having trouble catching up.

Please forgive me and I hope you are enjoying the AtoZ.

Best wishes,

Tasha

[EDIT: Very sorry, Y may not happen, and if it does it will be very late. Got a phone call at midnight from my sister, and just spent 4 1/2 hrs waiting for an ambulance to take my father back to hospital. It is now 4:20 am and the family are finally getting to bed.]

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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X is for X-Rated? #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-28T01:00:00.020+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
X is for X-Rated?

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

YouTube used to be a platform where anything went except blatant pornography, then it became uber popular and it started cracking down because of its ad revenue. Then there was the whole debacle about children watching it, even though no one under 13 should be able to create an account, and it got worse.

YouTube does not allow pornographic content in video, text, audio or images. All of their examples say "for the purpose of sexual gratification" which is a very wishy-washy term, but if you don't want your vids age restricted or worse, your channel deleted, avoid such things. Given that YouTube is notorious for banning or restricting things because someone else reported it, rather than actually investigating properly with actual human beings, just avoid adult content.

Photo by Eliott Van Buggenhout on Unsplash

There are certain words that will get your vids age restricted and/or demonetised too, like swearing and sexualised words even when not used in a sexual context. Given that YouTube is not supposed to be for children under 13 in the first place this is very, very annoying, but we don't get to argue with it. We just have to watch what we say.

Does it annoy you too, that a site supposed to be for adult and teens is so restrictive because of prudish advertisers?

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

The A to Z Challenge happens every April. Bloggers from all over the world come together to post every day in April, apart from Sundays, inspired by the letters of the alpha bet. A = April 1st etc. Some of us have themes, some of us don't. Click the image below for more info and links to other participants.

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

List hosted on MailChimp, information will only be used for Newsletter contact, and we do not send spam.

W is for Write is Down #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-27T01:00:00.015+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
W is for Write is Down

"Paper is to write things down we need to remember. Our brains are used to think." – Albert Einstein

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

Whatever you plan to say in your vid, write it down.

We are fallible creatures, and it never hurts to have a prompt. There are some people in this world who can decide what they are going to say and say it without any need for help whatsoever, I, for one, am not one of those people.

Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

I find there are two ways to make sure I am on the right track (and this goes for presenting in general):

Bullet points – these make for a freer style. Bullet everything we want to say and then move from one point to the next coming up with the exact words we want to use on the fly. This is good for a conversational feel.
Writing a script – this is good for stories and for subjects that need exact details. This is what I use most, since I am telling stories and I want the words to be well chosen.

Now that I am becoming more practiced at making vids, I want to start to introduce more of the bullet point style for my intro and outros.

Do you prefer to bullet point things or write it all down when you need to speak in front of others, be it on video or live?

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

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V is for Valour #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-26T01:00:00.013+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
V is for Valour

"Courage doesn't mean you don't get afraid. Courage means you don't let fear stop you." -Bethany Hamilton

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

Putting ourselves in front of a camera, or even just behind a microphone takes courage. All of us with blogs or who write books etc, know how hard it can be putting our work out there for the world to see. Being right there with it, in person as it were, can be harder (at least for those of us who did not grow up with TikTok).

Image by Gioele Fazzeri from Pixabay

I've had a podcast for a while now (it's naughty so not suitable for YouTube – Virginia Waytes' Sexy Stories), so recording the longer stories was nothing new for me. However, the shorts, with me actually being on camera, now that was a bit of a leap. I'm pretty used to it now, but at first it was nerve wracking.

Vid making is like anything else, we get better at it the more practice we have. Hence, the best advice I can give is:

Practice before committing to that first vid, at least a little bit, to make it as good as possible.
Accept that things will improve over time and the first vids will probably make us cringe when we look back.
Ball up all that courage and hit post!
Do not feed the trolls – I've had two so far (just little ones) and they are not worth our time. Ignoring them is best, unless they are breaking the rules, then report them.

How do you feel on vid? Do you love being on camera or do you need all your courage?

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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U is for Undertaking #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-25T01:00:00.018+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
U is for Undertaking

"A schedule defends from chaos and whim." – Annie Dillard

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

The YouTube algorithm likes channels that have a regular schedule and don't have big gaps between videos. This is very important for new channels and smaller channels that don't have the help of having massive audiences to please the algorithm in other ways. Hence, once we begin to build our channels, we should be ready to keep it going with consistency.

This is a big undertaking, so timing is important. If other big things are coming up and might take us away from our channel, we should wait.

Image by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay

In the smaller scheme of things, it also helps to have our own schedule. It makes it much easier not to miss a release if we know what needs to be done and when. We're back to my lists again. I have days and times planned out when I know I have to do things to get my vids ready and up. I give myself a little wiggle room, but try very hard to keep to my schedule in its purest form.

For example, here a few of my key milestones:

Monday is shorts recording day. I set up my ring light, my phone, my tablet and off I go.
Wednesday is book formatting and uploading day, because I have a book to go with every long ep on each Friday.
Thursday is long vid editing day, because when I'm using After Effects I can do nothing else on my PC or the whole thing stops. Animation if memory, GPU and CPU hungry!

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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T is for Thumbnail #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-23T01:00:00.084+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
T is for Thumbnail

"Why would they have book covers if we aren't supposed to judge the book by them? It makes no sense." – Ingrid Weir

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

Thumbnails, contrary to popular belief are not just the annoying things on the ends of our thumbs that have a nasty habit of splitting in painful places. Thumbnails are what YouTube call the image everyone sees when they show your video before it is played. They are very important.

Well with one caveat – I'm honestly not sure how important they are on shorts (vids in portrait of less than 1 min), because YouTube keep messing with when they can and cannot be seen on shorts.

But let's pretend they are not completely screwing with our strategy and accept they will get it right in the end.

Image by Luisella Planeta Leoni LOVE PEACE 💛💙 from Pixabay

Think of the thumbnail a bit like a book cover because it has the same job. Thumbnails are there to entice viewers to click on and watch our vids. Our vids will be judged by the thumbnails in searches or if someone just happens across our channel.

They should be:

Bright
Bold
Eye-catching
Have one or two, easily read, bold phrases.
Should have something to do with the video content (you would be surprised how many lie – but we're not a huge content farm, so we need to make sure not to piss off our viewers)

For long form YouTube vids, the thumbnail is what always shows. We choose our thumbnail in YouTube studio when editing the content, and that is what is always served up for people to see first.

Many people put themselves in their thumbnail, usually over acting to grab people's attention.

This is a thumbnail by Nerdecrafter – a successful YouTuber. That would be her alter-ego SaltyCrafter, who is salty about all things. It is bright, it poses a question, and it intrigues us.

I do not put myself in my thumbnails because my vids are fiction, so I try to use the book cover method and drag people in with something that reflects the content. I use images from the following sites to create my thumbnails:

All of these can be used free for commercial purposes, with no attribution required, but I always put a credit in the description, because I feel it's the right thing to do. Pixabay is really useful because people post art there that can be used as well as just photos.

Thumbnails & Shorts

Now to the fun part – shorts. When I first started uploading shorts, the thumbnail showed just like it does on longer videos, then they changed the shorts interface, and they don't always show up anymore. However, sometimes they do, and I have seen it flip back to showing everywhere a couple of times, so I keep making them.

Thumbnails for shorts should be composed differently than for longer videos anyway. Think of them like a portrait central focus, like you would see on a phone screen, with a landscape background that may or may not be seen.

Thumbnail for my vid "Fight Forever"

When I upload my shorts via my phone, once it has been accepted as a short (it takes the algorithm a little while to check it to make sure it fits the requirements), all I see is the middle third of my thumbnail. Hence, I put everything important in that section of the image.

When I see the thumbnail on the regular YouTube interface I can see the whole picture, so I still try to put something in that space.

However, at the moment, the only place I ever see my thumbnail is in playlists, like this example of my Horror Fiction Stories playlist.

Everywhere else, I see a still of me taken from a random part of the vid that I have no control over at all. This following image is from my channel's front page.

This is extremely annoying.

I have no idea if it will stay like this now, or if they will change it again, but I wish they would make up their mind.

Summary

Thumbnails are there to be eye-catching and enticing. They are part of our brand and I would suggest finding something that works and sticking with it. I have missed vids from channels I subscribe to because they completely changed their thumbnail format before now.

There are many vids on YouTube that go into detail about how to compose thumbnails, I suggest watching some of them.

If you frequent YouTube, what attracts you to a video? If not, what attracts you to books or movie posters?

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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S is for Subtitles #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-22T01:00:00.019+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
S is for Subtitles

"I think MTV should consider using subtitles. Half the time even I can't understand what the f**k I'm talking about." – Ozzy Osbourne

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

There are a surprisingly high number of people who use subtitles [Edit: Thanks to some helpful input in the comments, I think I may be talking about closed captions, but YouTube just calls them subtitles in the back end so I failed to realise there was a difference 😉] when watching videos. They are not just useful for those with a hearing impediment, but for neurodiversity, or those who need to watch the vids without sound because they forgot their headphones, or aren't allowed to use them and more.

There is also some evidence that Google spiders subtitles to help list pages, which can only help with the visibility of videos.

Photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash

So, if we can, we should add subtitles to our videos. First and foremost, to be inclusive, and secondly because it can help us too.

I do this by typing them in by hand in YouTube's Studio. When using this method there are a couple of things that are good to know:

Wait until the vid is fully uploaded and processed to be able to see the waveform of the soundtrack. This makes it much easier to see where to begin and end each subtitle.
It is awkward to resize a subtitle using the mouse if it's too long or not long enough. Move the timeline pointer to where the end needs to be, look at the timestamp just above the waveform and type it into the second box on the subtitle in question. It is much easier than trying to get the little arrow to show up when clicking around with the mouse.
When creating a new subtitle, put the timeline pointer where the end should be before clicking the plus button below the previous subtitle to create a new one. The new subtitle will then appear at the correct length without having to fiddle with it.
If you have a long vid with large gaps in the subtitles, it is faster to note down where these need to go using the preview pane, then type in the approximate times for beginning and end of the next one, rather than trying to scan through vid on the timeline panel. At least for me it is.

If you have much longer videos that would require a great deal of time to subtitle, there are companies that offer specialist services.

Do you use subtitles when watching videos? Why?

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

Click here to join the Wittegen Press Newsletter

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R is for Review #YouTube #AtoZChallenge

2022-04-21T01:00:00.030+01:00

YouTube - What They Don't Tell You
R is for Review

My AtoZ theme this year is my YouTube journey with my new fiction channel, and all that I have learned - plus some free fiction - scroll down to the embedded vid for that.

As an author, I have always been told, do not engage with reviewers, be they good or bad. I once got a 1 star review saying my book was "Full of lies" – it was fiction about vampires, so can't fault them on that one, but it was a very odd review to leave. I went on my way and ignored it.

With YouTube, we don't have reviews per se, we have comments. And that's all we have to begin with (later we are given a community tab we can play with to talk to our subscribers, but we don't get that to begin with). Comments are a bit like reviews, in that they comment on our content. Unlike reviews, however, we very much need to engage.

Comments fluff the algorithm. Be they good comments or bad comments, they make the algorithm happy. We want more comments, lots of them, and we want engagement.

So, when starting out, we need to respond to every comment we get.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Further down the line this is likely to be impossible, but when we are starting out, we need to get in there every time a comment drops.

Oh, and as I mentioned in my "B is for Bugs" post, if your comments are sorted by "Top Comments" which I believe is the default, you may not see what the algo deems questionable comments. Resort by "Newest First" and you should be able to see them.

Some of these questionable comments are perfectly innocent, some are trolls. And when I say engage, I do not mean, feed the trolls. If you get really nasty comments report them and be done, well, unless that is the vibe you are going for. Some channels thrive on drama.

I've had a couple of odd comments so far, but nothing nasty. Honestly, most of my comments have been from family and friends so far, but I have still engaged with every single one.

There is a very useful comments tab in YouTube Studio which allows us to see all comments and sort and filter them, including by "I haven't responded". And it allows us to reply right there rather than having to go to the vid post too.

So basically, think of comments a bit like reviews that we have to respond to. How we respond will set the tone for our little slice of the YouTube community. And, as I mentioned in my "K is for Karma" post – go out and comment on other people's content too. And make sure to make it about their content, not just a chance to mention yours, because it's a bit like reviewing – you don't spend a whole review talking about your own book. Comments are part of the life blood of YouTube and should very much not be ignored.

Do you comment on vids when you use YouTube?

I am trying to train myself to leave comments - I always like vids I enjoy, but comments are something I am forcing myself to leave.

Current YouTube Episode

April's Theme - Ghost Stories

New story every week day at 4pm GMT

Please subscribe to never miss a vid (it's free).

About the AtoZ Challenge

Check Out My Fiction YouTube Channel

Tales with Tasha

Each week we have a theme and so there will be something for all tastes.

🎤Micro stories as YouTube Shorts Monday - Thursday - for fun quick viewing
~~🕮A longer story every Friday - for story time, over coffee or before going to bed~~
This week we're going for 5 micro stories & a box set kind of vid on Saturday - to see what happens.

Tasha's Social Media

@beren_writes Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Amazon

📚Join My Newsletter📚

Receive 2 FREE eBooks just for signing up and a free short story once every month on Free Fiction Friday.

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