It's strange to celebrate good publishing news during this difficult time, but I've had some incredibly good fortune recently: a book deal, cover reveal, paperback news, and the wonderful kid lit community. Read more about all of this at my regular blog, Sylvia Liu Land: Creative Life During a Pandemic & Publishing News.

Over on my regular blog, Sylvia Liu Land, I wrote about my good news in 2019 (landing an amazing agent, a published poem, and a middle grade book deal): 2019 Wrap Up: Book News and a Giveaway of 2020 Releases. To celebrate, I'm giving away a choice of TWO of the above highly-anticipated 2020 releases (PB, MG, and YA).  Check out that link to enter to win, or you can also use this Rafflecopter widget below.

My critique and Kidlit411 partner Elaine Kiely Kearns's picture book, NOAH NOASAURUS, illustrated by Colin Jack (Albert Whitman) debuts on April 1. As part of the marketing effort, I made her book trailer using software that comes pre-installed on any Mac. This is the trailer that we made:

For those of you who are enterprising and don't mind putting in a bit of time, you too can make your own picture book trailer using iMovie and Keynote (the Apple version of Powerpoint). You'll also need some familiarity with Photoshop or your illustrator's help. Briefly, this is the process:
How to Make a Book Trailer using Apple Software & Photoshop 
1. Write a script. Elaine wrote the script for the trailer after studying a bunch of other trailers and figuring out what works. She sent me the text and suggested accompanying images. Her script was so awesome that I didn't change a thing.
2. Compile a rough trailer in iMovie.

• Import still images from the book (get permission from your publisher) and play around with the text/font options in iMovie to lay out your basic video. Aim to keep each image up for 3.5 to 4 seconds and the overall trailer to run under 1 minute. 

• Decide which images you want to animate (you'll do that in Keynote). For all the rest, play with the iMovie camera panning options like the Ken Burns effect to make the still images feel dynamic.

• For audio, either record a voice-over (get a friend, child, or yourself to voice the text) or find copyright free music and lay down a track. YouTube has an audio library of free downloadable music and other services provide copyright free music for free or for a subscription fee (Google "copyright free music")

• Note: You don't need to have animated elements. You could make your whole trailer in iMovie.

3) Animate sequences in Keynote 
Keynote is Apple's version of Powerpoint that comes installed in Macs. For the images you want to animate, do the following:

• In Photoshop, separate the foreground characters from the background, or ask your illustrator to provide them in separate files. The characters should be saved with a transparent background in a png file. Fill in the background in the areas where you've cut out the character.

• In Keynote, create a new slideshow. On a blank slide, insert the background image and the character image you want to animate. Click on the character image and select "Animate." Play with the different ways the element can move (fly into the screen, jiggle, bounce, move, etc.) and play with the timing. When you are happy, export the file as a movie. It should be a clip about 4-7 seconds long.

• Import the movie clip into iMovie, replacing the still image with the animated sequence. Trim the movie clip to about 4 seconds (trim it in iMovie or play with the timing in Keynote before exporting it). 

• Repeat for all animated sequences.

4) Enjoy the trailer.
That's it.

I learned how to make a trailer when my book, A MORNING WITH GRANDPA, illustrated by Christina Forshay (Lee & Low Books 2016) came out.​ At the time, Christina learned how to animate in Keynote and we worked together to create our trailer. We used a slightly more complicated way to animate (importing just the animated character sequence into iMovie while using the still image in iMovie as the background). This was our trailer:

Let me know if you have any questions. If you're handy with Photoshop, iMovie, and Keynote, it's gratifying to make your own book trailer.

Don't forget to buy Elaine's book at Indiebound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Depository (free worldwide shipping)!

5. KATHRYN AULT NOBLE
​A really cool thing happened this summer. One of my illustrator friends, Kathryn Ault Noble, posted sci-fi images she was playing around with. I loved the vibe so much, and I've always admired Kathryn's work, so I commissioned her to make an illustration for my work in progress novel (who said you have to wait until you're published, right?). She ended up creating this amazing piece that I'm so in love with:

I blogged about the making of this illustration: My Adventure into MG Sci-Fi: The Making of An Illustration.

6. KIDLIT411
Elaine and I continue to run the kid lit resource website Kidlit411. We're finishing our fifth year, and we continue to feature weekly author or illustrator interviews and share a weekly post with resource links. Managing our Facebook group of almost 7500 members is always fun & challenging. What I love about this venture is that I'm constantly meeting kid lit authors & illustrators, who inspire me.

7. BREAKTHROUGH WRITER'S BOOT CAMP
I joined editor and author Kate Brauning's Writer's Boot Camp, a program that provides advanced writing craft tips to novelists and a community of writers. As a former editor of Entangled, Kate has a  wealth of industry and editorial experience that she shares in weekly webinars and discussions.
8. MY DAD, BERNARD LIU
This year, at age 84, my dad Bernard Liu became a debut author with his Chinese-language memoir, HOUSE ARREST DAYS OF ZHANG XUELIANG (People's Publishing House, 2018).
When he was growing up, from age 5 until 30, his father (my grandfather), Chief Special Agent Liu Yiguang, with the Guomingdang Secret Service, was in charge of the house arrest of the famous political prisoner, General Zhang Xueliang. Zhang was responsible for the 1936 Xi'an Incident, which marked a turning point in the Chinese Communist v. Nationalist civil war, that saved the Communist Party and changed Chinese history. In the Xi'an Incident, Zhang Xueliang kidnapped the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and forced him to agree to ally with the Communists to fight Japan, instead of eliminating the Communists as he planned. Today China views Zhang Xueliang as a hero.
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After Chiang Kai-shek was released, he placed his former general under house arrest for the next 50 years. For the first 25 of those years, half in mainland China (during the Sino-Japanese war in World War II and the Communist v. Nationalist civil war) and half in Taiwan (where the KMT fled), my grandfather lived with Zhang Xueliang, his wife (and later mistress), and a huge retinue of security. My dad's memoir tells the story of these house arrest years, unknown to the general public until now.
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He and I are working on the English translation (hopefully to be completed in 2019). If you read Chinese, check out his book.