Deliver a Successful Author PowerPoint Presentation via Skype by Donna Galanti

I was excited to conduct my first Skype visit in January. I had planned to do just a Q&A but thought it would be a good test to try a shortened version of my in-person PowerPoint presentation. It worked wonderfully and the students really enjoyed it. I’m sharing what I’ve learned from this fun process! 

How to Run a PowerPoint via Skype:

• My presentation has several animated GIFs (a huge hit!) and video so I wanted to ensure they worked. Testing it with the school beforehand confirmed that it did.
• Have your PowerPoint presentation open in edit mode and ready to go in slide show mode. Make sure all other programs are closed on your computer.
• Video call your contact in Skype (make sure the video icon at the bottom is on so you can see each other).
• Click the + sign at the bottom of your screen and choose Share Screens.
• Click Start and your presentation will come up on their screen with a thumbnail window of you.
• Start your slideshow and walk through it.
• When done click Stop Sharing and the presentation will close and you will be full screen again.

My Skype Presentation Tips:

• Friend the teacher on Skype and conduct a test sharing your PowerPoint presentation. The school will want to project it on a screen or SmartBoard.
• Be prepared for the presentation to crash. I’ve heard from some authors this can happen especially if the school’s internet is not strong. I decided that if this continually happened I would end the presentation and switch to Q&A. I also let the teacher know this as well.  Alternate choice: go through your slides without being in slideshow format. This may reduce issues. However, the audience will see the edit mode of your presentation and your video/animation won’t play unless you click to play.
• Practice your presentation beforehand and time it. My 4th grade period was 45 minutes long but it took the teacher a few minutes to settle them down before she called me. I took my full 50 minute in-person presentation and cut it to 20-25 minutes allowing for 10 minutes of Q&A at the end. I think even a 15 minute presentation plus Q&A would be fine as well.
• Beforehand, ask the teacher to have the students push their desks back and sit in rows of chairs to make it easier for them to get to the microphone and ask questions.
• Limit the Skype visit to 50 students or two classrooms combined.
• Set up a spot for your computer screen and clear the space behind you to create a presentable backdrop when on camera. Especially if you mean to scan your office to show the students!
• Make sure your speaker volume is turned up! This will ensure you can hear the reaction of the students and their answers to any questions as you go along in your presentation.
• Ask the teacher to turn the computer to face the students so you see them and their reactions and not you on the big screen. Otherwise, it’s very hard to gauge the student’s interest and reactions!
• Take a screen shot of your Skype presentation in the middle of it to save as an image to use for social media later.
• Plan ahead for the class to purchase your books. I have an arrangement with the representative of my local bookshop and we’ve created a new process for Skype and in-person visits. For both visits she sends the teacher an order form weeks ahead of time (so be sure to schedule your visits 4-6 weeks in advance). The teacher collects orders with checks made out to the school and the school sends the bookshop one check. For in-person visits I sign and take the books with me and they receive a 20% discount. For Skype, the bookshop offers a 15% discount to cover the costs to ship the books. This new process seems to be working out!

Keep in mind students will be excited during your visit and want to order your book, if they didn’t do so ahead of time. I let them know they can still order the book via my local bookshop and the bookshop coordinates that with the teacher.

Giving a Skype visit was very similar to presenting in person as I engaged with the audience throughout my presentation and ended with Q&A – but of course, did not have to leave the comfort of my home!

Additional resources:
Want to add fun animated GIFs to your presentation?
I use giphy.com where you can search by topic or add your own clips to create an animated GIF.

Want to grab video to use from any source? I recommend Bandicam (okay, really my 12-year-old son did and showed me how to use it). You can download the program for free and use it to record any video snippets to use in your presentation. 

How to use Bandicam screen recording software:

• Download Bandicam to your computer.
• Open it from the icon on desktop.
• A window will pop up to record.
• Open the video you want to capture. If it’s a portion of the video make sure it’s paused right where you want to start recording.
• Once you open your video, a blank window in Bandicam will pop up with a REC button in the upper right corner.
• Move the blank window over your video. You can click the borders on the top and bottom to frame the video exactly where you want.
• Click the REC button.
• When the video ends where you want it to then click the square STOP button next to record.
• It will record all within that window so make sure you don’t move your mouse through it as it will record that as well.  
• You can also use this program to just capture an image and not video. Click the camera icon next to the REC button for capturing an image only.
• Click on your Bandicam icon on your computer screen at the bottom and the window will pop up again with selections.
• Choose the file folder icon at the top and this will show you where your video file is. Copy it to whatever folder you want.
• The selection window is where you can also choose Settings before you record your video to make the file smaller. I discovered this when I did video for my website as it wouldn’t let me load over 50mg file so I had to reduce the video. Just click Settings to see choices.

Note, the video you create will have bandicam.com titled at the top unless you pay for their service but I don’t think it takes away from the presentation. Check out a website with an educator's guide on copyright, fair use, and creative commons using video for education purposes.

Insert Video into your PowerPoint Presentation: 

• Open your presentation and the slide you want video in.Click Insert and then Video (all the way to the right in the top menu).
• Then click Video from File.
• Select your video from the folder you have it in.
• When inserted then click the video image still for Video Tools options menu at the top.
• Click Playback.
• Make sure the box Start Automatically is checked if you want it to start once the slide opens in the show – or if you want to click the video to start during your presentation then don’t check this box.
• In Video Tools you can also choose for the video to loop or fade in or out.

A great website resource for creating school visits is School Visit Experts.

Have you ever done a Skype PowerPoint presentation or other kind of Skype visit? Did you use video as well? Share your advice and tips here!

Skypetastic

Well, it's official.  I've gotten my feet wet in the publishing process, and now, nearly six months out, I'm toweling them back off again and sorting through exactly which puddles I want to splash through from here on out.  Storybound launched in April 2012, and, true to the testimonies of those who have gone before, releasing the first book is quite the whirlwind of obsessive anxiety, innumerable bookmarks and other sundry self-promoting bits, and blog posts, interviews, and more blog posts.  I'm not complaining, mind.  It was quite the ride.  But now that things have slowed, I'm ready to re-evaluate the process and determine which components were truly helpful, which I actually enjoyed doing, and which sent my stress-meter through the roof.

Not to worry, this will not be an incredibly long post outlining all the "thou shalt nots" for the debut author.  Instead I want to focus on author visits.  In the year preceding my launch, I was fortunate enough to meet up with some other local debut authors, and that group (with the fittingly apocalyptic title of "The Harbingers of Doom") was a fabulous support as well as a great resource for cooperative events.  We did several local appearances together which not only maximized the numbers of attendees but cemented our friendships and the capacity for mutual angst-ing over the entire publishing process.

That being said, I'm not altogether sure the events were "successful".  While most drew on average ten to fifteen people (excepting the dreaded event where we had one - yes ONE - attendee.  Ugh.), it seemed that we primarily reached other local writers, friends of friends, and the occasional very welcome MG or YA reader.  That in itself was lovely, of course, because what author in her right mind doesn't enjoy chatting books and writing with other people who love to talk books and writing?  But the reality of being a midlist debut author is that you haven't yet build a readership.  In fact, word is just seeping out about your book, and the odds of someone who has actually read it coming to a local event in the first months after launch are very slim indeed.

So while author events are fun (there's nothing like being handed a fat stack of your own books to sign) and provide the fabulous opportunity to connect with booksellers and librarians (you wonderful bookish folk, you!), they were not opportunities where I connected with readers of Storybound.  Enter Skype, that heretofore mysterious term I had heard thrown around by my expat friends but had ignored until now.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to do a Skype author visit with the kids' book club at Changing Hands Bookstore in Arizona.  After accepting the invitation, I fumbled my way through the online Skype tutorial, and at just the right moment, had a lovely virtual chat with kids who love books, and, even more thrilling, had read Storybound.  Perhaps I'm several years too late, and those of you who don't dwell in the 1990s where I bide my time in a wifi free and Luddite existence are yawning and tabbing over to the next blog post in your reader.  But for the rest of us, for those who muddle their way through the latest online trends, this is one worth checking out.  The savvy folks over at skypeanauthor have even set up a virtual network to connect interested authors with teachers, librarians, booksellers, and, ultimately, readers.

I, for one, am sold.  Not only is the virtual author visit an easy way to connect with specific readers, but it provides a welcome informality that seems fitting for a middle-grade event.  While I may be stumbling my way through the Skype menu, my middle-grade readers are not.  This is old hat to a generation that keeps in touch with grandpa via a regular Skype date or checks in nightly with mom when she's on a business trip.  I found the energy and enthusiasm of the kids to be a welcome surprise, and the necessary brevity of a virtual event kept my presentation streamlined.  Without question, I'll be adding Skype visits to my newly-revised list of author "Must-dos" before Story's End launches next year.


What about you, Mayhemers?  Authors, what are your favorite ways to connect with readers?  And readers, have you ever participated in a Skype visit?