Russell Nolte breaks down a three-step Kickstarter video formula: a brief intro that establishes authority, a product demo with narration over images, and an urgent call to action. He shows how to make it work with just a phone, free editing software, and keeps it under 2 minutes 30 seconds for maximum conversions.
Chapters
Hello and welcome to day 3 of our 5-day Kickstarter challenge. Today I'm going to talk about videos and how making one is as easy as 1, 2, 3. So I'm going to show you the 3 steps that you need to make a compelling video with just your on-camera microphone and your on-camera, um, camera, or your on-computer camera, or your iPhone. I've recorded a lot of these on my iPhone. So this first step is introduction, the second step is product demo, and the third step is the plea. And we're going to show you how that works right now. Hi, I'm USA Today bestselling author Russell Nolte, creator of all of this stuff.
But today I'm here to tell you about the third and final volume of my Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell anthology series.
Battle Royale. Okay, so you'll see that very effectively, this first thing introduced me, gave me authority by saying US Today bestselling author and showing all of my previous books, and demoed that there are already 2 finished books in this series, all within 12 seconds. It does not have to be long to be effective. Okay, here's the product demo. Battle Royale.
Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell is my most popular series, and the 3rd volume is just as incredible as the first 2. Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell Battle Royale features 34 stories from over 70 creators telling tales about the gods and monsters of the Lovecraft universe. Stories range from cute to scary and everything in between, and just like the first two volumes, Battle Royale is all ages appropriate, meaning you can share it with your favorite Lovecraft fan from 4 to 99. We have stories from creators who've worked for Marvel, DC, Image, Oni, and many more, along with brands like My Little Pony, Invader Zim, and Walt Disney, among others.
So you can see the product demo is basically me talking into a microphone and then overlaying imagery on top of it. And I use a program called HitFilm Express to do that, and it's H-I-T-F-I-L-M Express, and it's a free service. You can donate if they— if you like. I ended up donating because I really like their product. And I use it all the time. And you just— that was basically every image from one image for every story in the book. But Russell, you might say, I don't have cool audio and I'm doing a prose book, so there's not a lot of imagery. Well, let me show you what you would do in that situation.
Portal fantasy series focusing on magic.
So you can see these are those flavor, um, images that I told you you might use other places.
Mythology, monsters, and fairy tales. In the first book of the series, Rose, one of our heroines, fall—
you can see that I— this is, this is an image from COVID Vault. But what I did is I just did a zoom. I didn't do any zooms out here, so I was able to use this image for a lot longer than I did the previous book. So it just extends how long you're able to use one single image.
Into a diabetic coma and wakes up in a place called the dream.
And then I do the same sort of thing with different pushes and different pulls that you can all do in HitFilm Express very easily. This is like very beginner HitFilm Express of how to do this particular thing. And so That's part 2. Again, very easy. If you stumble, you can do it multiple times. You can cut it up. You can do one sentence at a time. You can look at the— you can make a script and look at the screen while you're talking. There's a whole lot of things you can do with it.
Kickstarter is the platform that launched Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell, so it's only right for us to wrap up the trilogy here as well. In all, you have helped us produce over 100 stories and nearly 500 full-color comic pages celebrating the gods and monsters of Lovecraft's universe. That's absolutely incredible. In this third volume, we also see the end of the arc that started in the first volume. In the first book, the Lovecraftian gods planned their invasion. In the second book, they invaded and took over the universe.
Universe.
And now in book 3, the gods of mythology team up with humanity to try and take back their universe from the Lovecraftian gods that have it in their clutches. I absolutely can't wait to share it with you. If you love the first volume, or if you're here for the first time, I think you're in for a real treat with Cthulhu is Hard to Spell: Battle Royale. I hope to see you behind the backer wall.
Now you can see that wasn't even very good. It just was competent, but we still were able to raise a lot of money in the first few days of this campaign with this video because it's— because of the simpleness and effectiveness and how you do the plea is very helpful to getting people to understand what you're trying to do. And the easier it is to understand, the quicker they can understand, the quicker they can pledge. The longer someone has to watch something, And the more meandering it is, the much more confusing that it is. And that is basically the 1-2-3 of how to make a video. Introduction, then product demo, then the plea. And if you add those 3 things together and you make it under 2 minutes and 30 seconds, you're going to have an effective video. So I hope that helps. Today's goal is to create a video. I know you probably won't be able to do this today. A lot of you will not be able to do this, but when you get it done, put the video in the group and let us see it. And I look forward to seeing you in the group and in tomorrow's video.
