My second book has been published on Amazon. It is a how-to guide entitled “How to Build a Better Wood Duck House”. Over the past couple of years I have built wood duck houses for a friend. He has around 100 houses spread around his farm and a neighboring farm. We have tweaked the design to make them durable and easy to maintain.
The book provides step-by-step instructions, diagrams and pictures. There is a web page associated with the book that has videos about using tools as well as other information about wood duck and wood duck houses.
Background
This was another project that started while I was rehabbing from a knee replacement. I was just finishing my first book (Pheasant Hunter’s Journal) before the annual banquet of the local chapter of Pheasants Forever that I belong too. The chapter knew that I had previously made wood duck houses for a friend. They wanted several houses to use for fund raising at the banquet so I volunteered to build six houses. As I planned the build I realized that this would be a good subject for a second book.
Similar to the first book, I wanted there to be an online resources web page tied to the book. This allows me provide additional information, such as videos, that would otherwise be impossible. With that in mind I scoped out what I was going to need.
Planning
For the book itself, I needed an outline. Populating the outline with more details allowed me to determine what other content I would need, such as diagrams and pictures. I was also able to identify additional information I wanted to provide to readers that was not core to the book, such as how to use specific tools. This additional information then became subjects for videos posted to the Online Resource page for the new book.
Building the Wood Duck Houses
With the planning complete, I started the build by purchasing the supplies. Because I was not sure how the video would look, I planned on building a single house from start to finish, recording all the steps. It turns out this was smart because a lot of the video just was not good enough. Doing this also helped identify details that I wanted to include in the book.
I was running out of time to get the houses built, so my next step was to mass produce the remaining five houses. I recorded all of the steps on video, but from different angles, knowing what shots I missed on the first house. With all six houses built the time pressure was off. The houses were used at the banquet in a variety of ways such as a silent auction, a live auction, and as raffle give-aways. They were well received.
Back to the Book
After the build was done then it was time to work on the book and finish the associated videos. I bounced back and forth between the two activities. For the book, I needed to capture stills (pictures) from the video. For the “how-to” videos I needed to edit hours of clips into short concise stories and add voice-overs.
The videos were finished first, probably because it was more interesting work. As I got closer to completing the book, I identified several outstanding pictures I needed. I made a trip out to the farm where houses I made in the past were being used and took a lot of pictures. Using those, I did the final edit and had a proof copy of the book printed.
Reviewing the proof copy I realized I needed a better cover picture and some minor text editing. I enlisted the help of a friend who has a much better eye for composing pictures and we made another trip to the farm. He got several good shots and with help from Jae, we selected the final cover picture. I had another proof copy printed.
Upon review of that proof copy, I replaced a picture and then pushed the button. The book is now for sale on Amazon (Click the cover picture below).
Summary
My second book was significantly more work than the first. It was a great opportunity to learn new things especially considering all of the videos, diagrams and pictures. Now that it has been published I need to start looking at how to market it.
