Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Publishing Slideshows to TikTok for Book Promotion

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.

Screen shot of Tiktok's unlimited sounds library

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.

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Monday, 12 May 2025

Batch Saving Layers from Photoshop Easily

Three different images with a red background all with different text with the words Save Layers from Photoshop - FAST over the top.

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.

Three different images with a red background all with different text.

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.