How to Efficiently Create Short Vids for Book Promotion on Social Media

So I am still in the stages of implementing the social media strategy outlined by Kate- Alyne Digital and am having to change up because slideshows for books don't seem to be cutting it anymore. It's all about vids now.

Now Kate gives a very comprehensive method for creating the vids in Canva, but it uses functions of Canva which are part of the purchased packages. Now, since I already have Adobe (which I use for many things), I do not want to have to pay for two packages, so I decided to try and figure out the most efficient way of doing it in Adobe.

Unfortunately this is not as easy to automate in Premiere Pro as doing slides was in Photoshop. This is where it becomes obvious that all Adobe products are not made equal, what is easy in one is not easy in another. This YouTube video gives a detailed rundown of how to import information from a CSV file into Photoshop to create many datasets of the same layout with different word content.

BUT we can’t do this in Premiere Pro. One option is to create text PNGs with transparent background in Photoshop using variable and datasets and then importing those into Premiere Pro to overlay the background video. This is perfectly valid, but there is a little faffing to do in Photoshop (repositioning text, adding back in first “ if using dialog because it loses it on the import etc). Only having to faff in one application is better, and having the text editable in Premiere Pro in case of a mistake is much better.

So we have to go around the houses. My solution requires the following steps:

Create text content in Excel
Export the content to individual CSV files
Convert the CSV files into SRT files
Import the SRT files into Premiere Pro
Edit the captions so they show in the manner we wish them to show.
Create vids

1. Create Text Content in Excel

We can use any editor that allows us to output to CSV, I use Excel because I have Office 365. Google Sheets or Open Office should work just as well, but I have not used them, so cannot vouch for them.

1.1 Format for Each Excel Sheet

Each sheet should have 3 columns (no headers):

Start time (00:00:00:00) – where we want the text to start in the timeline
End time (00:00:00:00) – where we want the text to end in the timeline
Text content

We are basically creating all the information needed in an SRT file.

2 Columns of numbers and one column of text in an excel sheet

Format of the CSV file

1.2 Create a Sheet for Each Set of Text

Unlike Kate’s method, we have to have each set of text on a different sheet in the workbook. The easiest way to do this is:

Create the first sheet.
Make a copy of the first sheet.
Change the name of the new sheet to something sensible.
Edit the text in the new sheet.
Rinse and repeat until we have as many sets of text as we need.

2. Export the content to individual CSV files

Now the easiest, but slower method to do this the following (the methods in other spreadsheet programs may be slightly different):

Open the workbook
Go to the sheet to export
Go to File > Export > Change File Type
Choose CSV and save

The only problem with this in Excel is that it messes with seeing the original document because CSVs can only cope with one sheet of data, so it can be a right pain. Having to open and close the original document.

Hence, an easier method is as follows (this is Excel specific):

Save the workbook as a macro enabled workbook (xlsm)
Go to View > Macros > View Macros
Type in “ExportAllSheetstoCSV” in the Macro name field, then hit the Create Button
The MS Visual Basic screen with open with your new empty macro as shown.
Copy the following code and paste it into your macro:
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim path As String
path = ActiveWorkbook.path & "\" & Left(ActiveWorkbook.Name, InStr(ActiveWorkbook.Name, ".") - 1)
For Each ws In Worksheets
ws.Copy
ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs Filename:=path & "_" & ws.Name & ".csv", FileFormat:=xlCSV, CreateBackup:=False
ActiveWorkbook.Close False
Next
Click the save icon and close the VBA editor.
Go to View > Macros > View Macros
Choose “ExportAllSheetstoCSV” (if you only have one macro is will already be selected)
Click Run – and all your sheets will be saved into the same director as you Excel sheet as CSV files. The filenames will be: FilenameoftheExcelSheet_Nameofthesheet.csv – so name the sheets something sensible.

3. Convert the CSV files to SRT

This is the easiest part, there is a free tool by GoTranscript to do this.

Go to this website: https://gotranscript.com/subtitle-converter
Click Upload and choose all the CSV files
Choose “SubRip (.srt)” from the Select Format menu
Click convert and save the zip files it gives you to you harddrive.
Unzip the zip file and there are all your srt files – one for each set of text.

4. Import the SRT files into Premiere Pro

In our Premiere Pro project we can drag and drop the srt file of choice into the media list. Then drop it onto our timeline. Premiere Pro will convert our srt file into captions that we can edit to our hearts content.

This Adobe vid gives lots of info on how to do this: How to Edit Captions in PremierePro.

5. Edit the captions so they show in the manner we wish them to show.

The only problem with captions in Premiere Pro is they can only have a max of 2 lines. When we are creating text for vids like this, we often want more than 2 lines. So we have to make them graphics.

Select all the captions
Go to “Graphics and Captions” in the main top menu
Select “Upgrade Captions to Graphics”

Now all our captions are text boxes.

This Adobe vid talks all about text boxes and how to edit them: How to Add Text to Videos in Premiere Pro.

We don’t need to add text because we’ve already done it, but it talks all about editing text as well.

6. Creating the Vid

Now we have our text we can put anything we want behind it.

Make sure the text is on the top most layer.
Drag and drop our vid background into a layer under the text.
Make sure the vid is the right length.
Add in a music track if required (Incompetech has some great royalty free music) – if posting to TikTok, use their music, but YouTube, Insta etc having music already on there stops the hassle.
Export the vid.

Because we can turn Premiere Pro layers on and off at will, we can load up one project with many sets of text and backgrounds and then just mix and match as required.

7. Summary

Is it easier in Canva – yes most probably.

Kate is a very savvy lass and her courses have lots of useful information, so go check her out if you are an author struggling with social media (her TikTok course is mind blowing). I did not create this post to replace any of hers, I just don’t want to forget how to do all this and if you’re locked into Adobe like me, this is the most efficient way I can come up with without buying third party plugins and having to deal with After Effects as well.

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Tales with Tasha

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🎤Micro stories/ jokes as YouTube Shorts Monday - Sunday- for fun quick viewing
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