I’m very pleased to say that Release 7 of The Screencasting Handbook is almost ready for release (it’ll be out within the week).  At over 90 pages it feels like a real book even though it isn’t yet finished, I’m also getting some great feedback and reviews:

“The Screencasting Handbook then is just such a guide, a comprehensive introduction to the world of screencasting with exploration of many of the fundamental concepts and practical advice on the production of screencasts with a variety of leading screencast development applications.” – Paul McGovern

The Handbook is being updated monthly, Release 7 comes out in a few days, Release 8 will follow early in February.  Release 8 will include many screencasts showing how to use common screencasting tools on different platforms.

Currently the Handbook contains information that is useful to absolute beginners through to intermediate screencasters.  Experts may find useful ideas, more expert knowledge will be added to future versions.  Release 7 will be the last major text update for a while, once that’s out I want to make a set of screencasts that show screencasting in action (these will be added to the PDF as links in future updates).

Do remember that the eBook is published as a PDF and it is being updated every month.  You can buy your copy here and if you’re unhappy for any reason there’s an unlimited time refund option.

Here’s the release history:

• December Release 6 – Merged “A deeper look at the techniques behind screencasting” into “Making a screencast in 1-2 days”, added checklists to the three “Making a screencast in…” chapters, added two new examples to “What’s the value of screencasting?”
• November Release 5 – Wrote “Make a screencast in 2 hours” chapter, added “Distribution” chapter to talk about YouTube, Vimeo, Screencast.com and ShowMeDo.com.  Handbook is approximately 13,000 words.
• October Release 4 – Added ‘Making a screencast in the next 30 minutes’ chapter and screencast, started an outline of the “Make a screencast in 2 hours” chapter
• September Release 3 – Second release, added examples recordings to Microphones section, expanded the Other Resources list, expanded “What’s the value of screencasting”
• August 2009 Release 2 – First release, chapter outlines and early chapter draft

Yesterday I was interviewed by Andy White (author of Podcasting Unleashed) on the hows and whys of screencasting for marketing software products. Some of the links mentioned are listed here.

We discuss:

• How to get started at zero cost (using Jing (Win/Mac), QuickTime Pro (Mac), BBFlashBack (Win) and RecordMyDesktop (Linux))
• Professional screencasting packages (Camtasia and BBFlashBack Pro on Windows, ScreenFlow and Camtasia on Mac)
• Tips for structuring the demo
• Tips for audio production
• (briefly) The Screencasting Handbook
• (briefly) my ProCasts for professional screencasting

My interview runs for the last 20 minutes (from 0:37:00 to 0:52:00):

You can download the mp3 for offline listening.

I’ve recently added a page of screencasting software to The Screencasting Handbook site, along with a blog post of 24 screencasting tips.

The screencasting software page lists all of the packages I know for recording screencasts, editing and useful utilities.  I’m probably missing a few right now, I’ll be updating the page as more feedback comes through.

The screencasting tips list a whole heap o’tips that I’ve collected over the last year or two, ordered roughly as they should be used as you progress through a recording session.

Over the the Google Group for the Handbook I’m getting some darned useful feedback about the early version of the Handbook including more stories of how screencasting is used in education, Linux tools and microphone recommendations.  Do join the mailing list (here) if you’d like to be kept in the loop, the first version of the Handbook will be on sale in September.