H.B. Berlow's Blog, page 27

Secrets of the Righteous – The Book Trailer

For those of you who do not follow me on other social media, here is the link to the book trailer for SECRETS OF THE RIGHTEOUS: THE ARK CITY CONFIDENTIAL CHRONICLES, BOOK TWO.

Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated.

The Book Trailer: Useful tool or just a little bit of fun?

One week from today, SECRETS OF THE RIGHTEOUS: THE ARK CITY CONFIDENTIAL CHRONICLES, BOOK TWO will be released. It was exciting to see it up on the Amazon site for Kindle pre-orders. Any time you see your work available to the public it is a kind of validation.

In keeping with all my previous works (the self-published ones and the ones out of print with a prior publisher) I have put together my own book trailers. I do not use a professional company. They are not mini-movies with live actors in real settings. I am not equipped financial to do that. I use photos that I myself have taken. I manipulate them, when necessary, through CyberLink Photo Director. I use Windows Movie Maker to edit and create effects. And, I continue to use the royalty free music of the incomparable Kevin MacLeod from his website, Incompetech.

To be perfectly honest, I am not sure how much these book trailers add to sales. I upload them to YouTube as well as various pages on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. For a guy who went to film school in the early 80’s where everything was analog and took forever to achieve, these efforts are primarily for my own satisfaction. The fact that I CAN do it means more than what it is designed to do for me.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder if there are folks out there who, being uncertain of a new book, might just be persuaded to invest in it as long as the trailer sparks their interest. When it is released, I hope you will let me know what you think of the effort.

“…And miles to go before I sleep”

I am not appropriating Mr. Frost’s classic line to wax philosophical about the course of my life, either as a person or as a writer. In this instance, I am referring to a book. Just one book.

The timeline of the creation of a book is well known to writers and to most readers. The spark of an idea. The development of characters. The arc of the story. The completion of the first draft. The revisions. The editing. Then…securing an agent or a publisher. The business portion including the signing of a contract. The intensive work with the editor. The book cover design. The galley. And finally, a release date.

It was right here that I announced the release date for SECRETS OF THE RIGHTEOUS: THE ARK CITY CONFIDENTIAL CHRONICLES, BOOK TWO. That was on April 21. The cover was revealed on May 2.

So there it is, right? Do a lot of work to write a book and get it published and let everyone you know (and maybe don’t know through social media) when it will be available for them to purchase.

Not quite.

You make the announcement too early, people will forget. You announce it too close to the release date, you’re not building up enough excitement. Whenever you choose to make your announcement, just know you are not done. It is a constant cycle of maintaining interest in you and your work, while at the same time ensuring your work is of sufficient quality to warrant a person to spend their money to be a part of your literary world.

Back in Boston in the early to mid 90’s, craft was the most important thing. Writing a good poem or short story that resonated and was worth of being called Literature or Art was the goal in and of itself. Sure, you might be able to afford to put together a chapbook and sell it, mostly to your friends who couldn’t afford it any more than you could afford to print it.

Now, there is the business end. After all, your publisher has invested their time and resources in you. There is definitely the desire to justify that acceptance. So, while you are all aware the book will be released on June 4 (You ARE aware, right?) I will be making sure your interest doesn’t wane.