Book trailers 101

As I’ve worked to investigate more effective marketing tactics for my novels, I find often that those who know more than I do say that making a book trailer is a good idea.

Really? Is it?

I have to admit I was skeptical. After all, I’d never selected a book because I’d seen a trailer for it first. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d even seen a book trailer at all. So, I looked into it.

Some are dry and direct, an author in a medium shot telling you about their book or reading an excerpt from it. Boring.

Others are so high-tech I wondered if they’d won any Oscars.

I aimed for the middle and am proud to say I don’t think my first two turned out too awful given my lack of skills, technology, and experience (pats self on back).

 

Given the aforementioned, please take my tips / cautions with a mound of salt.

Copyright is important. If you don’t own the images, music, or anything else in your trailer you could be in trouble. Be careful. I used photos that I specifically got permission from the photographer him/herself to use and I looked for musicians in my life who would be open to having me use their music. Problem solved.
Rather than try to tell the whole story, I decided to use the trailers as a chance to get potential readers interested in the idea of my story and characters. Not sure if it worked yet (too early to tell) but consider what your goals will be as you plan and produce your trailer
I tried not to set my sights too high on the effectiveness of these first trailers. But, after a few days I was pleased to discover that over thirty people had viewed each of them. Not bad for a first try.
Take your time. Much like in your writing, I’d encourage you to work on it, play with it, work on it some more, let it set a few days and then see what you think, perhaps tweaking it again before saying it’s ready to go. (Doing this saved me from a rather embarrassing typo in one of my trailers. Eeek!)

To make my trailers I used a basic ‘movie maker’ program. While not the most extravagant or detailed program, it worked as I needed it to and was easy enough for a novice like me to figure out.

As you work on marketing your own work, consider giving a book trailer a go. It wasn’t too time-consuming or difficult and gave me a renewed excitement for my stories.

Your turn! Fade in…