Making a Movie of Your Book
Welcome to the next post in my six-part series “Behind the Scenes of My Book Launch.” I’ll be exploring a different topic each week, designed to illuminate the six different big lessons I learned these past months as I prepared my new novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), for publication on October 24. I hope it’ll be interesting to veterans of publishing as well as writers just exploring the idea.
The methods are working because my novel became a bestseller and Hot New Release on Amazon in three categories, much to my astonishment, just from pre-orders. Still time to join the fun and pre-order your copy, if you like stories about women heroes, aviation, or complex sister relationships, at Barnes & Noble, amazon, and bookshop.org.
Photo by Jakob Owens on UnsplashNine years ago, one of my students, Juliann Rich, published her debut novel—a YA story, Caught in the Crossfire, about a gay teen struggling to figure out his life within his religious community. I loved working with this writer and cheered her on when she signed with an agent, then a publisher. But I really admired her when she made her first book trailer.
Juliann did the trailer herself. She used iMovie and purchased a one-month subscription to Shutterstock ($479 now) and a license to use the music (she used AudioJungle as the most affordable option since she could buy the song she wanted and skip a subscription). For not much money but a good amount of effort and skill, here’s what she came up, a mini-movie that tells the book’s story and communicates its emotional essence.
The trailer intrigued me—it captured the conflict of this teen and how he’s torn between his inner and outer lives. But it takes a lot of effort—and often a lot of money—to create such a trailer. One publicist told me book trailers weren’t worth the money. But now that my book is available for preorder, I find myself craving the ability to convey the essence of the novel in a dramatic visual of 30 to 60 seconds.
Compared to movie trailers for the big screen, book trailers are small potatoes, but how do they work to get an audience engaged? Do they convey the emotion that just words can’t? Juliann says yes. Although her first attempt was simplistic—still pictures timed to transition with the music—it met the goal of an emotional experience.
Here’s another trailer, for her YA book, Gravity, which feels, to me as viewer, more intricate.
Both were effective, Juliann says. “One of the best things I discovered was that creating a book trailer required me to sum my book up in one to two sentences. So helpful in identifying the heart of my story. By my fourth book, I'd learned to use book trailer creation as a way to clarify my vision for where my book was going.”
She created about ten different versions of the book trailer for Gravity before both the book and the trailer were finalized. “It's a great exercise,” she adds, “but one that could be simplified as well by writing the script alone.” A cool way to bring the book to life visually for her readers, and especially appealing to young adults.
Another former student, Jeanne Blasberg, created trailers for both her novels, Eden and The Nine. Jeanne felt her novels would translate well visually and that a trailer might also “inspire those thinking about a book-to-film adaptation.” An efficient way to communicate mood and character, she says: “People get what the story is about instantaneously.”
Her cinematic trailer cost around $20,000—way more than Juliann’s—but Jeanne felt it was worth it, as video makes up a big portion of her website. “The trailers are cut up into episodes which I used in social media drops leading up to the launch,” she told me. “I have a digital media package which includes link to my Vimeo page which houses all my trailers and I believe that made an impact on several decision makers.” She also says the process was “very creatively satisfying.” Here’s hers, for The Nine:
Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard is a third author who believes in book trailers. Like Jeanne Blasberg, she wanted a higher quality, cinematic trailer for her historical novel, Sisters of Castle Leod, so she worked with Electrafox. That turned out to be a great choice,” she says. Bernard chose a 60-second trailer that cost her around $1200, including prepared files for social media, closed captions, thumbnail, etc.
“I could see the results in increased sales whenever I boosted the video,” she says. “I believe it really helped the book to stand out among the crowded field of historical novels.” Here’s hers:
A very different kind of book trailer was created by Cindy Angell Keeling for her just-released historical novel, Dream City Dreaming, about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition. Her husband, a filmmaker, put over 100 hours into creating it, using public-domain artwork and music from Premiumbeat (license $49) which reflected the time period. After much research into book trailers, Cindy wanted a “succinct, un-narrated trailer” that just gave “an intriguing hint of the story rather than a long description of the plot.”
“Our goal was to portray the magnificence of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and give a hint of the main character and her story,” she says. “The trailer is posted to my author website, author Facebook page, and my YouTube channel. It was a good way to create buzz on social media, and my website is a good place to send book reviewers, librarians, and other interested parties. It’s too early to see the impact on sales, but I’m convinced that a book trailer is a good publicity tool to have in my author pocket.” Here’s her trailer:
I liked all four of these trailers; I wanted to try one for my book too. Something a bit more complex than Cindy’s, with movement scenes, music, and words. I didn’t have the budget for a high-end cinematic trailer, and I didn’t have Juliann’s or Cindy’s husband’s filmmaking skills. But after watching more trailers online (see below for more links if you’re searching too) I was hooked on the short blast of sound and light, movement and action, scenery and setting that a book trailer provided.
It transmits much more than just words, in such a short time.
I was talking with an artist friend who recommended looking at Fiverr. I loved using Fiverr for my audiobook narration, but it wasn’t cheap. But browsing the pages of book-trailer ads on the site, I decided to test out a filmmaker in Germany with a sweet sample. 30-second trailers ran around $60, nothing close to Academy Award level for that price, but maybe something better than my feeble attempts with iMovie.
Here’s the first result. It’s not quite what I want, but it made me feel quite emotional about the story when I first watched it. (Turn up your volume—there’s music behind the images.)
Then Julia Rust, one of my former students, a fellow author, and a skilled creator of more cinematic trailers, offered to put one together for me. (She charges $200-300.) Focused on the suspense, it’s much shorter and punchier. I like it a lot.
Which is your favorite?
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
Re-watch the trailers above and post in the Comments below which is your favorite and why. Check out these links to see more examples:
Best 10 trailers of all time (Film 14)
Epic Reads favorite trailers for YA books
Goodreads list of book trailers (rabbit hole, there are a LOT so be prepared!)
Next, imagine your book trailer, using these prompts:
What main points of the plot would you’d need to tease?
What mood do you want to convey?
What’s the primary image or images of the setting?
If you were to write a script for the trailer, where would you start and end?
Shout Out!A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.
(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)
Linda Dittmar, Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the Claims of Belonging. (Interlink Press, July release)
Nigar Alam, Under the Tamarind Tree (Putnam/PRH, August release)
Cindy Angell Keeling, Dream City Dreaming (Petite Parasol Press, August release)
Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)
Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)
I’m the author of 14 books in 3 genres, an artist, and a lover of freedom and creativity. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), will be published in October 2023 (preorders available in early August). For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.
