A Conservation with Bryan Thomas Schmidt Part I

We have a very special guest this week - Bryan Thomas Schmidt, author of titles such as The Worker Prince, The Returning, and Rivalry on a Sky Course. The following is a conversation about marketing and book trailers between me and Bryan. My responses are started with SBK while Bryan's responses are BTS.





BTS: Well, Brian, one of the things that has become important in marketing are book trailers. You hear about them everywhere these days it seems, and you helped me make a book trailer on a budget for The Worker Prince. I’m hoping to work with you soon on a trailer for The Returning as well. So I was thinking perhaps other authors might be interested in how we approached that. First, though, perhaps you could mention how you got into helping authors with book trailers and promotion. Then we’ll get to some nitty gritty ideas.



SBK: Sure Bryan, I can do that. Three years ago I was approached by a friend of mine, Jo-Anne Vandermeulen, she had been following my blog, The New Author, and really liked my information and passion to help authors. She proposed that we start a business together because she too enjoyed helping other succeed. We formed Premium Promotional Services. PPS started with a handful of services but we have built upon those to expand in different areas of book promotion. You are absolutely right, book trailers are important and a growing area of book promotion. There are thousands of them on Youtube. I actually, had no desire to make book trailers until my book, Born of Blood, was published. I knew I needed one so I began experimenting with the making of a book trailer. I really enjoyed it and thought about doing it for others. It just so happens that is right around the time you came along talking about making a book trailer for The Worker Prince. Speaking of The Worker Prince, how did you go about developing the idea for the book trailer? You pretty much had it planned out when you asked me to help you make it.





BTS: Well, since I was virtually unknown, and it was my first novel, with The Worker Prince, I figured the appeal was the classic/Star Wars feel. People who grew up liking those Golden Age-type stories that I loved with the larger-than-life, good v. evil heroes and villains would probably enjoy my book. I didn’t have a lot of reviews or big name blurbs to hang out and get people’s attention. So my thought was that the way to sell it was to appeal to that inner child in all of us that loves those hopeful stories and ideas and let the story itself inspire them to check it out. So the script draft I did had that in mind. Of course, timing is tricky, and getting it to the length that worked took some editing. But I think that’s always the case with anything using media. 






SBK: Timing issues....that is probably an understatement. I believe many think we just pulled some pictures together, added music, the voice over, and done. In truth we made a number of large changes to your trailer. I know we swapped out a few pictures for new ones and reorganized those pictures but, in my opinion, the voice over was the biggest change. Did you feel like you had to have the voice over or was that something you wanted to add for flare and give the trailer more flash?





BTS: Well, finding the music and making the timing look right with its beats, swells, etc. was tricky and always is. You also have to find FREE music or pay a bundle, IF you get permission. Luckily, there’s plenty of well-made free podcasting music out there one can use as long as you give credit. And the same is true of pictures. In my case, because I’m telling the story, I hired an artist to do a few drawings from the story. She worked cheap for exposure (she also got a credit) and so that gave us extra images which really fit the story and we arranged other things around that. It was also tricky finding space battle images that were not from movies or games. Those would have cost a bundle AND they would made it appear I wanted to copy something I didn’t. As for the voice over, I thought the voice over was essential. For one, I had a free narrator—my editor, Randy Streu—who is a radio professional. He was willing to record it for free and had access to the equipment. It was just a matter of timing. So he did a couple of takes, as I recall. I think it really added a lot, don’t you?



The remainder of this conversation will be posted on Thursday. Until then I encourage you to check out Bryan's website, blog, and his titles.