Are Book Trailers Effective?

[Stew]

I posted my first book trailer recently. It's nothing fancy. I took some old photos of an incident that I covered as a journalist almost 10 years ago. It was a protest march that I described in my book, The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder. I made a slide show then narrated over it. After about 11 days, I'm up to almost 200 views on YouTube. It's on my Goodreads author's page and my MySpace blog. That's not a "viral video" by any means, but it will come up on YouTube searches for people interested in the topic I cover in the book.
So I guess my tip is that a book trailer doesn't have to be a video.
Hard to say whether it has been effective or not. I have asked friends to post it on their Facebook pages.And I have seen some slight bumps on Amazon afterwards.
Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKDhiG...

[G.R.]

I've had a lot of positive feedback since I posted my trailer for The Wonderful Demise of Benjamin Arnold Guppy. I don't know if my previous trailer for Utamaro Revealed had the same sort of impact... I don't think so. I'm definitely selling more books locally due to this trailer... even the girl in the video store was talking about it when my husband went in, so it's getting the news out that the book exists in a very positive way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZySh...

[Stew]

Very well done. And much short than mine. It also shows what you can do with slideshow approach. The music sets the tone for the book, which I assume is a dark comedy.
I think the shorter the better. I initially had a 10 minute script.
Stew

[Vincent]

Hi Stew,

I've always wanted to do a video for my book, but I held back because I was unsure how to shoot it (digitized film eats up a ton of memory on my computer).

But a slide show! That's something I've never considered! Did you use PowerPoint?

I'd love to get the details!

-Vince

[Thersa]

Stew, there is actually another group here about just book trailers (which is a copyrighted phrase, I think?). I joined but haven't posted yet. I'm pretty sure Gina is a member, too. I love the idea of trailers and hope to make one soon. Yours is really nice and what an interesting subject. Gina's is a hoot. I love it. I'm curious what people use to make them, too.

t

[Dee]

Hey Book Promo Videos {ie: book trailers (tm)} are very effective. And a growing trend.

Come on over to the group and take a look at what some of the authors in this group have created :)
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/9...

[Thersa]

There she is! That was the link I was too slow to put up. Thanks Dee!

[Dee]

My pleasure :]

[G.R.]

You know, I thought we were already there in the trailer group... this cold's worse than I thought, my brain's fried O_o

[Dee]

I have done that too many times to count Gina...

*Sending you some special home-made chicken soup*

Oh, and I am loving the grumpy old man book. It is just too much fun~

Feel better real soon.

[Stew]

Thanks. Just joined the book trailer group. I'm afraid I can't be of much help on the technical side of it. I had a tech savvy friend do the work.
Stew

[G.R.]

Dee wrote: "Oh, and I am loving the grumpy old man book. It is just too much fun~"

That's very kind of you to say, Dee. And thank you for the soup :o)

There's another benefit to being a writer... I don't have to call in sick, unless I want to talk to myself. Not that I'm averse to doing that.

[Elise]

Hi all, I just did a google search and found that you can make a free slideshow on www.smilebox.com
I'll try it if and when I have some time! Has anybody used a site like this?

[G.R.]

I've used www.onetruemedia.com and that site's pretty straight forward once you get going.

[Yvonne]

Great Video, Youtube is a valuable resource for internet marketing and best of all it is free.

I have posted my video on various video submission sites and I find it very effective. Google is good as well. I have used video and powerpoint presentations made into video.

Regards,

YvonneW
Author Assistant