Ever seen a book trailer that made you want to run out and buy the book?
Here's one that I found made me want to (re)read the book. Between its good script and its good editing, I was enamored for every second. This is, of course, what my dream trailer would look like.
Here's one that I found made me want to (re)read the book. Between its good script and its good editing, I was enamored for every second. This is, of course, what my dream trailer would look like.
But there's one downside in trying to replicate this-it looks SUPER expensive. Between all the actors, the sets, the high quality editing, and the very fake looking blogging platform, this production could not have been cheap. (And if if was, Ms. Brody, share your secrets!) Most self published authors have tight budgets, or tightly budgeted schedules, and couldn't make such a nice trailer with the resources they have. So what should you do, then?
Though there is some controversy over which form is the most effective or best to create, most book trailer fall under one of these three categories.
1) "Multimedia Summary." (There are no official names for these, by the way, only the names I'm creating for them.) These take the summary and put it to a video. Whether the words appear on the screen or a narrator voices it over, there's usually something going on in the background, whether there's a slideshow of pictures or a video. Most of these trailers also use (royalty-free) music. (Copyright law plays a factor in your music selection, because, as book trailers are made for "commercial purposes," it disallows you from hearing almost all of the music you hear on the radio today.)
2) "Movie Trailer." This takes the story and turns into a movie trailer. These trailers are very controversial among the book blogger boards; some argue that it's much more interesting than number 1 or number 3, while others argue that trying to create a movie trailer will end up resulting in a sky-high bill, an amateurish-looking video, or both. However, it's up to you to decide which negatives outweigh the others.
3) "Starring the Author." Whether this is a staged conversation, a part where the author plays a character, or the author simply reading a chapter, what sets these apart is that the author plays an important role on-screen. These are especially helpful for memoirs, I've noticed, because you get to know the author that much better, but many authors are camera-shy, so they may want to look elsewhere.
4) "Other." These are the book trailers that can think of something besides numbers 1, 2, or 3 to them. Once I saw a two minute sample of a narrator (not the author) reading two minutes of the book while the words they spoke spilled across the page. If you can think of something unique and creative, go for it!
Here are some tips for creating trailers, no matter what type you choose:
Hope this was helpful. :)
Though there is some controversy over which form is the most effective or best to create, most book trailer fall under one of these three categories.
1) "Multimedia Summary." (There are no official names for these, by the way, only the names I'm creating for them.) These take the summary and put it to a video. Whether the words appear on the screen or a narrator voices it over, there's usually something going on in the background, whether there's a slideshow of pictures or a video. Most of these trailers also use (royalty-free) music. (Copyright law plays a factor in your music selection, because, as book trailers are made for "commercial purposes," it disallows you from hearing almost all of the music you hear on the radio today.)
2) "Movie Trailer." This takes the story and turns into a movie trailer. These trailers are very controversial among the book blogger boards; some argue that it's much more interesting than number 1 or number 3, while others argue that trying to create a movie trailer will end up resulting in a sky-high bill, an amateurish-looking video, or both. However, it's up to you to decide which negatives outweigh the others.
3) "Starring the Author." Whether this is a staged conversation, a part where the author plays a character, or the author simply reading a chapter, what sets these apart is that the author plays an important role on-screen. These are especially helpful for memoirs, I've noticed, because you get to know the author that much better, but many authors are camera-shy, so they may want to look elsewhere.
4) "Other." These are the book trailers that can think of something besides numbers 1, 2, or 3 to them. Once I saw a two minute sample of a narrator (not the author) reading two minutes of the book while the words they spoke spilled across the page. If you can think of something unique and creative, go for it!
Here are some tips for creating trailers, no matter what type you choose:
- Write a script. This will help the creation/filming/editing process go much smoother than making it up as you go. Using
- As I said before, be sure to use royalty free pictures, videos, and especially music. Even if you've heard the perfect song from, say, Lady Gaga's earliest album, you still should go pick something royalty free, as using copyrighted music will cost a lot of money if done legally.
- Get a good movie editor, if you're editing it yourself. Windows Movie Maker is free on PCs, but I've had bad experiences with crashes, so I avoid it and instead opt for iMovie on my iPad. It depends on what's available to you and what you feel most comfortable with.
- Share your trailer! The most obvious place to share would be to YouTube, but there are many other places where you can share your trailer. You can put it on all your social media accounts so that your followers can see it, and don't forget your tags! They help your trailer become seen.
Hope this was helpful. :)