Book trailers

Go to www.urtaggs.com to view and publish book trailers. People have already posted a few of their book trailers to the website. Take a look

Cheers

Do you think these things do any good? Who actually sees them? How many of those who do see them, buy a book? I don't suppose anyone really knows.

I'd like to try and make a trailer sometime. I don't see it as doing any harm, even if the likely out come is not very promising.

Book trailers are a good idea but having so many in one place is not. The whole idea of trailering is to advertise your film or book.
Now with films it works because films are visual and the trailure just includes clips ordered for maximum effect and the medium remains the same. The movie business has become expert in this field. The trailers for books on the other hand do not quite have the same effect because the medium of literature is different from that of video or film. So the images are not directly from the books. Now I am not saying that these trailers are useless just not as effective. Unless the content touches peoples emotions (the right sort) they have little or no effect.
My idea behind trailering is to place them where you would not normally find them. Not on a site devoted to them. When anyone watches tv, the adverts usually are ignored or avoided as people go to the loo or make the coffee. Thats why the audio volume of adverts is higher than the program you were watching! This is because advertisers know that you're going to walk away from the tv so they use more audio trickery to keep you tuned in and hopefully convey to you subconsciously their intended message.
This is also another reason why adverts often contain comedy, this is a way of keeping you hooked and I'm sure you can name several ads that you have enjoyed over the year's and PG TIPs chimps spring to my mind. So you have to make your trailers in such a way that they entertain and draw peoples interest otherwise it's a waste of time. I'm still learning about book trailering and am in the throws of making them myself.
My early efforts ( these are basic stuff) are on youtube and yahoo sites not placed with other trailers. If anyone searches for My book title 'The Secret Dummy Of Joshua Bean' they will find them. If they don't know my book exists then they won't search for it that is why "Tags" are helpful. These can make people discover your content even though they were not intentionally looking for it.
The more content you put online that contains the title of your book the bigger your footprint becomes online.
So for now my goal is to put as many trailers, blogs and such on as many sites as will allow me. That way when someone googles my book title or one of the tags that I have associated with it they will find it on the first page. So I consider book trailers to be experimental for now and fun to make may I add. Incidentally I've come out of the film business having run the projection department in a very busy multiplex cinema for some years, so I still have an affection for the medium.

Needless to say, I'd highly recommend anybody getting into making video trailers for their books get my manual, which is slanted precisely to writers wanting to make "trailers".

http://adoroworks.com


Another trailer promotional site, by the way, is http://blazingtrailers.com/

There are advantages to being included in such pages. A link to you, for one thing.


But the main thing is, a site like that, like YouTube is where videos reside, so they can be linked to in order to show them around. Unless you have your own site with your video converted to flash and an imbedded player, you need this.

This is kind of the basic way video promotion works... you load it up to a site like that one, or YouTube, then you embed it or link to if in your promotional posts.

If you have a really cool video, people send links around to their friends or post it in other places: this is called "viral" promotion, the promo spreading on it's own.

Hi Lin, where you been hiding. Good to see you back, mate

I share Dick's skepticism. Is there evidence that trailers sell books?

I have no idea but is ther any that shows it doesn't? I suppose it all comes down to the individual to decide for themselves. I would like to give it a go just to see but always find myself to busy to get round to looking into it. And it doesn't hurt to give it a go.

My trailer for Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine on YouTube alone has received 1,888 hits with no significant increase in sales. The video is also on Yahoo!, Google and Youare.tv. I seem to be of more interest than the book --which was not my intention. My book turned to me and said, "I knew I should never work with animals or children ... or women!"

This is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0ZV9cbyIEY

Enjoy!

Can you prove that billboards sell products?

Television commercials?

Videos are a marketing/promo tool. They have to be used well, not just slapped up someplace and left to work.

I got huge hits from winning a video award. Another vid I did doubled sales of a book in a week.

You have to use them, not just have them. Video replies on YouTube is one method.

That said, I wouldn't pay somebody to make one for me.

It is hard to prove exactly how well any form of advertising works, but as long as they are free, you are losing nothing. The only thing you lose is the time to make the video/upload it. Which if you already have a video on YouTube, you can upload it to other sites. On www.urtaggs.com you can simply upload the video with the embedded link in it or upload the video file. Either way, it takes less than 10 minutes and it is completely free. If a form of advertising results in one more sale, then it is generally worth it if you are paying nothing.

It makes sense using video as a tool, if you can do it for nothing!
I can understand that many writers perhaps do not feel that they have the talent to put one together. This would put them off having one made. But hey to write a book you have to have a specific visual talent more so if you write fiction. this visual skill born from your imagination helps you to visualise the story,plot, scenes and setting in your story. It is this skill that you can excercise in making your trailer.

On the subject of embeding links youtube provides the link you use to embed on your upload page it is quite a simple thing to use. If your trailers (as shelagh has found) gets watched hundreds and hundreds of times it is not a bad thing!
You must be doing something right the video must be good to attract that amount of attention!! Who can really say that sales were not made as a result of the trailer?? I for one will try the links that Lin has provided (thank you Lin) and I will get back to some more trailer making.

lin wrote:

Can you prove that billboards sell products?

Television commercials?

Videos are a marketing/promo tool. They have to be used well, not just slapped up someplace and left to work.

I got huge hits from winning a video award. Another vid I did doubled sales of a book in a week.

You have to use them. Video replies on YouTube is one method.

That said, I wouldn't pay somebody to make one for me.

Lin, great to see you posting again.

I must admit, I was very ignorant of YouTube before, but judging from some of the many hits there I think it is another promotional avenue as much as myspace or other social networking sites. My videos on Youtube are entrusted to my friends and family, who have endless networks for them to take the piss out of me amongst their circles! I like the Borat character! He's a funny channel !

Actually, Ahad, I think your stuff and YouTube are a great match.

Look up similar videos and go around posting "video replies" and see what you get.

I agree with Lin, although there is no direct measure of a book trailer selling copies, they are an essential part of book promotion these days. This is even more true for online sales, as there is no way to really tell if you are going to like a book or not based on the cover and publisher blurbs. Search Inside, reviews, and book trailers give people another medium for understanding your book and deciding whether or not they want to get a copy.

My own uninformed opinion is that a trailer would work as well as reading a printed blurb. People are getting to where watching videos is preferable to reading -notice how much news online is now in video form? The issue is getting it noticed.

Once it is noticed, I'm curious about the music. Is using someone else's famous, copyrighted music to pitch your product legit? I think the ASCAP hammer will eventually fall on a trailer that does get sigificant attention.

Not only doesn't YouTube have a section for books, they don't even have a CATEGORY for books. You have to put your video up as "Entertainment".

But it doesn't matter. Categories are meaningless: concentrate on putting in the best keyword tags and associating your vid with others (as response or in channels) that will help it.

What will happen if you use unlicensed music could be that YouTube will jerk your account. Or possibly the licensing agency will say they have no problem as long as they can place ads on your video player.

One of the big sections and concerns in my video-making manual is how to have "legal" music. There are many sources, including ways of making your own.

An issue this raises: just how many damned skills does a writer have to have anymore?

Does every writer have to be a video-maker, web jockey, promo whiz and public speaker in order to make it?

lin wrote:

Does every writer have to be a video-maker, web jockey, promo whiz and public speaker in order to make it?

No. If you're with a commercial house, they do all that, if needed. You can choose to do some of that, and it may help, but it's supplemental.

lin wrote:

Does every writer have to be a video-maker, web jockey, promo whiz and public speaker in order to make it?

Yes. That's why a lot of writers give up.

No. If you're with a commercial house, they do all that, if needed.

Not necessarily true. And if you're a new writer signing on and don't convince them you're Mr. Promo, you're not going to get signed.

People have odd ideas of how publishing houses work and it's changing really fast lately, anyway.