Developing an Internet Presence: Book Trailers

This is the third in a set of six articles based on the things I learned during my first year as a published author. The articles will outline a few of the things authors should consider in order to gain an Internet presence. I have a background in public relations and several years experience in project management and promotions in higher education. My experience has been in the area of campaign development, press releases, advertisement, graphic design, and event planning. Marketing my book took me into unknown territory, but being one who loves a challenge and is something of a risk taker, I embraced the opportunity. But even I had to admit that as my debut novel SILENCED CRY was about to be released in April 2007, I was a bit apprehensive. My hope is that in sharing my experiences with you, you’ll find some useful solutions to your marketing questions.

Book Trailers

Book trailers are to authors what music videos were to the rising musical talents in the early 1980s. Why were music videos so successful? They were innovative and engaged the viewer using the power of site and sound. Although we see more and more book trailers being used today, they are still a popular 90 second book promotional tool that has the same power to draw a viewer in and capture their imagination. The question is, if the video is bad, can it hurt the success of the book? There are thousands of samples to view. Take a few minutes to view a selection and make note of what attracts you to each sample and what turns you off.

An effective book trailer will stimulate viewers through pictures, text, color, and music.

Don’t try to fit the book blurb into the trailer. Consider the recent movie trailers you’ve watched. They only hit on the key points of the film, not every detail of the action. Highlight the major plot twists without giving the story away. Another reason to avoid lengthy narratives is that viewers want to watch the trailer, not read long sentences. Use 2-3 key words per frame tops. A 90-second trailer can have anywhere from 18-21 frames depending on the viewing length of each frame or how long each frame will remain on the screen. Decide on key words or phrases that will peak the viewer’s interest. Make every frame count with appropriate, thought-provoking photographs or other images. Choose color(s) that reflect the mood of your book and use it as a theme that ties it all together along with an appropriate piece of music.

Pacing is a crucial component of matching the images and text to the music. Just as the writer uses pace to slow down the action or build suspense, the tempo of the music should be used in the same manner. The right combination can spark an emotional reaction from the viewer which is the goal of any such promotional tool and will hopefully trigger the impulse to buy the book.

Possibly the hardest part of creating a book trailer is timing – make sure every frame fits the music within 90 seconds or less. Be sure you use only copyright/royalty free photographs and music. Here is one site to find free downloadable photographs http://www.sxc.hu/home. There are similar sites for music too.

Of course you could pay to have a book trailer created, but Microsoft Word has a feature called Movie Maker that works just fine for those who are interested creating one themselves. Once the trailer is done, save it to the web using one of the servers that supports Movie Maker. Mydeo is one of them and costs less than $3 a month for unlimited viewing. Once completed, the book trailer can be downloaded onto your website and any number of websites sites that allow authors to download videos, such as, Gathers, Myspace, your personal blog(s), Youtube, and Google. Add a link to your signature line on e-mails, etc. It’s another great promotional tool to save on a CD to include with your media kits.

The next article: Spread the Word

Marta Stephens is a crime/mystery author of SILENCED CRY
View the SILENCED CRY book trailer on the home page of www.martastephens-author.com

Marta,

I've seen some great book trailers out there. Can you suggest some on-line turnkey companies that one can use to create trailers?

Malcolm

Yes, making decent quality videos has to be one of my next learning curves.

Me too. I am on the slow dial-up end of the spectrum and hate that they take so long to download, but I think I really need to learn how to do them. I have seen some that were quite impressive.

I couldn't afford to hire a company to fashion a trailer for my novel In Darkness Bound, so I animated my own. It was a long process, and took me several days, working with rather rudimentary tools. I hope to go back and do another, learning from the mistakes I made with the first. You can learn more details on how I went about creating it in the section I devoted to it on my website (www.freewebs.com/lindsaybrambles). You should find the video on publishedauthors.ning.com or you can go to Youtube and view it, either by clicking on the link below or by typing In Darkness Bound into the search engine at the site.

In Darkness Bound mini-book trailer link.

Hope you enjoy the show

-Lindsay, Ottawa, 2008

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to your questions.

Malcom, the only company I know of to offer a link (not necessarily a recommendation) is www.cosproductions.com . I met the owner in one of the other groups I belong to but aside from viewing their trailers, I don't know anything about them so I offer the link only for information purposes.

The problem I see with many trailers including those done "professionally" is that they eventually all look and/or sound alike. If you decide to go with a company, do your homework to see how diverse their products are.

You'll find my book trailer on my page here in Published Authors.

Thanks for the suggestion, Marta. Needless to say, I want to avoid the look-alike/sound-alike "style." I also don't want a trailer that looks like it was designed in a basement by monkeys--which is what anything I did myself would look like.

Malcolm

You could try Ghostwriter Extraordinaire:

http://www.gwextra.com/

It looks interesting!

Could be a new income stream for you Malcolm --

Monkeys by Malcolm

Might be fun!!

Great info. Thanks!

If my trailers turned out to be so campy they actually drew an audience, Pam, basement monkey trailers might be a golden business for me.

Malcolm

Marta,

Another question about book trailers comes to mind. Most of the book trailers I see are on websites that have, relatively speaking, very little mainstream public traffic. I often see them, for example, on sites where people are voting for the best trailers submitted.

What I'm asking, I guess, is whether "name" authors from mainstream houses ever use trailers and, if so, is the reason those trailers might be effective because the web sites of nam authors are going to get lots of traffic anyhow.

My question, I guess, is whether the existence of a trailer at all, along with weblog tours and other similar techniques, proof on the surface that the author is either with a very small publisher or is self published in some way. And, if so, would this be a red flag to readers who are going to label it "minor league" promotion, causing them to stay away from the book?

I feel apologetic for even asking the question since folks here, including me, are using these techniques.

Sigh (with apologies),

Malcolm

Excellent question Malcolm -- cannot wait to see what feedback is to come.

I need to get onto this, that's going to be next week's job - start developing a book trailer.

What an interesting way to get people interested in reading! Book trailers are like movie trailers, but for books! You can find them all over the internet now, but here is a site that's featuring them on YouTube.

My take on trailers is that they are newest marketing gimmick in the book marketing world. If you have money, then they are a great way to spend it. But if you are on a limited budget, I think you could use that money more wisely with various other marketing schemes.

Some big publishing houses are starting to use them, but not really. Most that I have seen are either from self-published authors, or those who are in the business or marketing sectors where potential customers are used to the net when looking for products.

If you have your own video camera and know how to edit, then it might be worth the time, but I think you can use it more wisely just by blogging, building traffic, etc.

This is my latest trailer. It's only an animation and not a video:

http://publishedauthors.ning.com/video/video/show?id=956540:Video:46673

Neat Shelagh!

Well done, Shelagh! Cool misic, too...

Thanks Pam and Brew! I'm quite pleased with it!

Shelagh,
your book cover and promotion is exceptional.

Thanks Abe!

ONLY animation???? Please. Animation is a lot harder to do, and cooler.

It ticks me off that so many of these are just panning a book cover with a camera, then dropping cards with blurbs on them.

Here's my animated trailer

http://slang101.com/video2.htm


Just making a vid and putting it on a site or youtube doesn't do anything for you, any more than just putting up a website does.
But they can be a tool you can use to get traffic in if you think it out and do some positioning.

of course you know, Shelagh, your trailer only intensified my desires to visit Scotland...

you must forgive me. The trailers here in the Deep South of the US are targets for tornadoes...not marketing devices...

Terrific job, Shelagh! Rhett, you crack me up!!