Book Trailers - You Can Do It Yourself

Book trailers are one of the newest promotional tools on the book marketing scene. Like a movie trailer or TV commercial, it provides an audiovisual bite to entice an audience to your product. Once made, your booktrailer can be loaded onto YouTube, MySpace or onto your own website. Put a link to it in your blog and in your email signature. Dorothy Thompson, author and book marketing expert, says, "One thing we all must keep in mind when marketing our books is that visual sells."
To create a good book trailer, keep the trailer short (one to two minutes), somewhat dramatic, and just hint at the characters and plot so that viewers will be intrigued enough to visit your website, which will hopefully create a sale for you. Unlike with movie trailers, book readers may prefer not to be shown clear photos of a novel's characters, particularly faces, as they may enjoy envisioning the characters themselves through the written words. Other readers don't seem to mind. Some readers like to hear or see a few snippets of the actual text, although it may be difficult to find a short bit of text that is meaningful on its own; in any case, the book trailer should lead viewers to your website and the excerpts there (you DO have excerpts, don't you?). It may take a little more creativity to make an exciting book trailer for a nonfiction book; the key will be to tell the viewer why he needs the book and what makes it special without getting too detailed. With any type of book, all photos should relate to the book and should generally play for at least five seconds, long enough to register with viewers and to allow the narrator time to speak through it.
All book trailers need audio to help capture the spirit of the book. You may add music or narration, preferably both. Narration requires a calm, firm voice in an appropriate tone for the book, and it requires good timing-almost an acting skill. Many book trailers rely only on text that appears across the photos or video clips to narrate the video, but voice narration can be more powerful. You may do the narration yourself or enlist the help of a friend with a good reading voice. Use a script. Whether using text or voice narration, have music playing in the background. Remember, a book trailer is a commercial endeavor and you must generally pay royalties for music used unless you have created it yourself. Search online for sites offering royalty free music or music in the public domain. Likewise, search for free stock images or royalty-free photos, or get written permission from photographers.
MS Windows comes with a free, easy-to-use program called Windows Movie Maker. Search for it in your Programs list. Movie Maker has a nice Help function to assist you in learning the ropes. By importing still photos (at low resolution for web viewing), mp3 audio files, or video loaded from your own digital videocam, all using simple click and drag, you can create your own movie clip. Using Movie Maker's tools, you can choose from various transitions between photos and from different effects-just don't overwhelm your audience using all the effects you can. You may add text and narration, titles and credits. Be sure to include a photo of the cover of your book near the beginning and the end of your video.
Hiring a company to create a trailer for you is expensive, but generally gets you a professional-looking product. You must decide if it is worth the price. By viewing other trailers and taking notes of what you liked and what you didn't, you can create your own trailer with a little research and a little practice on Windows Movie Maker. Don't be surprised if you love the experience.
Linda E. Austin is the author of "Cherry Blossoms in Twilight: Memories of a Japanese Girl" http://www.moonbridgebooks.com
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