With the popularity of
sites like YouTube, and with easy to use software now
available to everyone, making a book trailer has become
one of the newest ways to promote books.
Essentially, you can
equate a book trailer with the movie trailers we get
bombarded with prior to the feature presentation at the
theatre or on a DVD. Short, catchy teasers to get us to
go to that next film, or in the case of book trailers,
to buy that book!
Nearly all computers
come with "Windows Movie Maker" (go ahead and have a
look in your start menu). The benefit of this program is
that it’s very user friendly. Load your clips and
music, cut and paste them together, and then spice it up
with some one-click transition effects. Voila: video.
The downside is that
it is very limiting and users often outgrow it. For
example, you can only have one layer of music, one layer
of images, and one layer of titles, and all of the
effects and transitions are preset so you have very
little control over customization.
If you have the extra
money to spend and are prepared for a steep learning
curve, Adobe Premiere offers many more options. Layer
image upon image, add layers of sound effects over your
music, and control every aspect of your video
production. Coupled with Adobe After Effects, Adobe
Premiere has endless potential.
Some other options to
consider are the video software that comes with most
handheld camcorders, or programs like Nero that offer
the option to create video CDs.
Besides your book
cover art, your trailer or promo video needs images. You
can take photographs yourself, or find royalty free
images via a source like the Stock.XCHNG (www.sxc.hu).
Always be sure to check the terms of usage, however;
some photographers have restrictions on their pieces. If
you’re artistic and you want to go the extra distance to
have custom images, programs such as e-Frontier’s Poser
are popular for creating digital art, and a lot can be
created in Adobe Photoshop.
There are also many
sources out there for royalty free music, such as
www.incompetech.com.
Once again, always read the musician’s terms of usage
before downloading a piece for your trailer.
But making a good
trailer is not as easy as you might think. After all,
you need to condense a several hundred page story into a
minute or a minute and a half tease. This becomes the
biggest pit-fall for many newbies—not knowing where to
stop.
The best advice for
designing an effective trailer is to look at commercials
and how they’re structured.
Your promo should be
short (thirty to ninety seconds maximum) with as few
words as possible (for example, don’t use your entire
book blurb, but instead choose a few key phrases that
give viewers a feel for the novel).
Because you’re more
likely to have stationary images rather than live action
that movie trailers have, try to include as much
movement as possible with your images—anything to grab
(and keep) the viewers attention. Zoom in, drag it
across the page, change the saturation level or
focus—play with your clips to find what is the most
effective.
For an example, view
Skyla Dawn Cameron’s promo video for her new novel
Bloodlines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na-pcmr6HkU
You’ll notice she doesn’t tell you anything about the
plot of the book, nor does she give you the book blurb,
but you have an immediate sense of what it’s like: fast
paced, action packed, with a vampire main character who
kicks butt.
Another example is
Judy Bagshaw’s "opening credits" video for her free
romance e-serial "soap opera" Desperate Hearts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnASzLoQCXw
Playing on the story’s tagline, the video introduces the
main characters (created using Poser), and the central
themes of the serial, with very little text. The music
is the main clue that this is romance in nature.
And don’t be afraid to
cut and splice the music. The original track used for
the Bloodlines video, "Harmful or Fatal" by Kevin
McLeod, was over five minutes long, however it’s been
cut and pieced down to just twenty-eight seconds.
Something to keep in
mind though; just because you can make a trailer,
doesn’t mean you should. Not everyone is cut out to be a
designer. And a bad, amateurish trailer can do more
damage to your book sales then no trailer at all.
Consider hiring a skilled individual to create your
trailer for you. The small cost is worth it for a book
trailer that will bring readers clamouring to buy your
books.
Judy
Bagshaw has been published since 2000. Writing romance
featuring full-figured heroines, her publishing credits
include several novels, a collection of short stories,
and short stories in multiple anthologies. Retired from
teaching, she writes full-time from her home in Ontario,
Canada. Visit Judy's website
www.judybagshaw.com
Skyla
Dawn Cameron is an award-winning urban fantasy author,
artist and graphic designer, and occasional marketing wh*re.
She lives in Southern Ontario, where she writes up a
storm and dreams of becoming world dictator. Visit her
on the web at
www.skyladawncameron.com
for excerpts, a community forum, contests, free fiction,
and more.
