How to make a book trailer?
Recently I have watched a lot (and I really do mean a lot) of book trailers, which gave me the idea of writing this blog post to all of my fellow writers wanting to make a trailer.
First of all I have to admit I don’t believe a book can be launched nowadays without a trailer. The market has become overly competitive and most of us, independent writers have to market our books too. It’s wise to use as many tools as we have at our disposal.
You can create your trailer yourself by using one of the many fantastic & easy-to-use programs such as IMovie http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/. The good thing about them is that you don’t have to be an editor to learn the few basic rules.
You can also use one of the film & video companies offering services in this area. I’m not going to recommend any of them as I haven’t used any but I’m more than certain than you’ll be able to find some decent ones out there.
However, first things first. Before you even start thinking about making a trailer, you need to decide or perhaps rather know what kind of audience you are aiming your trailer at. You will make one trailer for kids and a different trailer for spy novels or another one again for a vampire story for teens.
Of course it’s easier to create a trailer for an illustrated book than for a book without any drawings. However there are still a few rules which you need to follow or rather take into consideration when making your trailer.
a. The trailer should not be longer the 90 sec. something between 30-90 sec. is the best length.
b. Use a font that is easily readable. I know that fancy fonts look cool and it’s tempting to use them but if people have a hard time reading your trailer, you’ve wasted your time.
c. Add the link to your site at the left bottom of the frame. So your audience will actually know where to find your books on the web.
d. Leave enough time at the end of the video for your audience to get acquaintance with your book cover. Remember that people are usually highly visual and seeing the cover of your book for enough time will leave them with a lasting memory. Leave your audience with the book cover for at least 10 sec.
e. Make your trailer interesting visually. Use simple transitions or fancy filters on your still images.
f. You don’t have to do the MTV cutting between images but don’t prolong one image for too long.
g. Use suitable music for your trailer. You can’t use scary music for the kids book. It will confuse your audience and won’t attract the right audience.
h. When you buy the images/photographs for your trailer, try to choose ones that are visually attractive and will hook your audience right away. Sometimes it is worth spending more money on the images. At the end of the day your trailer is going to be the face of your book.
i. Try to make your trailer in some unique way, different from other trailers you have seen. This way people will start talking about it and possibly send links to your trailer to one another and that’s what all of this is about, isn’t it? Sometimes it is enough to have just the one image, some very good music expressing the mood of the book, even the title of the book. It really can be as simple as that.
j. Since we are writers, I would suggest writing a short script for your video. It will help you clear your thoughts and often come up with great ideas.
To get all the best ideas it’s good to watch not only book trailers but also movie trailers so you can learn all the tricks, for instance: how music co-exists with the image and how music expresses the mood of the trailer/movie, etc. After all, they spend on those trailers really big bucks.
Click here to watch trailer for "Mikolay & Julia In The Attic"
If you want to create your own book trailer but don’t know how to start & need a few ideas check out my creative consultation.
PS. Thank you so much for reading the blog. Please consider leaving a comment :) Thank you.