I’ve been thinking lately about book trailers and their effectiveness.
Book trailers are just like movie trailers. But for books. They’re little videos authors create to get you interested in buying their book.
I asked authors to send me links to their book trailers so I could post them and see what other people like or dislike about them.
I got a lot so I’ve broken them into uno, dos and tres blog posts. Would you take a look and tell me what you think of these?
Elizabeth Zelvin …
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH6OuC1cWSU]
Betty Sullivan La Pierre …
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R8yO6MicZQ]
Roger Hudson …
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQPvCwExGRU]
The Diva Takes the Cake …
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3YjcLzKSnk]
If you’re an author with a book trailer tell me how you promote it.
If you’re an author without a book trailer tell me if you want one in the future.
If you’re a reader, what do you think about book trailers? Are they effective? Do any of these make you want to go out and buy the book? Would you ever seek out a book trailer? If so, how would you search?
14 thoughts on “Book Trailers Tres”
Fun trailers! I think my favorite one was The Diva Takes the Cake. Short, simple, and gets the message across. This is great of you to do this series!
Wow, I get to give another opinion. I love that.
Death will help you–at some places the voices were indistinct and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. In other spots, they seemed to just be reading a randomlist of setting. No idea what the book is about. Nothing here to make me buy it.
Shadows: This was like an ad for a retirement community. One frame said something about a murderer, but the rest was like a rather dull infomercial. Wouldn’t buy the book.
Death/Amphora: Not appealing to me. The visual emphasis on centuries-old statues and art work made the story seem old and lifeless. It needed more immediacy.
Diva: The music really matched this one well, but there wasn’t enough info to get me interested. Two people getting married, they have pets, the ex-wife dies. So? I need something to make me want to read about THESE particular people, what makes them different? Didn’t get that at all.
#1 and #3 had poor music choices–did not reflect the book (too happy). I agree with MB–#2 felt more like a morbid retirement community ad, and #4 had good music, but needed more info.
I find these booktrailers fascinating, though. I hear they’re effective marketing tools–if my book ever finds a publisher, I would like one…
Diva takes the cakes is the right length. The others are a bit too long.
As a songwriter too, I was wondering where they got the music and did they have permission to use them in their videos.
We won’t want to infringe on anones copyright would we.
Was thinking of doing one for my book and hope to get some ideas frog you guys.
thanks
I’ve just entered the booktrailer world, by posting mine on my Facebook page and on CrimeSpace for a test run. https://crimespace.ning.com/video/bone-chamber-book-video/ (URL in case anyone wants to see.) Will it equate to sales? I don’t know. The guy who made it has just started up a new company to do these, and I think he did a great job. He’s in the film industry (does film editing in L.A.), and I think it shows. The things he talked about to me when we were coming up with our ideas gave me a good indication that he knew how to construct a short video that would hold interest. Some of those indicators were things like beats, frames, matching them up, making sure that the visuals matched the music, that sort of thing. And his prices were very reasonable. http://www.novelshoutmedia.com/
Will that translate to sales? I don’t know. Is it a good trailer? I think so, but they are subjective. I’m watching my trailer, and I’m thinking, yeah, this is like the book. But I wrote the book, so does that make it more interesting to me?
I’ll definitely want book trailers in the future. I’ll probably hire someone to do it rather then spending the time to learn how to do Windows Movie Maker myself. Would like to know, though, where others find sources of free music and images.
If you google “copyright-free music,” you find websites where you can find music to use without copyright infringement. I found this article (link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092304603_2.html?sid=ST2009092401343 ) about an author who succesfully used book trailers, which I thought was interesting.
For those on a budget (and who isn’t), I imagine connecting with some college students might be a way to get some free help.
I love trailers! and have a page on my website http://www.jhalisteele.com dedicated to those I’ve made for each of my books. I’d never make a good reviewer because when I see or read something someone’s spent time creating, I ALWAYS find only something beautiful in it. Some of the trailers above show real talent – much more than my mediocre attempts at video making, but I love doing it myself. I’ve had comments and a few people say they went on to read excerpts and buy the book once they saw the video. How many sales have they helped? One is enough, because they tell one, and so on and so on.
Robin, your video does look like a real movie trailer – they did a nice job! Certainly peeked my interest enough to drag me over to your site when I finish here.
Fleur – great idea on the college students! Thanks. Sure some of them would want to make a mark if it’s in their field. Hmm…
As for those wondering about copyrighted music and pictures – I use music from Kevin MacLeod’s site, http://www.incompetech.com He has royalty free stuff and only asks that you acknowledge song/him in credits and he does take donations. As for pictures, I use Dreamstime and Istock photo. You pay a small price for picture and can use it in various ways which are all listed in their agreement.
During the creation of my video trailer for THE GIFT, I sought input from other writers and readers. So there are several versions. Once I settled on a final version, I had it embedded at my website, uploaded it to my Facebook Page, etc. My publisher will also post it at their site. The final version is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE2mM1ZPIl8 and to see all the others, my “channel” at YouTube is here: https://www.youtube.com/user/debnovel , if you’re interested in the process.
Of those posted above, I like the DIVA one best, as the length and content are really good. I don’t think I saw the publisher/purchase information, though. The author might want to add that. Maybe I just missed it. The SHADOWS one is also excellent, but far too long. I would eliminate some of the scenes.
I made certain to purchase licensed music.
Interesting discussion, Becky. Thanks for doing this.
~Deb
You guys are a wealth of information! So helpful.
Deb … I think your approach makes a lot of sense. In the same way they say you should write 100 titles, I think having a bunch of different approaches to your trailer is the right one. Robin hit the nail on the head, I think, when she pointed out that she wrote the book, so is the trailer only interesting to her? That’s why you need lots of opinions and lots of approaches to your trailer. It’s no different than how we approach our manuscripts … we solicit advice from friends, family, other writers, and publishing professionals. We gather all the comments, revise, revise, revise, and eventually distill it down to what we think is right. Then we keep our fingers crossed other people agree with us!
Gosh, I learned SO much from this discussion–thanks for sharing the links everyone, and thanks to Becky for starting the conversation.
My book trailer for RUN INTO TROUBLE is longer than most, but I had it professionally produced and it seems to hold people’s interest. I have a link to it on Youtube from my website: https://alancook.50megs.com and try to play it for anybody I’m talking to one on one. I also have it on a laptop I can carry with me.
I found a great article on book trailers for anyone contemplating venturing down this road… Writting be Sarah Weinman for Poet’s and Writers Magazine back in 2008. As timely today as it was a year ago.
https://www.pw.org/content/book_trailers_key_successful_video_marketing/
er, that would be Written by, not Writting be…