WHAT ARE BOOK TRAILERS?
When I first started to considering book trailers to sell my books, I wondered what to put in them. Was I supposed to make it look like a movie? After all, book trailers got their origins from movie trailers.
Movie trailers catch my attention because they spark interest. Book trailer should do the same yet I haven’t seen a lot of good ones out there. Most Book trailers look unprofessional and boring to me.
So how do you make a good book trailer?
Do you make them look like a movie? Should they be long? Short? What exactly makes a good book trailer?
I think the answer to this question is different for everyone. There are also some deciding factors? Are you traditionally published? Are you self-published? What software are you going to use?
Not everyone should attempt a DIY book trailer.
There are companies that will do this for you, but the cost is high and sometimes not worth it. If you feel like attempting it yourself, and you are the creative type, there are many ways you can accomplish this.
Let’s explore them.
HOW DO YOU MAKE THEM?
There are many ways to make great video content, and you don’t have to pay for software to do it. If you want to, that’s fine, but we will cover free DIY versions first.
I love to create. I’m passionate about film, acting, photography, music, and writing. That is the perfect combination for creating book trailers.
You don’t even need a camera.
I shot plenty of footage on my iPhone that looked this a professional had filmed it. All you have to do is compile little segments of video, load it into iMovie, and then you can make your own book trailer.
It’s important to edit, but very doable. Often times videos made on iMovie look just as compelling as if you paid $1000 dollars to get a book trailer made by a professional.
As a YouTube creator, I use iMovie for everything. I’ve created many YouTube videos by just compiling short video segments into one long movie. I then edited so that it looks like it’s one consistent video.
If you have a creative flair you can use iMovie as well. Just compile short video clips that you’ve done yourself and create an interesting story.
I say less is more when it comes to creating good quality book trailers. You don’t want to tell the entire story. You want to leave an element of surprise and intrigue.
After all, you want a short video blurb to peak someone’s interest so they read your book. Think of shadows, trees, an old abandoned warehouse.
Take a trip to an abandoned farmyard on a dreary fall day. Play around with your camera or iPhone and shoot a bunch of sample videos.
It’s important to do test videos just to see what kind of potential the area would have, and what kind of ideas you might be able to come up with.
Yes, it’s important to preplan your photo shoot but not in the beginning. In the beginning, you just want to leave room to explore options.
Take for example, writing out a scene from my book. In the scene I can plan to film an abandoned barn and incorporate someone stabbing a pitchfork into a bag of potatoes. That might look totally different in my head than in real life.
In real life while filming, I may not consider how cheesy it looks. There might be a better way to create mystery and intrigue than that.
That’s why it’s important to just go on a photo-shoot and play around with your camera. See what you can come up with that might look scary or mysterious. What you thought would work, might not work at all.
What you didn’t think would work, might surprise you. An impromptu shot on your iPhone might turn into the best thing you ever did. That’s how you make good quality book trailers.
Once you have enough video clips and you see something that appeals to you, go home and plan it out like you’re writing a play.
Incorporate your new scenes into it, and come up with a plan. Then duplicate shots that you’ve taken, and go do it again. Then all you have to do is edit and upload.
Some creators like to include dialogue. Personally, I don’t like that. I think that it takes away from the imagination. Instead, I like to do a voiceover once the video clips and photos are compiled into on long video.
Always add music. There are plenty of places that you can purchase music online, but there’re also royalty free options available. One of the best places is on YouTube.
Below is a list of free and paid Music options for book trailers.
Free Music
- Royalty Free Music by Bensound
- YouTube Creator Studio
- Purple Planet Music
- Incompetech
- ccMixter
- Garage Band App (Make your own music – Free for ISO users)
Paid Music
If creating book trailers on your own is not something you want to tackle, there are many websites that will do it for you. Some websites even have ready-made templates where you just change the words, font, and colors.
Below is a list of websites that will either create a book trailer for you, or help you create your own. Some are free and some are not.
- Fiverr – Service
- Biteable
- Animato
- Freelancer – Service
- Upwork – Service
- Prizi
- PhotoShow – Free
- iMovie – Free for ISO users
- Pixabay – Free Video/Photos
- Adobe Spark
- Powerpoint
- Canva
HOW DO YOU USE BOOK TRAILERS?
The best way to use book trailers is to use a call of action. The sole purpose of creating a book trailer is to get more sales for your book, so naturally you want a call of action at the end.
As soon as your boat trailer is edited and ready to be uploaded, all you have to do is load it on YouTube. YouTube is a free platform for video and comes with its own search engine.
Take for example if someone is searching for magical realism books. If you use the right keywords in your YouTube metadata and title, the search engine will put that book trailer in front of those who are searching that precise term.
Once your book trailer is in front of the right audience and considering you’ve done a good enough job, chances are you’ll make a sale if you remember to put a call to action button at the end.
You want to have a “Click Here” button embedded right into your video so all the reader has to do is click on it and it will go directly to Amazon to purchase the book.
WHERE CAN YOU WATCH THEM?
The best place to upload a book trailer is on YouTube. YouTube is a growing search engine and is completely free for the user to use.
I wouldn’t even bother with any lesser-known video platforms out there simply because they’re not attached to a search engine like YouTube is.
That doesn’t mean that you can share your YouTube video on other platforms. Once your book trailer goes live, you can share it on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter.
Sharing your book trailer video to various social media platforms will be more effective than uploading to other lesser known video platforms out there. Just stick to YouTube and the search engine optimization will bring you an audience.
BEST PRACTICES
In order for search engines to bring you your audience, you must effectively use the right keywords in your metadata description and title of your book trailer.
Use keyword research tools to find the proper words to use for your book trailer.
For example, if your book is a magical realism thriller for example, you might search terms in a keyword research tool and find that there are only 500 searches a month on those specific words.
But if you changed the words slightly by using more searched terms, you may find that Google will bring more traffic to do your book trailer.
Aside from having the right keywords in your book trailer metadata description and title, below is a list of other best practices when making a book trailer.
- Do sample photo shoots
- Write out the script
- Preplan every step
- Use voiceover
- Use Music
- Make it short
- Focus on one scene
- Keep it simple
- Steady your camera
- Don’t summarize the plot
- Edit everything
- Use free or paid software
- Be creative
- Hire actors
- Act in it yourself
- Match the tone of your book
- Add text
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I just wanted to say that making a book trailer helps you get your writing out there. You might think that it’s hard to get noticed, but you might also be surprised.
If you stick with a search engine, you can’t go wrong. Choose the right keywords for your meta-description and title, and YouTube will do the rest.
YouTube and Google go hand-in-hand for being the best search engines on the Internet. Once you’re on a search engine, you can share that video on any social media platform and it will be noticed.
Before you know it, as your book trailer gets more notoriety, so does your book. If more people find out about your book, you will get more sales.
That is every writer’s dream!
Now go make that book trailer!
_____________________________________________________
Author Kathleen Morris
Kathleen Morris is a successful published author, blogger, and YouTuber. She enjoys writing about things she’s passionate about and making a difference in the world.