Book Trailers

     Movie and book trailers have become the marketing phenomena. This new world of trailers, in which the internet has turned ads of one to three minutes into events that people analyze and judge, influencing whether they should buy the book or go to see the movie.

     There’s minimal statistics on the growth of book trailers, but movie trailers are now watched more online than in theaters, streaming more than 5 billion trailers worldwide in 2011, and that number is growing.

     The growth in movie trailers has influenced the way to promote books, along with the upsurge of eBooks, and buying books online. Movie trailers influence the fan that still has to go to the theater, but when a book trailer creates a sell, the buyer simply goes to a link and buys the book, or downloads it to their eReader and starts reading. Talk about instant gratification.

     Book trailers are the newest rage in the publishing industry. The main difference is that a movie trailer already has visual images to work with utilizing clips from the film. With a book trailer, the author, publisher, or a professional, has to convert the written words into visual images.

     Some authors make their own trailers running from one to three minutes. They can be anything from the author reading a passage from the book, to an elaborate mini-movie. If you want to produce your own trailer, go to YouTube and search for “book trailers.” Spend some time watching as many as possible, regardless of the genre. Take lots of notes. See what piques your interest, and what you would want to emulate.

     Write out some ideas for your trailer. Create some of the text and make lists of pictures you’d like that relate to your story. Keep in mind that you want to convey a sense of what the book is about, without giving away the ending or describing the characters. Your goal is to end up with a video that will stimulate a reader’s imagination.

     Think about the movie trailers that made you want to go see the movie. Did the intensity in the scenes and music escalate as the trailer progressed?

     At this point, you have to make a decision to produce your own book trailer, or possibly search for a professional. If you pay someone to do it, the cost could range from $250 to $20,000 depending on what you want to accomplish, and of course what is within your budget. A lower budget gives you a video compiled of still images and written text. Costs increase with a mixture of stills and canned video, along with narration, and the complexity of the trailer.

     Emulating the movie industry, professionally produced live book trailers, will be the new rage costing $7,000 to $20,000.
     What do you get in a live book trailer? The only sample I have comes from my new novel co-authored by Louis Pagano. Go to http://angelsgateheist.blogspot.com/ to view the book trailer from Angels Gate based on a true story of the greatest heist never told!
     Now that you have your book trailer, you need to upload it. Start with YouTube. That’s where the vast majority of viewers will happen upon your video. For maximum visibility on the internet, consider uploading to other video-sharing sites such as Yahoo, Google, and MySpace. 

     Have links posted on your blog, websites, and Facebook. Then announce it to your family and friends, your fellow writers, and your readers. Invite them to link to or even post your video on their blogs and websites. Encourage them to share the link on e-mail loops, bulletin boards, and via private e-mails.

     Whether you create your own book trailer, or have a professional produce one, you will be one step further in successfully marketing your book on the internet.