Book Video Trailers: 11 Steps to Make Your Own

In today's guest post, author and book marketing expert Joanna Penn shares her tips for creating and posting book promotion videos. She makes it sound so easy -- give it a try!

Book video trailers are videos posted online and distributed via video networking sites like YouTube. These can be big budget blockbuster movie clips, or budget MovieMaker slides to music.

You can make it an advert or a social media fun clip that people want to watch. It can be a human interest story made more like a documentary. It can be a cartoon. Essentially, it is anything you want it to be. Anything that catches people’s attention. You can get a professional to make you one or you can make your own for little or no money.

I made this book video trailer with Windows Movie Maker (which is on most PCs). It took me several hours but was essentially free, and you don’t have to be too techy to make one too. Instructions after the movie! (comments and feedback welcome!)

1.  Research other book video trailers that are similar to what you would like to do. Just search for book trailers on YouTube. Decide what you like and don’t like (and what is within your capacity and budget).

2.  Write a brief script for the trailer so you can get it straight in your head and understand what images and text you will need (I just did this on Microsoft Word).

3.  Find and download images to match your words. You can use your own or get free ones online by googling “royalty free photo”. I use iStockPhoto which I find easy to use with a variety of pictures and I did pay a small amount for some photos. You can also use movie clips (which I am still learning about!)

4.  Import the pictures into Windows MovieMaker. (File -> Import Media)

5.  Order the pictures. Drag them into the movie bar at the bottom of the screen in the order you want. Right click and Cut to remove again. Basic drag and drop functionality. Remember to save regularly!

6.  Add script by clicking on the picture in the movie bar and then clicking Edit -> Titles and Credits. You can add text in various styles, colours and transition effects here. You can add text before, on top of or after your pictures.

7.  Edit. Once you have got the basic pictures and text setup, see how long your movie is. Most book trailers are no longer than 1 minute 30 seconds. Edit as necessary by clicking and dragging the size of the boxes to shorten the time frame they show on the screen.

8.  Find music to match the length of your movie (or cut to fit). I used SoundSnap.com but you can google “royalty free music” to find other sites. I searched on audio length within classical music and listened to a few before choosing.

9.  Check you are happy with everything and then Publish your movie to your computer.

10.  Find tags. Now you have a file you can publish it to the internet movie sites to get some viewers. You need to know what tags you want to add to your video when you upload it, so I suggest you also research what people are searching on in your genre. I use Google Keyword Search which has a number of tools and recommended related words.

11.  Upload your video to appropriate sites. I have loaded mine to YouTube and Google Video so far. It takes some time per site, unless you use a video submission site like TubeMogul.com or TrafficGeyser, which is expensive and really only for companies with lots of video.

You can submit manually to sites like Revver, MySpaceTV, Metacafe, Yahoo Video, Book Trailers, AuthorsDen. No doubt there are many more! Remember to also use the embed links to post to your own website, blog and social networking sites.

Have you had any promotional success with book video trailers? Where do you post them online?

Joanna Penn is an author and blogger at The Creative Penn: Writing, self-publishing, print-on-demand, internet sales and promotion . . .for your book.  For more information on how to use Web 2.0 to write, publish, sell and promote your books, get your FREE Author 2.0 Blueprint here.

Related articles:

7 Ways to Promote Your Book With Video

Comments

[Liberty]

Great information! I'll be using your tips and tricks when I get to that stage in my own work. :) Thanks.

[Laura Cross]

Thanks Dana and Joanna for this post - I am currently creating a video. For Mac users, iMovie provides a simple process for creating a book trailer. By the way, a bit of trivia, the term "book trailer" is actually a registered trademark like Kleenex or Xerox. It was created by Circle of Seven Productions, who pioneered the first book trailers. The company offers an excellent Distribution Package for those of us creating our own book videos who need help with the distribution: www.cosproductions.com

[David Atkinson]

Hi Dana, some good info here. I recently posted my own book trailer (http://www.davidsartof.com/ds_books.html). It is too early to tell its potential impact on promotions as it is in advance of actual publication - however I am watching statistics and hope to post some data on my own blog in time.
Good luck with yours.
David

[Affordable SEO Services]

It is a very nice and good post. Keep up the good work.

[Kirk Bartha]

Good to read. I did two early staggered promo pieces before Clairvaux Manifesto was in print. I went a bit enigmatic on the pieces, big wide canvas, I'm an orator first, learning marketing bit by bit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlpOpYlCD0k and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg72061VE1k&feature=related