Seen any great book trailers lately?

deannamari said:

The one from Seth Greenland for his SHINING CITY has gotten a lot of buzz. (You can find it here.)

Have you seen any others that you found particularly effective?

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The trailer for my new novel Ramblin' Man has had over 800 views in less than two months. I like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsp_PwT1tNc

Michael Murphy said:

The trailer for my new novel Ramblin' Man has had over 800 views in less than two months. I like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsp_PwT1tNc

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Great job! Do you have any idea how you managed to get so many hits in such a short period of time?

I'd also like to get your comments on a couple of my book trailers:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XoE6GYLuCVU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Wc7mCugCyxc

Thanks.

Michael Murphy said:

The trailer for my new novel Ramblin' Man has had over 800 views in less than two months. I like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsp_PwT1tNc

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Pretty good video. I was wondering about the use of the Jennings song. Did you have to get permission to use it?

Robert<><>

There are groups on You Tube you can join to get others to view your book trailer. I posted links to various yahoo groups I belong to. I also linked the trailer to my My Space page and sent out a bulletin to my friends and also sent out individual messages to those My Space friends that have liked my other books. Basically, you market a book trailer like you do your book.

You need permission to use music or pics with copyrights.

Great advice! I've been looking for a way to get more people to view my "infomercial" for Learn Me Good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxPqhkuU720

Here's another...

For the novel, The Book of Obeah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJPL1wqlV_Y

Honestly, as someone who works in TV, I would recommend that you don't make your trailer any longer than 45 seconds - 60 seconds at the absolute most. Your trailer is a commercial for your book. You want it to be short, punchy and to the point - just like an advertisement you would see on TV. Anything longer than 60 secs and I'm not watching it. That may seem blunt - but it's honest.

Deanna,

I'd question having two trailers, simply because if you have one, short, punchy one that works - what's the sense in having a second? I can see where you're coming from - and why having a longer one on your site might give potential readers more information - but then if you've got them to your site already, then your first trailer has done it's job (or half its job - its real job is to generate a sale!)

With regards to format - it's hard to say what works best. I don't know whether a dramatization is any better than a pictorial slide show or vice versa. There are certainly excellent (and awful) examples of both. I think the bottom line is whatever route you take, make it look as professional as you can. By that I mean make it look as good as you can/afford. Take the time to invest some money in your trailer - download some high quality royalty free images from somewhere like istockphoto.com instead of ripping them off the internet. Think also about purchasing some royalty free music and getting some professional voice over (again, if you can afford it). The result will be well worth the cost.

The biggest problem with book trailers is that authors, by definition, aren't that au fait with editing programs -and so typically, you end up with trailers filled with all these fancy transitions (a change from picture to picture) because people think they look cool (the page wipe is a favorite - well, because it's a book trailer of course). Honestly, don't do it. It looks cheap and cheesy. The best thing you can do is a jump cut. Just cut from one thing to the next. Next time you watch a movie or show on TV, see how many transitions you see - if you see any, you'll probably only see a dissolve (a fade from one picture to another) - but other than that, I'll bet you can count them on one hand.

There's another reason for not using lots of transitions - it freaks your compression software out. Go find a book trailer and watch the picture when the images flip around or over - you'll see lots of digital break up/pixellation. That's because the compression used to get the file small enough to upload can't handle huge amounts of movement in the picture. Better just to use a straight cut.

Other things I wouldn't do...don't take small pictures and blow them up to fit the screen. Pictures are based on pixels. When you enlarge them, you shoot the resolution all to hell and they look awful, having the net result that your trailer will then look cheap and nasty again. Again, use large, high quality source images if you can.

Also, don't stretch your trailer out to match a piece of music. Either edit the music or fade it out. Don't fill. Like I said, after a minute, I'm getting bored.

Play around with your compression software. Change the settings and make sure you are getting the best looking file you can create.

Finally, ask around. Is there anyone in your family or circle of friends who plays around with a camcorder? If so, they probably dabble in video editing and Photoshop - and they can probably put together a much better video than you can - better still, they might even do it for free.

Hope that's been helpful. Sorry, I didn't mean for it to turn in to a lecture.

I guess I got to this thread a little too late. I just finished my first trailer and from what people are saying it is way too long. I've had some good feedback, and several positive comments, but I'm guessing it is to long, to slow, and not flashy enough. But it was my first attempt, so lessons learned.

If you want to watch it, it is on my book page at: Native American Cultural Affiliation I Archaeology in the American West.

Thanks for the feedback. I'd agree, it is too long and my next one will be within the "recommended" length of 45 seconds.

How have people capitalized on their book trailers to effectively drive sales?

I don't want to jump into a boiling pot, here, but I heard a few authors say that 1:30 is when they get their best response time. I would think that 45 seconds would end up being cryptic rather than snappy. I think Staurt had some great advice; I'm just wondering if that's a bit extreme?

-Feathers

I don't think I've ever in my life seen a book trailer.

I've seen the Bookmobile.

Here is one that is pretty fun. It might be more cryptic then snappy, but I think it is more fun then some of the other book trailers I've seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kGMOtHPMHs

I thought this was a pretty cool idea, I never thought of using youtube to promote my book - duh!

So I just put one together: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XFP5faMc0tM

I had never used movier maker before, it takes a bit of getting used to.

This is one for my book http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpjWK9BmYDs

Feathers said:

I don't want to jump into a boiling pot, here, but I heard a few authors say that 1:30 is when they get their best response time. I would think that 45 seconds would end up being cryptic rather than snappy. I think Staurt had some great advice; I'm just wondering if that's a bit extreme?

-Feathers

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Feathers,

You are totally entitled to your opinion - and I'm not offended by your post at all. 45 secs might be cutting it a bit fine - I think, if needs be, you could push it out to a minute - but unless you can't tell your story in 60 secs, I don't think you should be going much longer than a minute.

My own personal thoughts are these....
You need to get my attention right from the get go. If you do that, I might be willing to watch your trailer/ad through its entirity - despite me thinking that it might be over long. I've then got to like your trailer enough to then think about buying a book.

If I see that your trailer is 2 mins 30 secs my immediate thought is that you can't package your product concisely - and if I think that, my next thought is that your writing might not be that concise - wordy etc, and then I'm not interested.

That's harsh, I know - and certainly not fair. But if you're going to play in the world of internet instant gratification - you need to get your audience on side quickly and then keep them.



Stuart

I'm not really much for book trailers, but I like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55jUNNPT1eM (For Mario Acevedo's vampire books. Stop motion Lego!)

If you have a book trailer for your novel, there's an excellent website that posts book trailers called Watch the Book. Here's a link that includes information on how you can get your trailer posted. www.watchthebook.com. While you're there, you might want to check out my Ramblin' Man book trailer.

Out-of-Body

Phew, mine is short and only uses one fade transition. Check it out and give me feedback.

Another fun one with some spectacular pictures.

Searching for a Perfect State of Colorado