Book trailers are a waste of time. They don't sell books, and they don't create interest in the authors. (There are exceptions to this. There aren't many. You probably aren't one of them.)
As WriteKnight has observed, most book trailers are badly made. Others in this thread have used terms like boring, amateurish, cheesy, and a big turn-off. Is making and posting videos already a part of your life? If so, do people spontaneously tell you you're good at it? If not, don't.
How many people do you personally know who buy books based on what they see on YouTube? Zero. And unless your trailer is more compelling than Tyson the Skateboarding Dog, the all-dancing wedding procession, up-close footage of the Japanese tsunami, Lady Gaga's latest release, the baby slow loris twins, or whatever unimaginable piece of video is going viral at this very moment, no one's going to watch it anyway.
Yes, there are books that will tell you that trailers are a good way to promote your self-published book. This means nothing. There are books out there touting every variety of promotion that's ever been invented as a way to sell your self-published book. Why? Because the advice-givers don't know what they're doing either. Because those books don't sell unless they have some unique content, and there's no penalty for giving bad advice. Et cetera. Bottom line: if it's not a mechanism you or someone you know uses to find books, it's not going to help sell your book.
The video producers who advertise their book-promotion chops do so because they've figured out that some of you will pay them to make trailers. Doesn't mean they know anything about selling books. Just means you're an identifiable market, potential paying customers, so vendors try to sell you stuff. A lot of book promotion services consist of a company advertising that something they already do is a great way to promote your book. Printers try to sell you brochures and sales kits, radio guys try to sell you a slot on a subsidized radio program, direct mail firms offer multiple rounds of promotional mailings, advertising companies offer ad campaigns, and video producers try to sell you trailers.
There is no limit to the amount of time, money, and creativity you can pour into low-yield "promotional" activities. Ignore the ones that don't sell books. Try to concentrate on writing your next book.
Michael Murphy:
You make a book trailer to help create a buzz for the novel a brand of who you are as an author. Of course that's assuming you take the same care, dedication and commitment to excellence to the trailer as you did to your book. Then you promote the book trailer using not just you tube, but free sites like Blazing trailers that will host the trailer, interview you and offer links to where your book can be purchased, reviews and an excerpt. Love these guys. Here's a link to ...
When you're devising ways to promote your book trailer which promotes the buzz which promotes your brand as an author in order to promote sales of your book, it can well and truly be said that you're vacuuming, dry-mopping, and waxing and polishing the cat.
More to the point, this is useless activity. You've got causality running backward. Nobody's going to care about "your brand as an author" unless-and-until they've already read and enjoyed some of your books. "You gotta read this book I just finished" is the only buzz that matters.
