How to do a Book Trailer

MOOD STATUS: "Sick". No more feeling "meh". Now feeling REALLY "meh" and a sore throat, too.


Well, from my last post on "why do a book trailer", I can see most of you are interested in them.
Hey, what a coincidence. Me, too!

Okay. So NOW you're thinking, "How do I get a book trailer anyway?"
I'm glad you asked.

Your first option is You can pay someone to make one for you. I confess, I like this option and am thinking about paying for one for my book due out in October. There are a lot of wonderful online companies who specialize in making videos for your books. Some are pricey and some are extremely reasonable.
Here are just a few examples of places that authors I know have used:

DK RENDERS
Goddess Fish Promotions
Triad Film Productions (uses actual actors instead of pictures)
Trailer to the Stars!

Your second option is You can make your own book trailer. What?! Yes, in fact if a techno dummy like myself can do it, ANYONE can. There are plenty of cool techno places you can use like one true media, but I used Windows Movie Maker. It's on most PCs and is very self-explanatory. If you have it on your computer but need a quick tutorial, it's here.

So... if you're going to make your own, how do you start?

a)Watch a lot of book trailers. Go to YouTube to start. You'll get a feel for styles and lengths and be able to figure out what you personally like. I've watched videos in the one minute to three minute range. The average being about a minute in a half. My first one went a little long (over two minutes). But it was my first! I plan on making my next one a little shorter, after all time is precious to people. :)

b) Next, come up with a frame by frame "storyboard" of what you want to say about your book. What do I mean? Look at your blurb or what you used in your query letter to sell your book. That will give you an idea of where to start.

You're probably going to average about 20 frames (give or take depending on how long your video is). Keep in mind that your first and last frame will usually be your cover and title of your book or maybe your name and website.

**Take out a notebook and start with a simple flowchart of what you want to show. Keep in mind, you may want to take up some frames with just words and no picture or just a picture and no words. In my book, THE ROLE OF A LIFETIME, I used a frame to say something serious then in the next frame I showed a funny picture. In some frames I put words on my picture.

**keep in mind the TONE you want to create. I wanted mine to be amusing since I write lighthearted and wanted people to know that. I also chose to showcase the book from the hero's POV since his "role" was the more comedic part of the story.

c)Now that you have "idea" of what you want to show, the real fun begins: looking for pictures. (I mean this sarcastically because this is the MOST TIME CONSUMING part of the process) When looking for pictures keep in mind you want to look for Royalty free photos. Every online photo store has different rules and procedures. I bought from a sight were I paid $10 to get "credits". I could upload a certain amount of photos depending on how much the credit was for each picture.
Here are a few sites I found looking around online: (Always be sure and read the fine print and that even though they are royalty free you can use them commercially.)

http://www.pdphoto.org/

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/

http://www.shutterstock.com/

http://freestockphotos.com/

http://www.audiomicro.com/free-sound-effects

http://www.jupiterimages.com/RoyaltyFreePhotos

http://www.dreamstime.com/aboutimages

**if you want to save money, take your own pictures

**also, keep in mind that looking for pictures might even give you new ideas as to what you show in your video.

d) Once you have the pictures and the order and what you want to say, you're probably going to need some background music. After all, you don't want to watch a silent video. This is where it can get pricey, so you may need to need to get creative if some of these aren't in your price range.

http://www.audiomicro.com/

http://www.musopen.com/ (free, public domain music!)

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/

http://www.studiocutz.com/

http://www.stockmusicsite.com/default.cfm/agent.109929?gclid=COjf3KnHnaECFRRM5QodeGQlzw

http://www.danosongs.com/ (free but must give credit to their site in your video)

Whew! Now that you have all that, you can then start putting it all together to see how it looks. Plus, Windows Movie Maker has a lot of neat gadgets you can play around with, like having your pictures or words fade in and out of the frame. This is the FUN part.

Still need more advice? Shame on you. (Just kidding) Steeple Hill author Brenda Coulter has a wonderful post on book trailers, too, which helped me a lot when I didn't know where to start.

Have you used any of these sites before? Have you used or know of different sites for a book trailer?