Book trailers are one of the latest promotional tools used on book marketing scene. Like a TV commercial or movie trailer, book trailers provide an audiovisual bite which entices the audience to buy the product. Once made, you can load the book trailer onto MySpace, YouTube or onto a personal website. You can also put a link to it in your email signature and in your blog. One thing that all authors must keep in mind when marketing their books is that visual sells.
You can do it yourself
In order to create good book trailers, the trailer should be kept short, a bit dramatic, and it should hint at the plot and characters so that those viewing can be intrigued enough to visit the website, which will expectantly create a sale of the book. Unlike with TV commercials or movie trailers, the book readers might prefer not to see clear photos of the book’s characters, mainly faces, as some people enjoy envisioning the book characters themselves through the novel’s written words. But other readers do not mind.
Things to keep in mind when creating Book Trailers
Some novel readers like to see or hear a few previews of the actual text, though it may be tricky to find a short bit of the text which is meaningful on its own. The book trailer’s purpose is to lead viewers to your blog or website and the excerpts available. Making a thrilling book trailer for a nonfiction book may demand more creativity; the aim is to tell the viewer why he should buy the book and what makes the book special without going into much details. Just like any type of book, all the photos should relate to your book and should basically play for around five seconds, or long enough to register with the trailer viewers and to give the person narrating time to speak through it.
All book trailers require audio to assist in capturing the spirit of the book. An author may add narration or music. When narrating you should have a calm and firm voice presented in an appropriate tone for the book. Many book trailers normally rely only on text which appears across the video clips or photos to narrate the video; however voice narration can be more commanding. You can enlist the help of a friend who has a good reading voice or do the narration yourself or you can use a script. Whether using voice narration or text, it is better to have music playing on the background.
Do not forget that a book trailer is a commercial endeavor and it is a must to pay royalties for used music unless it is your own creation. You can search online for websites offering music in the public domain or royalty free music. Also, search for royalty-free photos or free stock images, or you can get written consent from photographers. By viewing other book trailers and taking notes of the things you liked and what you don’t like, you can make your own trailer with some research and a little practice.
Mark is an aspiring author and writer. He is currently writing his own novel and plans to come out with his own trailers for books when he is ready to publish. He knows that book trailers are a big key to selling books. Come take a look at some book trailers that Mark likes on Bookaholic.com.
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