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Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing

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Guest Blog Week: How to Make a Book Trailer

January 18, 2010 by Nathan Bransford 99 Comments

Myrlin A. Hermes is the author of THE LUNATIC, THE LOVER, AND THE POET, which will be published on January 26th by HarperCollins

Book trailers are all the rage these days, but it can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have one professionally made—an expense your publisher will probably be reluctant to shoulder unless yours is a genuine blockbuster. And most of them, quite frankly, still end up looking generic, cheap, and dull. But it’s not that hard to put together your own book trailer for next to nothing; and many of the same creative issues we deal with as writers–such as establishing tone and setting, creating vivid characters, pacing, and remembering to edit–are also applicable to creating an effective video.

You don’t need fancy equipment, either–I put together mine using Windows Movie Maker on a tiny 10″ MSI Wind netbook. Just a disclaimer: I am not endorsing any product–of course, if you have Photoshop and professional video editing software, or even a Mac with iMovie 2, the mechanics will be easier. Nor am I claiming any particular expertise–in fact, I had never done any video editing before–but I’m willing to share what I learned through trial-and-error as I put together the trailer for my novel The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet. It took me about four days to make–in retrospect, I would recommend scheduling a bit more time for the project, especially if your plans also include eating or sleeping!

First, you’ll want to select your background music. This can be very helpful for establishing the tone and genre of your book, but it’s important that your selection be royalty-free, so you don’t run into rights issues. Kevin MacLeod’s site Incompetech has a very good selection of music clips searchable by both genre (examples: African, Electronica, Silent Film Score) and feel (Driving, Eerie, Uplifting). These are all available for use royalty-free: he requests only credit on YouTube (or wherever the final piece is uploaded) and a $5 donation per clip used. I was so happy with the short piece I found for my book trailer, I donated $25. Still a bargain compared to hiring a professional!

Once you’ve chosen your music, it’s time to pick out your images. This is where you as the author have a real advantage over the professional video-editor, who may not have even read the book. Take some time to “cast” your characters and choose images that resonate with your themes and settings. Again, you’ll want to make sure that these images are in the public domain or that you’ve secured the rights to use them. There are stock image and video sites on the web where you can pay a flat fee per image or clip, but I was able to find everything I needed for free on Wikimedia Commons. To edit and resize my pictures and add the text, I used the open-source GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP.

Don’t get too wordy or complicated with your text–a few phrases about the premise and characters are fine; repeating the entire jacket copy on plodding powerpoint slides, as so many book trailers seem to do, is a sure way to cause eyes to glaze over and browsers to click shut. Yes, your target audience is readers–but remember–this is a visual medium. Let the words support the images.

Windows Movie Maker allows you to drop photos and movie clips onto a storyboard, cut between them using several different transitions, and apply a variety of effects. These effects can be a lot of fun to play with–but, just as 90% of the time the effectively invisible “he said” is a better tag for dialogue than its showier (muttered/sputtered/exclaimed/interjected) replacements, I would stick mostly to the basic cut and fade transitions, unless you want your trailer resembing an ’80s music video. In my minute-and-a-half long trailer, I only ended up using four “specialty” transitions.

One thing you can’t do on Windows Movie Maker (at least on my version, 5.1 for Windows XP) is the pan-and-scan or “Ken Burns effect”–a nice way to give a cinematic and dynamic feel to still photos. For this, I downloaded a piece of Freeware called Digital Clip Factory. It’s another video editing program, and in theory I could have made the entire trailer using nothing else–but I found WMM a bit more versatile and easier to use, so I mostly used DCF to create short video clips of 1-2 second pans across individual photos, which I then imported to my WMM storyboard.

Try to vary your pace a bit–just as you wouldn’t want to fill an entire page with sentences of the same length, mixing longer and shorter shots and alternating pans and zooms helps to hold the viewer’s interest. I also included a fun bonus “easter egg”–a flyaway page of the Poet’s writing (which I put together using GIMP) passes by too quickly to be read, but can be perused at leisure on my novel’s Facebook group.

In general, shorter is better–aim for under two minutes, and don’t worry if that doesn’t give you time to cover every twist in the plot. Get across the genre, setting, and general premise of the book, briefly introduce a compelling character or two, then direct the viewer to your website or blog for more extensive information. Remember–the point isn’t to win an Oscar for your brilliantly complex cinematic achievement, but to get people to buy the book!

How effective is a book trailer as a promotional tool? Well, that depends on how you use it. Sitting on your website, it probably won’t help much–after all, those readers have already heard of you! But posted in relevant communities or sent to targeted recipients in the media, it can act as a virtual “calling card” for you and your book. These days, people are accustomed to multimedia grazing on the internet, and it’s easier to click on–and forward–a YouTube video than download and read a sample chapter.

Want to see what I mean? You can check out my trailer, below. (You’ve got to be a bit curious about it after all this, right?) If you think the book looks interesting, or know someone who might like it, wouldn’t it be easy to share the YouTube video, tweet it to your friends, or repost it to your blog or Facebook page? In fact, why don’t you take a minute and do that right now? No, that’s fine, go ahead–I’ll just wait right here.

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Filed Under: Book Marketing Tagged With: Book Trailers, guest blog, How to Promote a Book

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. All Adither says

    January 18, 2010 at 4:15 pm

    Really nice. I loved the music. Very dramatic and compelling.

    Reply
  2. T. Anne says

    January 18, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    Thanx for the link to royalty free music. I enjoyed your trailer!

    Reply
  3. Phyllis says

    January 18, 2010 at 4:30 pm

    Very well done trailer. Short and to the point. Good concept, too. I'm curious.

    Reply
  4. Alma says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:10 pm

    Loved the trailer! Nice marriage of graphics, music and text. I'll be looking for your book when it comes out!

    Reply
  5. Barbara's Spot on the Blog says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:16 pm

    Very impressive – and that's watching it without sound. I love the art work.

    Reply
  6. goldhawk says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:16 pm

    So, I bothering with a publisher because? If I'm doing all the work to promote my book, why should I pay for a rubber stamp from a publisher? Why don't I just ePublish it (with POD for those diehards) and save myself some money? It seems to me that publishers are working themselves out of a job.

    Reply
  7. Lisa Nowak says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    Wow, that's a GREAT book trailer. Simple yet elegant. And this is an awesome guest blog. I can see why it won. Very informative.

    Reply
  8. lora96 says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    Sooo cool! Especially loved the A comedy/tragedy/parody/blasphemy/novel at the end!

    Reply
  9. J.C. Hutchins says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:39 pm

    That's a terrific trailer! With access to free sound effects, stock video footage and more, authors are often far more empowered than their publishers on matters of marketing and publicity.

    Further, authors can go beyond traditional expectations of book trailers and be truly innovative. I recently combined the "book trailer" and "book blurb" concepts in the promotion of my supernatural thriller. The end result, a video blurb, was the first of its kind. An example:

    With creative thought and innovation, authors can become incredible advocates for their own work — a very good thing indeed.

    Reply
  10. Arabella says

    January 18, 2010 at 5:47 pm

    For a book trailer, this is dramatic and eye-catching. I'm not usually impressed w/ book trailers, but yours is a notch above the rest. Good show. Jill

    p.s. I probably wouldn't read a historical for this part of history (I'm really snobby w/ my history preferences), but I'm REALLY interested in your work w/ Aphra Behn (that I learned about from your site). I will have to check back for your progress on that.

    Reply
  11. Stephen Parrish says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    You got my attention, thanks.

    Reply
  12. maine character says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:17 pm

    A second kudos on the Blasphemy section, and all the way through there's nice subtle touches of fades and zooms and timing without all the gimmicky schtick most video programs offer. The Hamlet manuscript page worked well, too. Thanks for the tips!

    Reply
  13. Jordan McCollum says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:23 pm

    What a useful post! Just one note: I have Windows Movie Maker 5.1 as well, and you can actually do some "pan and scan" effects on photos, if I understand what you mean.

    (I don't remember how right off the top of my head, but I've done it before. I'll have some more free time this afternoon and I'll figure out how to do it again, then post instructions here if no one else has.)

    Reply
  14. rose says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:27 pm

    That was a delight to watch! Congratulations on a professional looking trailer and thanks for the informative, helpful blog.

    Reply
  15. The Greens Committee says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:29 pm

    Bravo. Well done, and best of luck with sales. Count me for a few. Love that!

    Cary

    Reply
  16. Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:34 pm

    wow… I didn't even know there were book trailers. Really interesting.

    Reply
  17. Dara says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:34 pm

    I made a mock book trailer for NaNo. It was lots of fun.

    Thanks for the links to everything 🙂 I may have to try and "remake" mine now.

    Reply
  18. Jil says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    Your book trailer is excellent- and very professional.Hard to believe you could glean all that from the internet and put it together so dramatically.

    Reply
  19. Livia says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    Very nice. Looks professional.

    Reply
  20. Jamie says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    Awesome trailer!

    Reply
  21. D. G. Hudson says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:49 pm

    Loved the trailer, Myrlin. Thanks for sharing the techniques you used with the readers of Nathan's blog.

    I'll watch for the book to appear at my local Chapters. I tend to like these alternate takes on historical figures.

    Reply
  22. Mira says

    January 18, 2010 at 6:57 pm

    I love posts like this – thanks, Myrlin. A step-by-step how to on a book trailer – really helpful!

    Your trailer is fantastic. I love the dark theme, the medival music and graphics and then the wicked sense of humor coming out at the end. Very nice.

    If I get a book published someday, I may come back to this post and look at it for instructions, or I might just see if you're available for hire to make one for me. 🙂

    Best wishes on your launch next month!

    Reply
  23. Emily White says

    January 18, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    This is perfect. I've been looking for some info regarding book trailers for a while now. Thanks for all the data!

    Reply
  24. Molly H says

    January 18, 2010 at 7:30 pm

    Consider me interested! The book looks amazing and the trailer is perfect. Some of these book trailers just make me cringe (especially when the actors are a bit stiff and awkward-sorry, that's a personal pet peeve.) But this one just sings! The use of paintings and antique-looking text set a lovely mood. Plus, you manage to drop in some humor. Nice work. Thanks for sharing some cost-efficient ways to promote our own stories!

    Reply
  25. Sean Patrick Reardon says

    January 18, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    Loved your trailer! This was a tremendous post. I love playing around with Movie Maker, and the links you mentioned will be very helpful.

    Reply
  26. Priya Parmar says

    January 18, 2010 at 8:02 pm

    Thank you! My boyfriend is a trailer editor and my book comes out in january 2011. We are starting work on my book trailer now and were not sure where to begin so this is really helpful!

    Reply
  27. Tricia says

    January 18, 2010 at 8:29 pm

    Nice blog, nice trailer. Thank you for sharing what you've learned.

    Reply
  28. Michelle Moran says

    January 18, 2010 at 9:19 pm

    Great post. And very interesting trailer!!!

    Reply
  29. Myrlin A. Hermes says

    January 18, 2010 at 9:32 pm

    Wow, thanks everyone, for all your compliments! I had a lot of fun making the trailer, but then I love this sort of obsessive, painstaking creative art project–I could easily see how someone else would find it really frustrating! My boyfriend got used to getting up in the morning and finding me still awake, hunched over the computer tearing my hair out, going "why is it STILL half-a-beat off-sync with the music!?!"

    @Jordan McCollum—I was able to zoom in and out using WMM, but couldn't figure out how to pan across a shot. Of course, as I said, I was just fiddling with the programs, figuring them out as I went along, so it may well be possible–just not obvious!

    @J.C. Hutchins—Thanks for posting the link to your trailer! I think it's a great example of what I'm talking about here–really gets across the genre and emotion of your book without getting bogged down in too many plot details.

    Reply
  30. Anne-Marie says

    January 18, 2010 at 9:48 pm

    Great book trailer. I want to read it.

    Reply
  31. Jordan McCollum says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:01 pm

    @Myrlin—This might be the same place you found the zoom effects, but there are a few more options that allow for moving across the pictures. (However, they're not named super well, so it's easy to miss them.)

    Once you've got the picture on the timeline, right click on the image and select Video Effects.

    Ease In/Out essentially creates a zoom in/out effect.

    Pan Upper Left to Upper Right (and vice versa) moves the picture across the screen, but cuts off the bottom for some reason. (No idea why they don't have more options for that one.)

    Zoom In/Out has several options: upper/lower, right/left. This does actually zoom on one of the corners of the picture (or start in a tight shot on the corner and pull back), but it gives an easy corner-to-corner pan effect.

    (There are also Zoom effects that are static, focusing only on the chosen corner without moving.)

    Are those the effects that weren't enough for your trailer? (I'd like to know b/c I do plan to do this eventually and probably won't have a better movie making package by then.)

    Reply
  32. Houston A.W. Knight says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    Awesome blog! Love the trailer you did for your book! Very exciting…I will buy it!

    I hope you don't mind but I'd love to link you up on my blog for my viewers to come see you.

    Good luck!
    Hawk

    Reply
  33. Robena Grant says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    What an interesting post. Thank you Myrlin. Absolutely loved your trailer. Best of luck with your book sales, oh, and I love the title.

    Reply
  34. JAMR says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:21 pm

    What a great post! I'm bookmarking it for when I make my own trailer one day.

    Reply
  35. Jen P says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    Interesting, I particularly love the choice of fonts used – and thanks for the link to royalty free music – a bonus. I use Apple Mac and Final Cut Express which is a great tool.

    Question: have you shared this as a draft with anyone you wanted to 'approve' or view it, ahead of its public release, and if so, how? I have been using the 'private' function on YouTube, but find it a bind as there's several steps non-familar users can go wrong with password/login and so on – the files are too large for email and not everyone has FTP client access, and can be a pain to have someone install who isn't too familiar with it. DVD hardcopies work, but are slow and can get lost. Any experience there you could share?

    Good luck with the book – your name alone should sell it – fabulous!

    Reply
  36. Anonymous says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:44 pm

    Sorry, but the Powerpoint style "trailers" don't do it for me. Plenty of stock video available out there, Use it.

    Reply
  37. annerallen says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    Really useful post–and what a great trailer! Better than a number of professional ones I've seen. It's beautiful to look at, and the music is powerful without overwhelming us. Plus you gave us that little hint of humor at the end. Impressive work.

    I'll be keeping an eye out for the book.

    Reply
  38. Other Lisa says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    Wow, what a useful post! Thanks for so clearly illustrating the process.

    (I am guessing you can use iMovie on the Mac but honestly have no idea…)

    And the book sounds great! Congratulations!

    Reply
  39. jongibbs says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:24 pm

    This is an excellent (and most timely) post.

    Thanks for sharing 🙂

    Reply
  40. mkcbunny says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:37 pm

    Really informative post. Thanks!

    Reply
  41. Anonymous says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:39 pm

    Wow that was great!!!!!

    Reply
  42. StephanieD says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:52 pm

    That is a fantastic, very professional-looking trailer! I would never have guessed you did it yourself.

    Reply
  43. mesmered says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:56 pm

    Wonderful trailer, inspiring enough to make me want to search out the novel . . . and a rather interesting response from Goldhawk. Does Goldhawk have a point, that if such a powerful and professional trailer can be produced by an author (and one imagines that other parts of the marketing could be handled equally professionally), what's left for mainstream marketing and publicity to do? I'd be interested in your response and also in Nathan's over this point. Great stuff!

    Reply
  44. ParisBreakfasts says

    January 18, 2010 at 11:57 pm

    Awesome information!!!
    Thanks very much

    Reply
  45. Myrlin A. Hermes says

    January 19, 2010 at 12:05 am

    @Jordan McCollum–Are you using Windows Vista? I have XP, and a slightly different menu pops up under Video Effects–it has Ease In/Out but none of the pan or zoom effects. Of course it would have been more convenient to be able to do it all in one program!

    @Jen P–When I finished the trailer, I sent it as an email attachment to my agent and my editor before uploading it anywhere. I don't know if there's any sort of password-protected or "invite-only" YouTube equivalent, but it seems like a good idea!

    @Anonymous–I agree, a lot of the "Powerpoint" trailers end up looking cheesy–but then again, so do a lot of the ones made with stock footage! I searched through a lot of clips, believe me–but because mine is a historical novel, I found it easier to find relevant images in old classical paintings. Of course, this will vary depending on the nature of the book.

    I was fortunate to find the perfect Raphael painting for my cover–Bindo Altoviti (the 16th century Florentine banker who sat for the portrait) is truly the image of my androgynous, cross-dressing Prince Hamlet–who also ends up as the fair young man with "a woman's face" from the sonnets. So I searched for artwork from the same period to complete the "universe" I was creating.

    Reply
  46. Regan Leigh says

    January 19, 2010 at 12:10 am

    Wow, this is great timing for me. My novel is about to go through it's last beta round, so it's not anywhere close to being published. (crosses fingers) But I very recently made a trailer for it. There is a thread in the forums here that discusses this topic.

    I love independent bands and was able to find the email address for one of my favs. I emailed them last week and they immediately responded and granted me permission to use their song. That's an avenue for people to consider if they have a certain song or band in mind for their main character.

    I also found preview images of pics that were free. I just didn't get the nicer larger sizes because of the cost. (And since I'm not using my video commercially, aka not even to the publishing stage, it's all legal.)

    I used iMovie and it was actually very fun to do. I agree that I would never pay anyone a great deal of money for such a thing, especially since I was unsure of how worthwhile it would be. But I do have to say that I've gotten a great amount of buzz and positive feedback from my video. It's starting to make me wonder if it's a bigger tool than I'd once thought. I'm sure to get wonderful beta help from this one! That's good enough for me right now. 🙂

    I'd suggest others consider doing a similar one, even if only to point out what type of book they're working on.

    Reply
  47. Regan Leigh says

    January 19, 2010 at 12:11 am

    In my long winded comment, I forgot to say great job Myrlin Hermes! 😉

    Reply
  48. Jan Markley says

    January 19, 2010 at 12:31 am

    Awesome! My 12 year old niece/marketing director created the book trailer for my debut novel Dead Frog on the Proch. And I paid her in chicken wings and chai tea!

    Check it out on my blog …

    Reply
  49. Christine says

    January 19, 2010 at 12:39 am

    Nice trailer, although I have to say that in my opinion, Maggie Stiefvater's trailer, Still Wolf Watching, for her book Shiver is my favourite book trailer ever.

    Great post though, and your book sounds really interesting! 🙂

    Reply
  50. Christine says

    January 19, 2010 at 12:40 am

    ooops! I meant to leave the link to Maggie's trailer, in case anyone was curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX82ggGCF7c

    Reply
  51. Kathryn Magendie says

    January 19, 2010 at 1:11 am

    Well done! -and a timely post for me as I am working with BB for my trailer . . . thanks for the tips!

    Reply
  52. Linguista says

    January 19, 2010 at 1:17 am

    you could go into video editing as a side business- that was awesome!!!

    Good luck with the book!

    Reply
  53. Kelly McGonigal says

    January 19, 2010 at 2:01 am

    thanks for the post! it inspired me to make a trailer using Kevin's music (along with a donation).

    Reply
  54. Anonymous says

    January 19, 2010 at 2:37 am

    At 1:30 I think it's a bit bloated. 1:00 max!

    Reply
  55. Rowenna says

    January 19, 2010 at 3:24 am

    Really provocative and lovely–I think you're right that, since you're the author and know the book so intimately, you were able to put something into it that most publicists couldn't have. It shines (and, um, makes me want to read the book!).

    I've played with doing a book trailer based on photographs taken by good friends of mine, but finding music in the public domain was a sticking point–thanks for the tip! Not sure when I'll have a real use (ie, publicizing published book) for making a trailer, but it certainly is fun to practice 🙂

    Reply
  56. Carol J. Garvin says

    January 19, 2010 at 3:45 am

    Thanks for a really interesting and informative post. I'll be working with my Mac and iMovie when the time comes. In fact, I may do some experimenting now rather than try to come up with something when there's a deadline looming.

    Reply
  57. Ruth says

    January 19, 2010 at 4:22 am

    This is a great post! One of the most informative I have read. Thank you for sharing the links and your tips. The trailer is awesome. Good luck with your book.

    Reply
  58. Sarah Laurenson says

    January 19, 2010 at 6:12 am

    OK. I'm hooked. Nice job!

    Reply
  59. RAD - Dot Painter says

    January 19, 2010 at 6:29 am

    Nice job!

    I used http://www.OneTrueMedia.com to create my Book Trailer for free. I did most of the work in Powerpoint and converted the files to JPG.

    The music is free on the site and you can put it together easily. Luckily, I am both the author and illustrator for my book, so I dropped in both images from my book as well as photos of me reading my book in classrooms.

    It took me about 2-3 hours to produce the whole thing. I would recommend the free service!

    Reply
  60. Ryan says

    January 19, 2010 at 7:39 am

    Very nice post and very informative. Funny because my wife and I just bought a book at second-hand store called Homosexuals in History to peruse through.

    I second not using fancy transitions or keeping them to a bare minimum. Nothing like a good long fade.

    Video will spearhead my promotional efforts as I'm calling my memoir a multimedia experience. I'll have dozens of tightly edited shorts to go along with the book. It'll be like having vignette documentaries to go along with book.

    To anyone who plans on making a trailer. Most editing programs are very intuitive these days. Starting a Book Trailer can be a fun and a productive sidetrack to the book itself. Don't think you have to do it a few sittings. When things are made over time it shows. Start collecting images and video that you think will "fit" and don't be afraid to lay the video into the timeline without music. Sometimes the images will help you decide what music to use. I've laid out whole sequences for short movies and then POOF the right music finds me.

    I like looking for local bands and musicians who will let me use their music. It's all in the creative spirit and it gives you a reason to take a break, grab your journal, and head up to the local watering hole or coffee shop. If they have a following and a fan base then they will certainly share your work thus spreading the word on your book. You never know what one Facebook or Tweet posting can do: "Hey check it out! This person wrote an awesome book and used our music in their book trailer!" Don't forget animators either. Like actors sometimes they just need stuff for their portfolio and resume and will work for free.

    Also once you set your sound track, listen for the dramatic cuts and have some of the images change exactly on those cuts. Makes a huge difference sometimes.

    One can agonize over a couple of seconds of video the same way one can agonize over a couple of lines.

    Ok that's enough. As you can tell I love cutting video!

    Writing and videos
    http://thechinproject.wordpress.com/

    Reply
  61. Maureen Hume says

    January 19, 2010 at 9:05 am

    Wow! Really helpful info and an awesome trailer. Intrigued and impressed.

    Reply
  62. Susana Mai says

    January 19, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    Um, this was kind of the best thing ever. And as a member of that younger generation who supposedly doesn't read and only spends time looking at youtube videos all day–oh my, this was good. Bravo! I honestly plan on buying this book now, and not only because I love Hamlet and love the gay twist (poor Ophelia!).

    Reply
  63. Jessica Strider says

    January 19, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    Excellent book trailer. And thanks for being so open about how you made it (where you got the footage and music, etc.). You did a great job.

    Reply
  64. Jewel/Pink Ink says

    January 19, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    Great trailer!

    My daughter just made a video on Windows Movie Maker, but we can't figure out how to burn it onto a DVD copy. Did you? And how do you do it??

    Reply
  65. Thermocline says

    January 19, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    Thank you for the great info and links.

    Reply
  66. Wendy Nelson Tokunaga says

    January 19, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    Great trailer! I too made trailers for both my novels for free. I used Apple's iMovie.

    You can see them here:

    Midori by Moonlight:
    http://tinyurl.com/mggxox

    Love in Translation:
    http://tinyurl.com/y9mjevx

    They're my own cinematic takes on my novels. At least I have these if no movie options come through. 🙂

    Reply
  67. Terry says

    January 19, 2010 at 8:16 pm

    Cool trailer! And thanks so much for sharing this.You've got me inspired.

    Great post!

    Reply
  68. Chris Pedersen says

    January 19, 2010 at 8:23 pm

    Very nice and professionally done! Thanks for encouraging us and providing tips to jump in and do a book trailer ourselves. We have some great tools at our fingertips—let's use them.

    Reply
  69. Sandra G. says

    January 19, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    Now THAT was a great video, and I hereby take back my comment made last week about never having seen a decent book trailer.

    I love the concept for your book – well done.

    And thanks for the music by donation link!

    Reply
  70. Ryan says

    January 19, 2010 at 10:01 pm

    @Keith Popely

    Not sure if you were being sarcastic or if you actually know Christine but that sounded harsh. Maybe its a case of the Alaska shack nasties?

    Nice and easy does the trick…we are here to share,inspire(be inspired), and to learn.

    We beat ourselves up enough as writers and artists without someone else calling us "Crazy"

    Cheers!

    Reply
  71. Anonymous says

    January 19, 2010 at 11:05 pm

    Thank you, Nathan, for picking this guest blogger! Very nice.

    Reply
  72. Suze says

    January 19, 2010 at 11:54 pm

    Totally awesome… you should know that I'll be in line to buy you book after that… can't wait for it to come out. Wow.

    Reply
  73. Christine M. says

    January 20, 2010 at 2:28 am

    @Ryan and @Keith Popely

    Hey Ryan 🙂

    Actually I don't know Keith from Adam and really, if he didn't like the book trailer I linked, that basically just means we have different tastes, which is more than all right. To each their own, they say. The book trailer shown in this post was well made, I just personally felt that posting a link to another type of book trailer (and another one that won't have cost the author anything but her time) would be interesting. I enjoy her quirky style more than I do 'traditional' book trailers (professionally done or not), not matter who the author is, 's all.

    Cheers!

    Reply
  74. Jordan McCollum says

    January 20, 2010 at 4:53 am

    @Myrlin—Nope, It's XP, WMM 5.1, four+ year old computer. Weird.

    Reply
  75. Meghan Ward says

    January 20, 2010 at 5:58 am

    A timely post! I am working on a book trailer right now, so I found this really helpful.

    Reply
  76. Alex Beecroft says

    January 20, 2010 at 10:09 am

    Many thanks for this, Myrlin! I like the trailer a lot, and I've been looking for something to add pan and scan to WMM for ages.

    Good luck with the new release!

    Reply
  77. Gretchen says

    January 20, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    I will second or third or hundredth the awesomeness of MovieMaker for Windows. I did my trailer on it – total cost? $20. http://www.youtube.com/user/GretchenMcNeil#p/a/u/0/yK4giaR4Gik

    Reply
  78. Cathi Stoler says

    January 21, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    Wow! That's great. Very intriguing.

    Reply
  79. Dayna Steele says

    January 25, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    Great job. And thanks for the post. I will definitely pass on.

    Reply
  80. LaVora says

    January 27, 2010 at 3:44 pm

    Wonderful wonderful trailer! You had me at 1 sec. I made one for my upcoming chapter book PeaceBuilders: Daisaku Ikeda and Josei Toda, Buddhist Leaders (March 2010) using PowerPoint, a free program to turn PPT into video: EM PowerPoint video converter. I found free music online and used a free program to edit it (Audacity). It took hours to learn how to use all this stuff. Got 100's of hits for all 3 revisions ASAP due to viral promotion. Made 2 versions: 2:57 min and 5:48 min. The shorter one is here bit.ly/pbtrailer. I will probably update now that reviews are coming in. But later. This was very time-consuming. But mainly, I wanted to say, very well done by you, Myrlin. I can't wait to read THE LUNATIC, THE LOVER, & THE POET.

    Reply
  81. Who is Felicia? says

    January 28, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    I've seen a lot of book trailers and have not been impressed. But yours is really frickin good. Damn you. Now I have to buy your book.

    Reply
  82. mesmered says

    February 26, 2010 at 12:25 am

    What an inspiration . . . a wonderful trailer! Madly I thought if you can do this, I can too.
    But the fact is I couldn't . . . I am a luddite, I knew this from the get-go. So I approached my brother who runs a post-production house and asked if he would help me.
    I used all your resources . . . Wikimedia Commons for music and images, has to be THE most wonderful resource for struggling writers. Not only that I was able to use the development of the trailer for successive blogs. The trailer was uploaded last night and is on Facebook, Twitter, my website, my blog and finally on YouTube (the YT search engine won't recognise the tags yet, but it can be accessed inall the previously mentioned ways) and I can only say THE biggest thank you for such massive motivation. Best of luck with your book, I am so looking forward to reading it.

    Reply
  83. Alyssa says

    April 18, 2010 at 5:14 am

    OMG I want to read this RIGHT NOW.

    Reply
  84. book publishers says

    May 19, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    Really interesting post–and what a fantastic trailer! Better than a number of professional ones by major publishing houses. Impressive work.

    Reply
  85. Bryan Whiting says

    July 27, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    I liked your trailer, and I think you've got some great advice. I like to use Camtasia instead of Windows Movie Maker, 'cause it seems to work better for me, plus I can do screen capture stuff with it when I need. I also found this cool site that has a bunch of great royalty free music that I always use for my projects, it's called Audio Intros

    Reply
  86. Susanne says

    September 6, 2010 at 5:15 am

    VERY good advice that writers would do well to follow. You've got to be seen, and you've got to be compelling. Great work on your trailer too!

    Reply
  87. Michael says

    December 23, 2010 at 4:14 pm

    Great trailer and nice use of music! As a composer I'm excited that so many new types of artists are using video to promote their work, like book authors. I've seen photographers lately use music in multimeida videos of their work. For music, while a composer can be a bit more expensive, the prices for licensing music are coming down, so you don't necessarily have to go completely free. I always recommend SFXsource.com Royalty Free Music to folks who need good affordable, and most importantly, legal, music.

    Reply
  88. Anonymous says

    April 20, 2011 at 1:33 am

    I just came across this post about book trailers….check out http://www.surreels.com…Syntropy book trailer. Interesting stuff.

    Reply
  89. Trevor Brown says

    June 1, 2011 at 6:27 pm

    I think if an author believes in their work, which they should, they should also compliment their book with marketing assets created by experts in their own specific fields. i.e. Video editors have immediate access to royalty free stock music, graphics/images and they are paid to work fast and efficiently. It is absolutely well worth the effort, time, and money to have a professional video editor create a book trailer.

    Reply
  90. Diane Castle says

    July 23, 2011 at 4:13 am

    Wow, I really appreciated this awesome post! I needed to make a trailer but had no idea where to start. Really appreciated the start to finish instructions! And now I have a trailer. Check it out! http://youtu.be/QdIEDbO0-f4

    Reply
  91. Anonymous says

    November 8, 2011 at 11:02 pm

    They are very expensive, but I found this guy on Fiverr that's doing incredible book trailers dirt cheap! you got too see his work.

    http://fiverr.com/accent/create-a-30-40-sec-book-trailer

    Reply
  92. Peter Twohig says

    January 22, 2012 at 9:13 am

    Nathan, great trailer. But I don't get Wikimedia Commons. I went there and apart from not being able to follow all the legal stuff, it seems to me that it is next to impossible to make a trailer with out attributing. So did you do that? And if none of your pix needed attributing, what is the simple formula for finding pics like that? (This pic stuff is driving me crazy; I just haven't got ten years to spare to make a 1 min trailer.)
    Hope you can help.
    Pete

    Reply
    • Anonymous says

      April 11, 2012 at 10:18 pm

      Myrlin, I think you did a fantastic, fantastic job on the trailer. I'm not sure I could do it. However, I'm shocked that Harper Collins would not be doing this for you. Have publishers all gone fishing? Do they not do any marketing anymore?

      Reply
  93. Yves Fey says

    September 27, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    Love the trailer. Must have the book.

    Reply
  94. Yves Fey says

    September 27, 2012 at 3:14 pm

    Love the trailer. Must have the book.

    Reply
  95. Yves Fey says

    September 27, 2012 at 3:15 pm

    Love the trailer. Must have the book. But this is about try 10 to get the message past the robot checker, which can't seem to recognize the letters it puts up!

    Reply
  96. Yves Fey says

    September 27, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    Love the trailer. Must have the book. But this is about try 10 to get the message past the robot checker, which can't seem to recognize the letters it puts up!

    Reply
  97. Yes Fey says

    September 27, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    Love the trailer. Must have the book. But this is about try 10 to get the message past the robot checker, which can't seem to recognize the letters it puts up!

    Reply
  98. Idellah Ashlie says

    March 15, 2013 at 9:55 pm

    Thank you for the simple and easy to implement advice – and for showing a very good example of what you mean.

    Reply

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About Nathan

Hi, I’m Nathan. I’m the author of How to Write a Novel and the Jacob Wonderbar series, which was published by Penguin. I used to be a literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. and I’m dedicated to helping authors chase their dreams. Let me help you with your book!

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