Recently, I had the opportunity to put together a book trailer for my novel, “Like Melvin”. This turned out to be an extremely educational experience that opened my eyes to the value of this option for new authors. Here are the three reasons why authors need to create book trailers:
Video is a Powerful Conveyor of Information
Right off the bat, as an author, you cannot underestimate the value of video. When it comes to taking in information, audiences are much more responsive to pictures and videos than words. Having a visual representation of your story can instantly convey more in a couple of seconds than an entire article can. Not only that, but second to Google, YouTube is the most popular search engine in the world. Creating a video featuring your book can broaden your audience base instantly.
Creates an Emotional Hook
In addition to conveying information, video has the unique ability to arouse emotions in a way that words or pictures alone cannot. When creating your book trailer, be thinking about how to put together a sequence of footage and sound in a way that arouses the feelings you want your audience to experience. What’s the tone of your book? Should the audience experience suspense? Sadness? Humor? Creating a book trailer will provide you with an avenue to reach your future readers on an emotional level before they ever pick up your book.
A Valuable Writing Exercise
Finally, creating a book trailer is an extremely valuable writing exercise. In putting together my own book trailer, I was fascinated by the challenge of conveying the heart and feel of my story with just a few sequences of pictures, video, and text. I ultimately concluded that creating the mood of the story ultimately superseded conveying the plot of the story. Think about it this way: what good is a video that simply summarizes your story? Readers could have obtained that information by reading the back cover of your book. Think of your trailer as a way to tantalize the audience. Make them curious. Leave them with unresolved questions. The goal is to arouse interest, to leave the audience wanting more.
So how are you going to put together your book trailer? What tips and techniques have you discovered along the way? What are some other ways you’ve found to use video to promote your book?
Any advice on how to create a book trailer for a book set on another planet with several key non-humanoid characters (other than investing in several illustrations)?
Interesting question. I would be thinking about how to make everyday phenomenon seem otherworldly. For instance, a clip of rainfall, but played backwards so it looks like the water is falling up. The nonhumanoid characters presents an interesting challenge. You might be able to photoshop some images together, but personally I would focus more on how to convey the FEEL of your story. Music will be very key. If you want to get really experimental, toy around with cuts that run together. For example, in my trailer I associate separate images/videos to convey a single thought. In the last sequence, following the text “Faith will be put to the test”, there is a flash of lightning, a picture of a young man back-to, and a fire. The connotation presented is that the young man in the picture will have to endure both storms and fires. Though this is stated nowhere, it is implied through the sequence of the visuals. Hope this helps; good luck on your project!
So where do you get the footage for your trailer?
I use royalty free video from sites like Pixaby and Pexels.
So, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. I’ll start with this quote:
> Not only that, but second to Google, YouTube is the most popular search engine in the world. Creating a video featuring your book can broaden your audience base instantly.
The “second most popular search engine” stuff has been used quite a lot over the years, but I’m not entirely sure it’s accurate. You see, YouTube is not a search engine in the same way that Google or Yahoo is a search engine. People don’t use YouTube for general searches. YouTube is something different.
Here are some references on this topic:
– https://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/is-youtube-really-the-2-search-engine-in-the-world-0308987
– https://www.paceco.com/insights/social-media/youtube-search-engine-myth/
What you need to do is put YouTube in the context of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. These are diverse sites, widely used, but with slightly different purposes.
Yes, you can use the shotgun approach and say, “Anything that increases exposure is good,” but keep in mind that effective marketing requires an investment of time and mental power. You could waste a lot of effort by trying to advertise everywhere.
And you could possibly do damage by *not* putting effort into your marketing campaign. Things on Twitter especially can go South in a hurry (why South is a bad direction I have no idea). One does not simply reference a meme on Twitter.
What I’m getting at is, you need to understand the medium. You need to understand the audience. You need to understand who will be there and what they will expect.
– What people are on YouTube?
– Are they there looking for something to read?
[Warning, Will Robinson! I’m about to start making things up! I’m not an expert! I have done no studies! Everything I’m saying is based on very little experience and a lot of guesses! Please cleanse your mind by reading these actual facts: https://digiday.com/media/demographics-youtube-5-charts/ But I’m going to go ahead and make stuff up! Because I like to!]
I’m not a YouTube expert nor the son of a YouTube expert, but I’m going to say that for your book, since it has some action, there are indeed people who both would be interested in your book and also browse YouTube a decent amount.
But this might not always be the case. There are certain novels that have an audience largely comprised of women 40 and over. [Anecdotal evidence alert] I’ve known a few women in this group who just read and read and read. And didn’t use computers unless they were forced to. So you might not reach them on YouTube.
But supposing your audience is on YouTube, are they expecting to find a book?
If they aren’t, what will they think when they realize they’ve been bait-and-switched?
(Yeah, I know. It’s in the video title. But there are, like, a lot of other words there, man. It’s way easier to click and watch.)
People end up on YouTube all the time, for all sorts of reasons. But what you’re looking for is people seeking entertainment. I’ll write a little story for you.
Corbin has had a long day. He had to prime 53 bars and then the foo was no-good, so he had to replace it. He does not want to see another foo or bar again. He gets home tired, orders Pizza Hut and slumps down on the couch and groans for 5 minutes. But he wants to relax, wants something to take his mind off the other bar that will likely need to be replaced tomorrow. He whips out his phone and pulls up YouTube. Good Mythical Morning. Dude Perfect. Cat videos. He watches several videos until he gets bored of those ones. He starts watching trailers. He taps a video, then taps the next. “Like Melvin, huh,” he says as he watches. “Wonder why I’ve never heard of that.” He gets to the end and scrolls down for a second. “Huh.” And then he taps on a suggested video. Five minutes later, he couldn’t remember the name even if he tried.
What I’m trying to prove here by fabricating anecdotal evidence, is that the people that you’re targeting by making this as a trailer don’t exist, or that there are so few of them that the number is negligible. Very few people, when looking for entertainment, watch a video and then pause afterwards to contemplate what they just watched, unless it’s a trailer for a Marvel movie, in which case they watch it over and over and post reaction videos and break it apart looking for every possible clue and watch it again with their friends and then spend the next month talking about it.
That said, I do believe there are ways to use YouTube to your advantage. Start a channel to talk about interesting things and plug your book at the end. Read scenes from your book and talk about why you wrote them the way you did. Try to get onto other people’s channels (“Hello, Dude Perfect? Can I get you to talk about…” [sound of phone hanging up on other end]). Do Q&As about your book (bonus points if you do it live).
If you want to go viral, do something imaginative. Act some of the scenes out. Show your adorable cat chewing up a copy. Do a trick shot video using the book instead of a basketball. Do a fake trail- uh… wait… huh.