Hello Everyone:
This week I’ve put together a small list of book trailer resources. It’s divided into two areas:
- Explanatory Book Trailer Resources — blog posts that explain book trailers: what they are, how to make them, where to post them, their advantages and disadvantages
- Tools — Tools used to actually create book trailers
The list is by no means comprehensive, but if you are just getting started with book trailers, these links are a good place to begin.
Explanatory Book Trailer Resources
Book Trailer 101 — a large, comprehensive website covering all aspects of book trailer creation. It also explores issues such as whether you need a book trailer, when you should create one, trailer types, and more. Frankly, this is the website I wish I had put together. All of the site content is now available as a kindle book as well.
Elements of a Great Book Trailer — a quick read that provides a bulleted list of essential elements. The second half of the post goes over possible uses for a book trailer. Not a bad place to start if you are new to the whole concept of book trailers.
Seven Ways to Use Your Video Book Trailer — this post gives you some ideas on where to post your finished book trailer and the uses to which it may be put. A quick read with links to sites.
Why Book Trailer are a Waste of Time (and what do instead) — a contrarian view of book trailers. Not everyone agrees that book trailers provide value to authors. This short post outlines why and what you should be doing instead.
15 Ways to Promote Your Book with a Book Trailer — the name says it all. This blog gives a brief explanation of each use, and does provide some useful links. Worth checking out.
Lights, Camera, Action! Tips for Making a Book Trailer — this short post focuses on tips for making a book trailer using live actors; while this may be beyond the resources and capabilities of most indie authors, it’s still worth reading.
6 Tips for Creating Knock-out Book Trailers — the post explains what a book trailer is, provides examples with links, and has tips on how to create trailers. No resource links (other than trailer examples) but still worth a look for ideas.
Tips for Making Your Own Book Trailer — a good post explaining the author’s experience in creating a trailer, tips on creating a trailer and resource links (including images, music, programs, fonts, etc). Definitely worth checking out.
Book Trailer Tips to Make Your Dreams Come True — this blog post focuses on incorporating AIDA concepts into a trailer: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. In addition there is a fairly comprehensive resource list. Worth a look.
Let’s Make a Book Trailer, starting with Part I — my series of posts detailing the step by step creation of a fantasy-oriented book trailer. Covers trailer types, planning, tool use, animation types and more.
Tools For Book Trailer Creation
These resources are Windows-oriented because, well, I am a Windows guy. Moreover, many of the these tools will require a modest invest of money (typically less than $100US) as well as an investment in time.
PowerPoint — PowerPoint gets a lot of bad press because people miss-use it, but this tool is excellent for trailer planning. Properly employed (and within its limitations), it can be used to create basic book trailers as well.
Proshow Gold — this low cost (~$70US) product is a slide show product on steroids. It provides templates, transitions, audio and video track inclusion capabilities, and outputs the final product to a variety of video formats or directly to sites like YouTube. Definitely worth checking out.
SmartSound — this is a fabulous royalty free music site. Tracks will cost about $35US, but you really only need one for a trailer. Moreover, you can tailor the desired track to exactly the length of your trailer — no more abrupt fades. Definitely worth checking out.
Audacity — this free audio recording and editing software has been around for a while. Use it to record, edit, and save narrations or voice overs. Although it comes with a rich set of features, it’s basic use is fairly easy to pick up.
PowToon — this web-based slideshow/video creation tool may be what you are looking for to create a relatively low-cost trailer. Easy to use, and it comes with a selection of graphics and soundtracks. There is a free version, but if you are serious you probably will want to pay for a subscription (the Pro version is $19/month on a yearly basis, and you get a bunch of stuff not available for the free version).
Snagit — simply described, this is a screen capture, but really it is so much more. Capture, crop, edit, save images. Capture video as well. It can be used in conjunction with PowerPoint to create trailer graphics (if you are so inclined) and images for your blog. One time cost of ~$50US.
There you have it, or at least some of the tools I used and the blog articles I recommend.
What about you? What tools do you use? What resources have you found helpful?
