Book Trailers
Book trailers. Got one? If you have released a book, you have probably at least thought about it. Do you need one? I don’t think it is necessary, but it doesn’t hurt.
When I was working on my poetry book, I hired a design team, and part of the package was a book trailer. Now, did I want to leave the entire process in the hands of a team I did not know? I didn’t want to give up that much control so I put together a rough trailer and sent it off to the production team.
I knew that I wanted to showcase the illustrations in the book, and to let the reader know, I wrote this short description: This book has words to encourage you, to make you laugh, and to invite you to reflect. With each chapter, a lens opens, revealing a different observation. I slightly modified it to match each frame that I chose.
I then used an acoustic guitar composition that I had been working on. It took a while to record it (I keep making too many mistakes when I’m under pressure), but eventually I had it ready. Then came the rain. The rain sounds, that is. I added them for two reasons. First, as a calming intro/outro to the video, and second-and I’m not embarrassed to admit it, to mask any little background sounds. But more for the beautiful sound of rain. Don’t you just love walking in a rain shower?
So, I sent off my idea, and after a bit of back and fourth, I had my book trailer. Sometimes I just listen to it for the music.
Jump ahead three years …
The third book of my sci-fi trilogy is set to be released and I need to create some buzz and excitement. Rather than pay to produce a trailer, I decide to do it myself. I think I am pretty creative so I pay for the pro version of Canva, download a trial version of a video editor and get to work.
Once it was complete, I ran it by a few trusted authors and my newsletter subscribers to get some feedback. It’s was longer than most and it was suggested I shorten it and add some more spacey elements.
Then, I decided to revamp my poetry book trailer last week for two reasons:
- My book is no longer handled by the original distributor, so I needed to edit the purchase link
- I wasn’t completely happy with it
- ( I know I said two) I wanted to use my Canva subscription before it expired.
The music is the same (I composed and recorded it myself), the text remains unchanged, but I chose to remove the rain sounds since it didn’t match with the old-timey theme, and I’m happy with the result.
I hope both trailers are intriguing enough to entice you to check out my writing. I enjoyed creating them as much as I enjoyed writing the books.
-Leon
