I
discovered book trailers shortly after I started book blogging last year. I can’t
remember the very first one I saw, but I remember that among the first was the
trailer for A Soul Less Broken by Helen Laibach. I thought it was absolutely
beautiful, and I knew I wanted a trailer for my book, Blue Sky Days, when it came out. I thought
about it (read: stressed about it) for months. I always knew that
ideally I would create my own, but I had no idea how. I talked to several
people and soon discovered that professional trailers could cost hundreds,
sometimes even thousands of dollars. Um, no. My budget for my book was next to
nothing - there was no way I could afford hundreds of dollars for a trailer that
a lot of people wouldn’t even care about.
I read a lot of opinions from
fellow book bloggers about trailers, and they were torn - some loved trailers and thought they really enhanced a book, some were indifferent, and some hated them (usually for specific reasons). I
knew what I wanted, and what I didn’t want, and that basically seemed to
coincide with other’s opinions. I wanted to do it right - some trailers are
really cheesy, and some don’t even give you any idea what the book is about. To
me, a trailer should be almost like a movie teaser - you get the main idea of
what it’s about, and it leaves you wanting more.
I
finally figured out that I could make a trailer myself using Windows Movie
Maker, but I had a lot of trouble figuring it out. Finally, I fell back on my
knowledge of graphic design, and created the entire thing using Paint Shop and
Animation Shop, and then working it into Movie Maker and adding music.
What do you think of book trailers? Do you watch them? Do you have one? If you do, feel free to leave a link, I'd love to see it!
I enjoyed your book trailer, Marie. It was very beautiful. It's funny, I actually don't like to watch book trailers. I find them boring. But I love making them. I had such a blast doing my own and a few others for some friends that I made up a little business plan and website in hopes of being hired just so I could make more. Plus, I knew I could do it for a much lower cost than some of the sites I found.
ReplyDeleteI know I am planning one for Moon Dance. My friend wrote the music and we've done voice work over that. Now we're working on image selection and we'll need to do research to get the whole thing to sync up the way we want it to. I did a video for my Free Realms character years ago and I need to remember what program I used and get it again, because I had a lot of fun with it. (Thinking about it, I think it was called Pinacle?)
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job with your trailer for Blue Sky Days. I also think that the option to get really hands on with all of this stuff is one of the most fun -- although at times also stressful -- parts of deciding to publish my own work.
Occasionally I watch them, but honestly none have ever enticed me to actually read the book. I don't make that decision based on a trailer.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I rarely watch trailers. I almost never have the sound on the computer since it's in the living room, and watching trailers just isn't the same without the sound.
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