Guest: Bethany Ramos
First of all, what is a book trailer and how does it play a role in marketing your novel? Just like it sounds, a book trailer is similar to a movie trailer. It is intended to pique the interest of your reader to increase the sales of your novel.
Here are several keys that you can use to make a compelling book trailer to market your novel:
• Get your creative juices flowing. If you’ve already written a novel, then you’re probably quite creative. Make sure to use that same creativity to write the script for your book trailer. Some book trailers may have a narrator voiceover, while others may have words that appear on the screen to describe the plot of the book. The point is that this trailer needs to be interesting, imaginative, and unique to stand out from your competition.
• Start out with a storyboard. A storyboard can be used to piece together the scenes of your book trailer picture by picture. If you’re making a video book trailer, this will help to save you serious time in organizing your content. After that, gather the images or video shots that you would like to use in the trailer. It is important to either purchase stock images or use public domain photos that are not copyrighted.
• Add text and music to your images or video. Once you have your still images or video organized, now you need to spice it up with text and music. Remember, this book trailer is supposed to be similar to a movie trailer. You want it to grab and maintain the attention of your audience so that they will be interested in buying your book. Once again, don’t use music that is copyrighted since you could be sued for copyright infringement.
• Now it’s time to go public. After you have edited your book trailer with your images, text, and video, it’s time to market your trailer on video sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo, and your own blog or website. And don’t forget to share a link to your book trailer with all of your followers in social media to help spread the word!
Creating a solid book trailer is a powerful marketing tool for your novel. Try to make your book trailer as brief as possible, anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. If you create a trailer longer than 5 minutes, then you’re likely to lose the attention of your audience and turn off potential buyers.
Bethany Ramos is a full-time freelance writer that co-owns her own business, The Coffee Bump.
