Creating Your Own Book Trailer

Tip of the Day: Need to get in the Christmas mood? This video from The Muppets always does it for me:

Today I'll be spending some time creating a book trailer for my Hell Bent Heaven Sent series (under my other pen name, Isobel Lucas). So I thought I'd give you guys a quick and dirty outline on making book trailers.

I actually start with the music. Why? Because the music you choose typically determines how long your trailer's going to be. My favorite place for royalty free music? Neosounds. It's amazing. I could spend all day long listening to music there. It's awesome. You can sort by length, genre, and even emotion. I love it there. I generally choose music approximately one minute in length.

Next, buy some stock photos that fit the themes of your book. I get mine from Dreamstime. This is usually where I find my cover models, so I buy additional pictures of those models, as well as generic shots that I want to use under text for the trailer.

Write your script. You want to include the pertinent parts of your book. Use your blurb, or your elevator pitch, and split it up over a few frames. Make sure you include a spot for your cover(s), as well as where to buy.

Then you just put everything together in a movie program. Okay, okay, I know that makes it sound easy. It was a big learning curve for me when I made my first trailer. It took days to make Anathema's, but like with anything, the more you do it, the faster and more efficient you become. It takes a bit of time to learn how to use the program, but trust me, if I can do it, so can you!!!!

I'm going to be using iMovie tomorrow, but for my other trailers I used the movie program that used to come with PCs through Microsoft. I don't own a PC anymore, so I can't look up the name, sorry. But if you have a PC, it should be there on your hard drive, pre-installed.

Book trailers aren't necessary, but they are a lot of fun! I haven't made one in over a year, but I really wanted to do one for the Isobel Lucas series, so I'm going to give a whirl.

Here are the trailers I made for Anathema, Oubliette, and The Initiate last year. Hope you like them! :D

Megg, Miss Enchanted ePubber