DESERTED Book Trailer (or Watch it for the Music & Pics)

Tip of the Day: BLACKOUT is on sale for .99 for two more hours...and DESERTED is officially on sale for $2.99.

Today is the official release date for DESERTED, the YA ebook sequel to BLACKOUT!

In honor of its release, I have created a book trailer with the help of my sister Andrea Lipomi (she took the Vegas photos -- follow her on FaceBook/instagram @feetishspa for more of her pics), and to my husband John Viviani (he wrote the music and produced the video -- follow Blue Falcon on FB for more new tunes https://www.facebook.com/bluefalconmusic).

Thanks to all my readers, friends, and family for the continued support!

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Why I Now Like Book Trailers (or Video Killed the YA Book Star*)

*with apologies to The Buggles

Tip of the Day: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Covered Mini Pretzles are dangerously delish. (9 servings per bag? How about 4?)

As A2A readers undoubetly know, a few years ago book trailers for YA and MG novels started becoming more popular. Many discussion cropped up on if they were worth having.

Personally, I watch trailers that:

a. get a lot of buzz,
b. are by authors I know, or
c. are for books I'm planning on buying/reading anyway.

In other words, I have never been swayed to buy/read a novel because of the trailer even though I have been entertained by them.

One of the first trailers I remember thinking was cool was this one for Carrie Ryan's THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUi3Ap2ga1U
But because it has actors and spoken dialog, it feels more like a movie trailer than one for a novel.

A recent favorite is this amazing animated trailer for THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL by Soman Chainani:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqnU3ZqvL1k
It is also very cinematic, and way too expensive for a novice like me to ever do.

When I decided to self epub BLACKOUT, I didn't originally plan to produce a book trailer. But my husband was writing new tracks for his band Blue Falcon around the time I was formatting my novel and I thought it would be cool if he created original music for a trailer. Once he agreed, I was excited!

While I enjoy some of the cinematic book trailers out there, I wanted mine to be more in line with the experience of reading a book. I also knew I needed it to be about 45-60 seconds long. I watched Lisa Schroeder's trailer for THE DAY BEFORE for inspiration as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBnbubgIMJA

I love the filming that Lisa did for her trailer, but that is more work than I wanted to put into it so I went with the photo that was used for the cover as a backdrop for the whole thing. The rest was my husband using the limited options on iMovie.

But honestly the best part of having a book trailer? I can hock my wares by giving people an experience -- a free taste of music and atmosphere for BLACKOUT -- instead of just a link where they can buy my book. As someone who is not into self-promotion, it makes talking about my novel a lot easier.

I don't expect my trailer to be the one that transforms people like me into those who buy books based on them. But if the music and atmosphere at least entertains those who click on the YouTube link for 60 seconds, I've done my job.



What are your thoughts of book trailers as a viewer or as an author?

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

Time to BLACKOUT (or Release Day is Here!)

Tip of the Day: Verla Kay's Blue Board is so amazing that it is merging with the SCBWI message boards! Go Verla and BBers!

Four days early, my YA novel BLACKOUT is out in the world*!

It is only $2.99 (what a deal!) through the following retailers:
Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Smashwords

 

Also, my super talented husband wrote original music and put together this awesome book trailer. I love it!

For a reminder on why I decided to self e-pub BLACKOUT, here's my blog post from April.

Thanks to all the A2A Misses and critique partners past and present who helped bring this book to life!

If anyone has any questions on the e-pubbing process from a first timer, feel free to ask them here. And if they are beyond my ability to answer, I will forward them to the epub master, Megg. :)

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

*Except for through slooow iTunes and delayed Kobo.

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

Fun Friday: Guest Post by Former A2Aer Lisa Schroeder

We've talked about book trailers before on Author2Author. Some of us think they help to sell books, some of us, we're not so sure. As an author, what's hard is that there really is no way to know if they affect sales. And they usually aren't cheap. Unless you do one yourself. And in that case, it still has to be good. Also, more and more, book trailers with just still photos are criticized as being boring. And some believe your trailer won't stand out if you use only still photos. But to hire someone to do a trailer with actors and actresses - you're talking a boat load of money the average mid-list author simply doesn't have to invest in one marketing tool.

I wanted a book trailer, but I didn't have want to spend the money. So, my husband and I headed to the beach for the day and we filmed some beautiful beach footage. I sent it to a friend who was kind enough to edit it for me. I love how the video turned out. Yes, it's quite simple, but in this case, I think simple works. The entire book takes place at the beach, so why not use the lure of the beach to pull people in? That's what I hope this trailer does.

Lisa Schroeder
http://lisaschroederbooks.com

[Click here to see Lisa's beautiful, intriguing trailer!]

Book Trailer Bonanza

Tip of the Day: Amazon has THE ESPRESSOLOGIST bargain priced at $6.80 right now! Sweet deal!

Book trailers seem to be the thing these days. And I know I should make one (or have one made) but I'm not sure if I'm going to get to it before My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours comes out (8/31/10!! Whoo hoo! Coming up fast!). But I've been researching how to do this and thought I'd share some links in case anyone else wants to make a book trailer.

First I came upon ehow's instructions here. Which are very basic but gives you an idea of what you need to do. Make a storyboard, get public domain pics, find public domain music etc. It doesn't really tell you how to put this all together but that would be up to whatever movie making program you get I gather. Personally, I got stuck just looking through the public domain pics. Wow, that can take forever to find the right pictures to go along with your book! Here is the Suite101 version of how to make your book trailer-- this one has some links to programs that are helpful. And I stumbled upon an author's site where she specifically talks about how to make a trailer using Windows Movie Maker (which, who knew, already comes with windows. One less thing to buy!) Her instructions are more detailed even though kinda hard to read since they are in one long paragraph.

So I'm still debating and deciding whether or not I should give this making a trailer thing a try. I'm considering begging my husband to do it. If it happens I'll post about it of course. The other alternative is to hire someone to make a trailer for you but be prepared to pay the $$$ for it because they can get expensive. Here are a few places that do this:

Circle of Seven Productions

Moving Stories

LivingJacket

And if you want to find everything you ever wanted to know about book trailers in one place? Check out this great list of resources from DarcyPattison.com.

Anyone else have book trailer making tips you want to share?

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves

Book Trailers: I just can't decide!

Tip of the Day: If you haven't had the pleasure of watching Lara Zielin's Editing Letter music video, check it out now!

I keep struggling with whether or not book trailers are worth it. If you're savvy with moviemaker software and you're going to do it yourself and it's no biggie then sure, ok give it a chance. Every little bit helps. Or if you're a bestseller (or on your way to being a bestseller--like your publisher is throwing big giant piles of cash at promotion for your book) then ok, I can see putting some money behind a book trailer. Theory being that people may already be hearing the buzz on your book and want to find out more. Like the booktrailer for Hush, Hush that Em pointed out on Tuesday. Awesome book trailer, gets right to the drama, cool graphics, good music, and under a minute. But it had to cost a fortune. I looked at the price sheet for the company that made that video and to get moving graphics like she had put it easily in the $2000 range. Wise investment? For her I can see it. She's a NYT bestseller. The video has had over 42,000 hits. That's amazing! BUT, do I think that people stumbled upon her video and THEN went looking for the book? Nope. I think people heard the buzz either before the book came out or once it came out (and this book had loads of great buzz!), maybe even read it already, and THEN looked for the video. Of course, this is just what I think. Do you agree or disagree?

For me? I almost never look at booktrailers. I will look at my friend's booktrailers once I see them post on their blog that they are up but that's about it. And I was going to buy their book anyway so does that even count? Do teens really search youtube looking for booktrailers and then go buy the books? I'd LOVE to know this. I really think it's the buzz that comes first. And if you don't have the heavy promotion behind you creating a buzz then I think your trailer has to be super super creative & clever to create the buzz. Take Simone Elkeles's Perfect Chemistry. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was talking about her trailer when it came out. And it's super cute. I would totally go get the book after seeing this. It's not straight up GO BUY MY BOOK NOW as much as it is entertaining and fun. And take Lara Zielin. She is freaking hysterical! But her youtube videos aren't really booktrailers. They are more super funny entertaining videos that subtly show her book. Like this one. And, to take a look at another super creative book trailer, look at Jessica Brody's trailer for her book Karma Club coming out in April. It plays like a mini-movie and has already received loads of hits since it came out a week or so ago.

And let me throw out another question to our readers, what ages are book trailers really for anyway? Loads of YA authors make them so I assume that means the target audience is 12 and up. But are they popular with adult fiction too? I haven't heard of adults looking at booktrailers before making a purchase. And what about middle grade? I have a middle grade novel coming out in August and it targets ages 11-14. Would kids that age watch book trailers? (p.s.-- just got my ARCs! Peek at them on my blog.).

Kristina, Miss See Me on the Shelves