Working on the “Past Suspicion” Book Trailer

June 23, 2012

I’ve had a fun yet frustrating day of trying to create a book trailer for my novel Past Suspicion. What is a book trailer? Simply put, it’s like a movie trailer, but it entices you to read a book, not see a movie. The advantage of promoting a book with a book trailer is that you entice people in a very visual, engaging manner (as long as it’s done well–therefore I really want to do this right). Also, there are many Internet distribution channels you can make use of to promote the book via the book trailer, YouTube being the most obvious one.

This is my first time attempting to make a book trailer, or anything remotely like it, and it’s been a learning experience–a little overwhelming and technical, but I’m surprised that I’m actually figuring it out.

First I tried using animoto.com, which makes it fairly easy, although unless you pay, your choices for pictures and music are very limited, and you’re only allowed to make a 30-second video–too short, in my opinion. I think I need a full minute to include enough enticing details.

Nonetheless, I completed making my free video with Animoto.com and was excited to download it so I could feature it on my website, when I discover that you aren’t allowed to download the free video unless you upgrade to a paid plan. So it’s not really free. They certainly try to pull you in. Still, the price is reasonable, so I may end up using them . . .

However, I do like to do things free when I can, as long as it doesn’t compromise quality. So I did a little research on how to make a free book trailer, and ended up giving Windows Movie Maker a try. This is certainly more time consuming, but I have more flexibility to do what I want, including making it as long or short as I like. I actually have something fairly decent so far, but it’s not ready to share yet. I need to do some more editing and run it by some test viewers first.

I’m excited to share the Past Suspicion book trailer, but I don’t want to do that till it’s as perfect as I can make it, so please stay tuned!