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Book Trailers And Using Video For Book Marketing

OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn

I'm definitely a fan of multimedia as one aspect of marketing.
I've been doing audio podcasts and videos for nearly 5 years now and I think it can help stand out from the crowd since authors, unsurprisingly, mostly use text based marketing. I've also made my own book trailers before, for Pentecost and also for Desecration.

Trailers can certainly be a very different way to get attention for your book and today, I'm going more in depth on the topic with Jerome McLain from Book Frenzy Studios.

First, check out the trailer for Gates of Hell below or here on YouTube, which Jerome made for me. It's certainly a cut above what I have been doing myself! You can find all the links to the book in ebook or print format here.

Who are you and what's your background in video marketing?

My name is Jerome McLain, I'm a South Carolina native, married with two children, and an avid racquetball player.

My experience with video marketing began with me creating short product videos for a telecom company back in 2006. I've continued to work in video ever since shooting, producing, editing and optimizing video. I also consult for a production company that coaches authors how to turn their book into a tv show or film project.

Why is video an important part of book marketing?

I believe video is very important for 5 reasons:

  • The explosive growth and popularity of video allows an author to be seen by large numbers of existing and potential new fans.
  • Video can directly impact your marketing efforts because it is a “shareable” medium that can create immediate buzz about your book.
  • Video can foster deeper connections between authors and their readers by increasing the KLT (Know, Like, Trust) Factor which is critical to book sales.
  • Video helps keep your book top-of-mind as the reader is faced with the choice of purchasing your book over another title.
  • Video is cost-effective. Once created, it continues to deliver your message 24/7 with no further investment costs.

[From Joanna: I would add that video trailers can be particularly effective for translations, where you have fewer options for marketing if you don't speak the language. I've done German, Italian and Spanish trailers using the same English video with translated words. So in that case, it's great value!]

What evidence is there for book trailers actually getting attention and buyers for books?

A book trailer is a specific type of video marketing. Some video marketing stats that authors need to be aware of are:

Readers are 64% more likely to purchase your book if they see a book trailer that effectively promotes your book. (Source: ComScore)

Using a book trailer on a sales landing page can increase conversion rates by as much as 80% (Source: Unbounce)

Visitors to your author website stay an average of 2 minutes longer than on author sites that do not use video. (Source: ComScore)

92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others. (Source: Invodo)

Authors who use book trailer video in email campaigns can experience Open Rates [increases] from 19% to 300%! (Source: Forrester Research)

These stats show that if a book trailer is used strategically as a video marketing tool (rather than a vanity item) it can lead to increased awareness and book sales.

Besides creating an engaging book trailer, the most important thing I can recommend is Distribution. This means taking your book trailer and posting it to several top websites in your niche or genre. I believe this is a critical step that many authors either skip or don’t know.

Posting your trailer on YouTube or FaceBook isn’t enough these days.

You must strategically place your trailer in all online/offline places where book buyers hangout. I truly believe a widely distributed mediocre book trailer will generate more book sales than an amazing trailer that is practically invisible online.

What makes a good book trailer – and a bad book trailer?

A good script, creative editing and brevity are what make a good book trailer.

The trailer should visually hint at what takes place in the storyline rather than literally explaining all the details. A well edited trailer keeps the story moving and ensures that the trailer isn’t too short or too long in duration. Your music selection and quality of graphics are also important considerations for a successful trailer.

The book trailer for Revived by Cat Patrick is an example of really good work. Also, the trailer for Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is awesome. These are two great examples of trailers that make you want to know more about the book after viewing them.

Examples of a bad book trailers are everywhere. Most of them are not actually trailers but rather DIY slideshows.

There are some popular services that make creating video easier but I liken them to the early days of desktop publishing: just because you have a tool that allows you to create your own layouts, doesn’t mean you will automatically (or easily) produce professional results. They often use low quality graphics/photos, copyrighted music (don’t even get me started on that!) and poor music selection.

Poor editing makes them way too long and they just plod along to the bitter end. The main reason why they don’t work is that viewers’ tastes are more sophisticated these days. You are competing with what they see on network tv, cable, etc. Some examples of really bad trailers are here and here.

What are some tips for authors wanting to do their own book trailers?

First, I’ll cover some great sources of media for your trailer. For beautiful, high resolution images that you can download for free, visit www.unsplash.com. Another site along the same lines is www.gratisography.com.

Video clips for your trailer can be expensive but fortunately there are some really good free or inexpensive options. You can find free public domain clips at www.archive.org. You can find thousands of great video clips at www.videoblocks.com. They offer very high quality videos for a super low yearly subscription. For music go to www.freestockmusic.com. Just create a free account and download all types of music styles for free with no license restrictions.

Once you have your media, here are 4 basic steps to creating a trailer that has impact:

  • Write a script specifically for video. Start with your book’s synopsis. Its usually brief and provides enough detail without giving away the plot. Make your trailers duration is no longer than 90 seconds. A good rule of thumb to remember is 50 words amounts to about 30 seconds of video.
  • Find appropriate music. Music sets the emotional tone of the trailer and is just as important as the visuals. Wisely choose what goes with the story you’re telling with the video. Watch trailers in your genre to study what music selections were used.
  • Edit the trailer. PC users can edit using Movie Maker which comes installed with Windows while Mac users can edit with iMovie. A great resource to learn tips & tricks of editing video is lynda.com.
  • Distribute your trailer in multiple places. Although a great place to post, YouTube is now a crowded space that requires LOTS of work to be noticed there. That said, don’t put all your eggs in that basket. There are video distribution services such as oneload.com that, for a fee, will distribute your video to multiple, popular social and video sharing sites. This really increases the chances of your hard work being seen and traffic being led back to your site or blog.

[From Joanna: My book trailers are certainly nowhere near the quality of Jerome's, but here's how you can make a DIY book trailer like my earlier efforts.]

Where can people find you online?

We just launched a new website at www.bookfrenzystudios.com. You can see examples of our work, watch client testimonials and contact us for a complimentary consultation on any video marketing services that we offer.

Do you have any questions about book trailers for Jerome? Or have you done a book trailer that you'd like to share? Please leave a comment below.

Joanna Penn:

View Comments (37)

  • Thank you for this valuable information. Jerome McLain is the real deal when it comes to video marketing. I have used his services and highly recommend him to others. I love all the resources listed. Who knew we authors can take control of this part of our marketing/branding?

    • Hi Sandra,
      Some additional top video sharing sites that you can upload your trailer to are:
      Vimeo.com, Veoh.com, Dailymotion.com, Metacafe.com, Flickr.com and Blip.tv

      Also, consider renaming your video file (that you upload) and the title to something like: Book Trailer of Can You Hear The Music. Adding the keywords “book trailer” to the title increases the chances of it being discovered by anyone performing searches for book trailers.

      Hope that helps.

      Jerome

  • Joanna,

    The shade of grey you use for your normal lettering does not provide enough contrast for me. For that reason, I often stop reading your posts a third of the way in. Like today.

    I will be grateful if you will darken your font.

    Thank you.

  • This is a book trailer/teaser I made for a book I love. I'm only a fan, so it's just clips from videos I've seen and a song I shortened. It's hours and hours of looking through videos and movies, but making the trailer is so much fun. I hope book trailers will become part of the cinema at some point. Like right before the movie adaption for a book you love, they show you trailers from similar books. *daydream* =)

    Thank you so much.

    http://youtu.be/DXDrD501mBM

  • I'm sold and excited to get to work on my book trailer! Thank you for the guidelines and resources so we can add to the body of "good" trailers out there, too.

  • Joanna: Bravo to you for adopting video and podcasting five years ago. That is amazing! And thank you for introducing me and others to Jerome. I haven't yet ventured into video (although I started my podcast in January) but I know I need to. Thank you for all of the great resources in this post. I plan to mention it in an upcoming podcast and of course I have already shared it on all my social media. This was a truly great post.

    • Thanks so much for sharing Frances - I am often early into things, it seems :) And yes, Jerome has some great resources.

  • Outstanding article with great content. I particularly agree with the comment about DIY slideshows. However, I would argue that done right, even a slideshow can form the basis of a good trailer as long as attention is paid to design; scripting; colour, font, and image selection; along with the points raised in this article.

    I look at a lot of the DIY book trailers through the lens of an eLearning developer and many of the mistakes made in early eLearning efforts show up in trailers: mis-matched images, inappropriate or unrelated images, poor colour selection, uneven content/information delivery, and lack of a clearly defined design framework.

    All that said, I'm putting together a book trailer that is strictly a slideshow (at this point). Can I make it work? Heh. We'll find out. :)

  • Thanks, Joanna! Loads of useful information in this post! And it is certainly true, that videos offer so much more possibilities.

  • I've had book trailers made, and I've done my own. Pending a re-release of a romantic suspense series with new covers and titles, I'll also be upgrading the video trailer so Mr. McLain's advice is both timely and extremely valuable! Thanks!

    • Hi Judy,
      I'm glad the info was helpful. Please post a link to your trailer when its completed.

  • Wonderful post Joanna, and as usual, so informative. I'm both a writer and photographer and use both in my non-fiction books featuring poetic trails of historic churches and cemeteries. My plan was to do a video on each location from each chapter, but it sounds like I need to create a trailer first. I have a Canon 7D camera which takes HD videos. I also have iMovie. I'm interested, Jerome and JoAnna, on your thoughts. Am I on the right track and is my camera good enough for a high-quality video? Thanks again!

    • Hi Deborah, I would definitely take video of your historic churches and cemeteries as well as lots of pics - I think video is best when there's lots of it - not just one in isolation. So share as you go!
      I'm a taphophile too by the way :) Here's my graveyard board on Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/jfpenn/graveyards/

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