Immagica Blitz + Giveaway - The Book Trailer

One thing I love about doing promo for my books is creating a book trailer. The entire process motivates me, and I get excited about my story all over again. Today I'd like to share my thoughts on making book trailers, and what I've found works for me.

The first place I start is with a pen and paper. I visualise what I'd like the trailer to look like, the images I want to use, and I jot down thoughts for the text. It's like writing a mini script that needs to tell the story in a short time frame.

Once I'm pretty happy with my script, I turn to Photoshop and get started on my slides. Remember to only use images you have the right to use, so things you've created yourself, or purchased images are fine. I'm not very good with the whole moving video thing, so I go for still images with transitions and effects, and it works for what I want to achieve. When my slides are ready I import them into Windows Movie Maker. Then I have a play with the length of each slide, the transitions between them, and I overlay the text. This is also where I make more slides—if I think they're needed—and adjustments to the script.

Music is a very important part of the video, and it needs to convey the tone of the story, but something to consider when choosing the right music is copyright. You can't just take your favourite song and whack it in a video. It's actually a copyright infringement to do so, and could land you in all sorts of trouble. For the Immagica video I used stock audio from iStock, and I'm completely happy with the results.They have a huge range of tracks for every mood, setting, or vibe, and are quite affordable.

There are lots of video making programs out there, so I guess you just need to find one you can use easily to get the results you're after. I like Movie Maker because it's simple to use, and I taught myself how in a couple of hours.

In terms of duration, I like to keep my book trailers short, because I don't want to lose my viewer's attention. About a minute is a good length of time. I also don't tell the whole story, but try to make it more of an intriguing tease.

Here's what I did for the Immagica video. I wanted to keep it relatively simple, and focus on the text. I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love to know what you think.



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