Book Trailers! (Part 2 of 2)

Last week we looked at examples of successful trailers and the software used to produce them. This week we’ll look at additional samples, including comparison of a teaser trailer to a regular trailer, and we’ll also talk about music and suggest a few sites where you can post your trailers.

First, let’s take a look at the trailer for Façades. Alex Marcoux produced Façades in Movie Maker, and for this video she purchased stock photos to supplement images she already owned.

Façades:

Last week Alex mentioned she was able to use the original song from the Back to Salem short film for that trailer, but she purchased the music for Façades, from a site such as freeplaymusic.com, and Bonnie Ramthun told us that she purchased the music for The White Gates.  I can now attest to the logic of purchasing music, as I spent far too many hours searching royalty-free sites for music for Fogg in the Cockpit.  Next time I’ll emulate Bonnie and Alex. 

There’s another choice for music though, and that’s creating your own, which can be done with software such as GarageBand, which was used by the designer of my Soliloquy book trailers. Yet another option would be to narrate your trailer, which might work better for non-fiction, though it could also work for fiction.  Think about it!  Depending on the genre, a multi-person cast might be interesting and you could even add sound effects.

Now let’s compare a teaser trailer to a regular trailer.  I hired my friend Matt of Infinite Improbability Productions to create a trailer for Soliloquy, and he created two.  Before we started Matt read my long synopsis for the book, and then we met to discuss goals and review my preliminary text for the trailer.  He then read the book before creating story boards.  After I reviewed those and fine-tuned the text, he took over.  It was his idea to first release the teaser trailer and then the full trailer. 

Soliloquy teaser trailer:

Soliloquy full trailer:

Similar yet different, and many shots were used in both, though Matt created unique music for each.  The teaser trailer was released several months before the full trailer, so I could (hopefully!) create buzz when announcing each.  

If you decide to hire a designer to create your trailer, look at samples of their work to make certain they create the type of trailer you’re envisioning, and get a written proposal that includes a schedule for completion and payment.  Think about whether it’s important to you to have live action or special effects, as that will dramatically increase the cost of the trailer.

Where are you going to post your trailer?  Better yet, where aren’t you going to post your trailer?  You can post trailers on your author page on Amazon, Goodreads, AuthorsDen, and ManicReaders, on blogs, websites, on Facebook, and in chat rooms.   There’s also YouTube, Veoh, Blazing Trailers, MetaCafe, Dailymotion, Trailerspy, and many other video viewing sites.  Before posting, remember to carefully consider your key words or tags.  Oh, and search for book trailer contests and review sites just for trailers. 

To summarize, whether creating your own trailer or hiring a designer, have an idea in mind for your storyline and write it out.  Then find images that capture your vision.  Think about music, sound effects, live-action footage, narration, and whether you want to have text flowing across your images or separate screen shots of text.  Find music or compose original music.  Decide on your opening and closing credits, and there you have it.  Okay, maybe it’s not quite that simple.  But the end-result?  A movie about your book.  A video preview that can be found based on keywords you’ve selected.  A trailer that captures your book’s passion and pain, its guts and glory, ending, of course, with your website and ordering information for all those voracious readers out there. 

Hey!  Where’s the popcorn?

By Janet Fogg, with Bonnie Ramthun and Alex Marcoux

What's New from Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers?

This is just a sample of the recently released books from members of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers:

Sherry Ficklin announces that her teen mystery Military Brats: After Burn is now available for Nook, Kindle, and other eReaders.

"Reece Barnet and her father have just relocated to sunny North Carolina, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point to be exact. It's another new town and another new school. But just as Reece is starting to fit in, a rash of bomb threats rocks her father's experimental aircraft squadron. When the authorities track the threats to Reece's school, she decides to do some investigating of her own. Unfortunately, the more she digs, the more it looks like her new boyfriend is the culprit.

When the unthinkable happens and her father is rushed to the hospital, it becomes a race aginst time as Reece fights to protect her father, clear her boyfriend, and discover the suprising truth of the person behind it all!"

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Murder by Proxy, the second book in the Edna Davies series by Suzanne Young, is now available in paperback.

"Protagonist Edna Davies discovers that automation can be convenient, but it can also be deadly. In the Colorado Rockies on an errand of mercy, Edna is accosted by a private detective and challenged to find a missing woman.

Anita Collier appears to be alive. Her paycheck is deposited, her bills are paid, her phone is answered; but closer inspection reveals everything is automated. Nobody has actually seen her for several weeks, except perhaps Edna's son, but he isn't talking. In her search for the truth, Edna plunges deep into danger when she uncovers more than one murder and struggles to prevent another."

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Alexis Brooks de Vita announces her newest publication, Dante's Inferno: A Wanderer in Hell, is available in e-book and paperback from Blood Moon Publishing.

"For an urban English-speaker in the twenty-first century, the original language of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the first act of his trilogy, the Comedy, would read like a shockingly accurate critique of today’s globalized society, if we could understand it. Dante’s Inferno: A Wanderer in Hell gives second-millennial English-language readers a chance to share the pathos, the humor, and the raw political aggression of Dante’s vision of Hell.

Dante’s Inferno: A Wanderer in Hell preserves the meaning of Dante’s verses, line by line. Where a literal translation of his highly philosophical but often slang-rich text will not make sense for the twenty-first century English-speaking reader, the most reasonable compromise of the literal and figurative is used."

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Facades, a novel by Alex Marcoux, is coming back in print in paperback from Bella Books and should be available next week. The novel can be pre-ordered today.

"She's a singing sensation.

When rumors about her private life send her CD sales plummeting, Anastasia is trapped with few options. Desperate, manager Sidney Marcum helps her star client concoct a façade to distract fans and media. It seems to work ... for a while.

Sidney has skeletons of her own, life-threatening ones. She won't tell, even though the compelling connection she feels to Anastasia makes her long for a happiness she cannot have. Instead she puts on a brave front and hides her feelings to safeguard her secrets.

Outside forces create cracks in their façades until only Anastasia and Sidney can tell what's real by what's in their hearts. But some secrets come at immeasurable expense."

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Watch for more new releases next month.


Posted by Pat Stoltey