Need to know where to post book trailers? Sign up for The Book Trailer Manual Newsletter and, as a special thank-you, you’ll receive a free Special Report: 43 Sites to Post Trailers.
Featured Sites: Reaching the Religious Market
Releasing a book and book trailer for the religious market? Our manual lists GodTube.com, but here are 3 more, plus more detail on GodTube.com.
ChristianBookVideos.com
They say: “CBV is dedicated to using book videos to promote Christian books that inspire, educate, and guide.” They features videos about books with Christian content and national distribution.
Read their FAQ and pdf about how to get your video featured.
BlackChristianBookVideos.com
They say: “The mission of BCBV is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people of African descent and whosoever will through promoting books written by people of African descent that proclaim this message.” To get your book trailer video featured, read their Q&A.
CatholicBookVideos.com
They say: “Catholic Book Videos is dedicated to using book videos to promote books that inspire, educate, and guide the Catholic and Episcopalian reader.” Sent them an email about your video at contact@catholicbookvideos.com.
GodTube.com is part of Tangle, an online community for Christians. The largest and slickest of these sites, it features a wide variety of book trailers and videos, including many in Spanish. To post here, you must sign up for a page as an individual, a group, a church or a band. You’ll have your own page and can add content as you want. Content is monitored for appropriateness.
Need to know where to post book trailers? Sign up for The Book Trailer Manual Newsletter and, as a special thank-you, you’ll receive a free Special Report: 43 Sites to Post Trailers.
Clarissa Draper is featuring a tutorial on using MovieMaker to create a book trailer, The Sholes Key Book Trailer.
Moviemaker is available on most Windows machines, or she gives a link to download it free. MovieMaker is certainly a good program for beginners and Draper’s tutorial is easy to understand and well-illustrated with screen captures.
The great thing about book trailers is that you can find your audience online somewhere. As an ongoing feature, I’ll be profiling different sites that use book trailers somewhere on their sites. Please only submit to them if you have something that fits their audience. Go and look at the site, study it to see what audience they reach. Then, follow their guidelines for submitting.
Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Historical Romance at Escape Between the Pages Blog
Lori can you tell us about your website?
I love to escape between the pages of a good book. I made my blog, so I can share my love of books with anyone interested in knowing, what I consider a great read. Since I love reading, talking about books, and surfing the internet, what better way to enjoy and express myself at the same time, then to have my own blog? Escape Between The Pages is an extension of my feelings and thoughts. It also provides me with the opportunity to connect with others, who enjoy reading as much as I do. It’s a great way to make new friends and keep informed with the world of books. While it is primarily a book review blog, I try to be versatile, such as weekly memes, trailers, internal articles, discussions, etc… I should also mention, I am not a professional critic…I am just a wife, mother, dog owner and avid book reader. I make many grammatical snafus, I swear alot, and I am not always the most tactful. But, I am an honest reviewer, I have common sense, and I am pretty easy going. I hope that it reflects in my postings.
What types of books do you feature on your site? Which are your favorite?
The books I feature are mostly Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Historical Romance. They are the Big 3 on my list of favorite genres. On occasion, I will read and review other books that have a crossover appeal, provided they contain a supernatural, paranormal or urban fantasy element.
What’s your favorite book you read this year?
There were many books I loved reading this year, thus far. Many are from seasoned authors, such as: Ilona Andrews, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Julie Garwood. But, I think it has been the debut authors that have stood out the most. A few books that come to mind are:
Three Days To Dead by Kelly Medding
Proof By Seduction by Courtney Milan
Mind Games by Carolyn Crane
Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep
What’s the best way for someone to submit a book trailer to you and your site?
If someone has a book trailer (Author, Publisher, fan-based, etc) that consist of my genre preferences, they can feel free to email me: ladyrogue@ymail.com and I will consider them.
Anything else you want those with book trailers to know about you or your site?
I love watching book trailers. I find them informative and visually entertaining. I appreciate the talent, creativity, and patience that goes into making them. If I could post them all on my blog, I would. But I can’t. So, I rotate the trailers out of my sidebar about every 3-5 days.
For your first few videos, while you’re learning software, I suggest you do a couple slide shows. The first should be on Animoto.comRead more on Animoto here. Animoto.com will give you an easy transition into the process and you’ll find out something about your aesthetics. It’s free and easy.
The second video, made with the same set of images & sound, should be with the Vegas Movie maker software, or something similar. A slideshow on Vegas will teach you the software in a simple way. It’s not free, but it’s a step up in software and you’ll be glad you did it.
What you Need
You’ll need about 12-20 photos in a .jpeg or .png format and a sound track. You can buy something from a place like iTunes, or you can try a sample sound track that comes on most computers (search for any sound files and see what came preinstalled). You’ll need to sign up with Animoto.com for a free account and buy the Vegas (or similar) software.
Learning Transitions in 30 minutes
First, try a 30-second video using the free service at Animoto.com. It’s simple:
Create an account at Animoto.com
Log in and click on Create a Video.
Upload your photos. You can drag-and-drop them to rearrange the order.
Add a title page, by clicking on the T-text icon at the bottom.
Upload your sound track; or you can choose from Animoto.com’s library.
Choose a speed for the photos to show, either 1/2 speed, normal speed, or double speed. This is the feature you should play with. Professor Dull, Associate Professor of Digital Filmmaking at the University of Central Arkansas, said one of the mistakes beginners make is to linger too long on one picture. Animoto.com allows you to remix a video numerous times to play with this. For now, leave it at normal speed and click on finish. Animoto.com will take a few minutes to create the video. You can navigate away and it will email you when the video is done.
After watching the video, you’ll see a Video Toolbox button below the video box. Click on that and remix the video at 1/2 speed and double speed.
Evaluate the Video. Watching the video, you’ll notice that the appeal of an Animoto.com video is the transitions, or how it moves from one still image to another. This eye candy adds movement and appeal to an otherwise bland slideshow.
There are aesthetics to consider here: do you like the extensive use of transitions? what speed do you like the photos shown at?
Slideshow on Vegas: couple hours
It’s time to try the Vegas software or something similar that offers direct control of the images, sound, transitions, special effects, etc. It’s a step toward a more professional look.
Use the same photos and sound track that you used on the Animoto.com slideshow.
When Vegas starts, it has a Help screen. If it doesn’t, click on the Show Me How button on the top menu or click on the Help and search the index for the step you want to take next. You should probably do a couple of the overview tutorials, but then click on How to Make a Movie or Slideshow.
You’ll want to do these things: create a project, import media (your photos and sound track), add media to the timeline.
Add a title page: follow the tutorial to generate media for the text track.
Follow the tutorial to add transitions.
So far, you’ve just done what Animoto.com com did, it just took you a lot longer! But you want to add another step. Within any photo, there are areas of greater interest and Vegas allow you to pan across a photo and zoom in on those details. Follow the tutorial for Pan/Scan.
Upload to YouTube.com For practice, you might want to follow the procedures to upload your video to YouTube.com. You can always mark it private, so no one else will see it. Besides familiarizing you with the process of publishing online, it will also give you chance to see how your software performs online.
It’s interesting to compare the video you created and Animoto.com’s videos. You’ll appreciate better the eye candy that Animoto.com adds. After doing it myself, I found that Animoto.com’s was too heavy on the transitions. I liked using the pan/scan feature better to direct the eye. The automation of Animoto.com was mindless and didn’t always direct attention where it should be.
Your Next Videos
The slideshow teaches you how to use your software. Now, it’s up to you. The process is the same if you add slides or video, so take your video camera out into the world and start taping and making videos!
2 Rules for Beginners to Follow
Professor Dull suggests two rules to start:
You should be able to see what you want to see.
You should be able to hear what you want to hear.
The nuances of videotaping could be studied for a lifetime and these two rules would still apply. Do whatever you have to with light, camera angle, etc. to make sure the viewer can see what you want them to see. Do whatever you have to with microphones to make sure the viewer can hear what you want them to hear. Good rules to videotape by.
After taping, edit and revise until it’s right.
Practice, practice, practice. You’ll need to practice creating memorable ideas, videotaping and editing before you’re ready for prime time–or YouTube.com.
The Book Trailer Manual reviews about a dozen types of software. Some are online exclusively, some you buy and download to your computer.
BEST USE: Adding movement to a static, boring slideshow.
Animoto.com is an online software which allows you to create book trailers with great simplicity. They call it the end of slideshows because they take still images and animate them with zooms, and special effects such as fade-in, spin-in, etc.
Animoto Accounts
Animoto Shorts (30 second videos) are free and you can make as many as you want; you can’t download videos, though, only embed them on the web.
Animoto Pro allows unlimited any-length video and downloads.
Animoto Business removes the Animoto logo that are present in the previous type of accounts and gives you access to a much wider range of music; you can also resell videos made this way.
What Makes Animoto Special?
Animoto is based on a unique type of software which takes your images and music and mixes them by adding motion: zoom, pan, special effects as the images come in or go out of the screen, etc. If slide shows are boring because they are, well, static images, Animoto videos are just the opposite. They are full of motion. Frankly, I prefer something in between those two extremes, but Animoto videos are much better than static slideshows for most book trailer efforts.
Create Your First Image on Animoto
Images. Animoto’s free account allows a thirty second video, which is about 9-20 images. Plan for one of those images to be a text slide with the title of your book and one text slide for your Call to Action (what you want a viewer to do after watching your book trailer; for more, see this section of The Book Trailer Manual.) Gather your images into one folder to make upload easier and faster. Once you’ve uploaded your images, drag and drop until the images are in the order you want. Click on the T to add text slides and drag and drop to desired positions.
Music. Animoto has a music lounge that includes music they have already licensed for use in their videos. Music categories include Featured Tracks, Romantic, Top 40 Pop, Indie Rock, Electronica, Hip Hop, Singer/Songwriter, Latin, Jazz, Classical, Country, Gospel/Christian, and Oldies. You can choose from one of their songs or upload your own (mp3 format only).
Speed. Animoto can spend a lot of time on each image, or not much time. Choose a normal speed for the first time.
Let Animoto Work. Click to create the video and then, sit back and let them do the work. You can close the page; they’ll email you when the video is done.
Remix. One nice feature is that you can ask Animoto to remix the video multiple times until you get what you want. Try remixing at half speed and again at normal speed. Add or subtract images, or re-sequence them until you are happy.
Distribute. Finally, grab the code to embed the videos and start spreading them around. Here are some of my Animoto.com videos.
Fifteen Minutes of Fame Video Contest on YouTube.com
YouTube.com announced today they are increasing the maximum length for uploaded videos to fifteen minutes. The previous limit was ten minutes? Is it a good idea to create a fifteen minute book trailer? Or even a ten minute book trailer?
To make it more fun, YouTube has announced a Fifteen Minutes of Fame contest.
Basically, make a 15 minute video that tells the world everything you want them to know about you.
Upload the video to YouTube.com with the tag “yt15minutes”
Deadline is August 4. Only six days away!
The Prize: If selected, you will be featured on the Home Page of YouTube and get thousands of views! Wow!
Fifteen Minute Book Trailers?
Aside from the question of entering and getting noticed in such a contest, there’s now the possibility of a fifteen minute video about your book. Should you go for it?
Conventional wisdom says that book trailers work best if they are 1-2 minutes long. Wait! Conventional wisdom? Book trailers are still in their infancy as an art form, so how can you say that? OK. For the last couple years, it seems easier to keep an audience’s attention with a short trailer. But maybe it’s time to experiement?
Great Digital Storytelling
Sticky Concepts. If you attempt this, you’ll need great digital storytelling. You’ll want to think about the story first, and then how you might demonstrate that through the medium of video. It’s always the concept that is important and when it goes long, it’s doubly important. Are your ideas something that will capture the imagination of people and keep them reading?
Think about the short animated films you’ve seen, such as those from Pixar. If they struggle filling up five minutes, you know it’s hard.
The Book Trailer Manual includes 14 specific ideas for content and 10 ways to approach images and sound as you create compelling content. Need help or inspiration? The Book Trailer Manual Playlists on YouTube.com lead you through book trailers that illustrate your options. Read more.
Long Copy v. Short Copy. Direct mail experts, those people who send you long snail mail communications say that writing a long letter gets better results. Sounds crazy. But it often works for web pages that advertise products for sale: long pages bring a better return than short.
Written word, of course, can be scanned, while videos must be viewed. Here are some unknowns:
When a viewer sees how long the video is, will they even click on it?
Would you lose viewers after a few minutes?
Would you still get sales from viewers who click away early?
At what point would they click away to buy?
What percentage of viewers would watch the entire video?
