The Book Trailer Manual

Scott Simon from NPR gives advice on storytelling that you can apply to your book trailers.

Watch on YouTube.

Details of One Software Choice

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?