Six Tips for Book Trailers That Sell Books

Trailers or teasers have long been used to promote movies. Now publishers and authors are using trailers to promote books on the web.

Trailers are a form of content marketing, so they should not come off as an advertisement but rather as a piece of entertainment that promotes.

I’ve recently produced some book trailers and I want to share a few tips for getting quality results with tight budgets. The reality of most book marketing budgets means that one must create more with less.

People in the book business tell me that books sell because of a) the topic or genre and b) the author. That being said, a trailer can help sell a book by engaging people emotionally. People remember and act upon things that trigger feelings. Furthermore, video is highly discoverable in Internet search results.

While it’s easy to follow the familiar format of film trailers, I don’t think one must slavishly emulate that format. Books are not films. They can be promoted with short documentaries (especially non-fiction books) or voice-over narration for a scene from the book. Anything goes as long as it draws viewers into the story and creates that ‘want to read’ feeling.

Whether you do-it-yourself or hire a professional, here are some tips for good results:

Tip 1: Answer the question, “What’s the hook”?

Identify the hooks or selling points and use them to inform the trailer’s content. Is the book written by a popular author? Is the book written in a recognizable genre? Does the story raise intriguing questions that are answered in the book?

Tip 2: Choose an appropriate format, style, and tone.

The book’s cover design can guide the trailer’s tone and style. Maintaining consistency between the book and the trailer is good for branding. To further inform the trailer’s style and tone, answer these questions: What is the book’s category (fiction or non-fiction)? Who is the audience (by demographics and interests)? What is the genre (mystery, humor, thriller, etc.)? What is the tone (light and funny or dark and suspenseful)?

Tip 3: Work within your budget.

Be realistic about your budget and choose the highest quality approach for the money. It’s better to have great stills and illustrations than poorly done live action or cheap looking animation. If the book itself has illustrations or photographs, use these to create the trailer. It will ensure visual consistency with the book which is, again, good for branding.

Tip 4: Show the book cover.

This is obvious. However, I have seen a few trailers that did not show the book.

Tip 5: Use a call to action.

The trailer should feature the book title (with an image of the book cover), the name of the author, and a website URL where people can buy the book. You can even include a link and a call to action to ‘buy now’ or ‘download now’.

To provide an example, here is a trailer I made for a tween adventure book. Working with a tight budget, I used some of the book’s illustrations combined with live footage I shot for a related documentary. To create dynamics I used image motion and layering. The music befits the adventure genre. Have a look.

Tip 6: Spread the video.

It’s a mistake to only post the trailer on the publisher’s or author’s website. This misses the goal of driving traffic to where people can buy the book. Seed the trailer on relevant book review sites, platforms like YouTube and Facebook, book blogs – anywhere the target audience can see and share it. Provide an URL or link to the book’s purchase point.

Do you have more tips for book trailers?

AUDIENCE BUILDING FOR WEB VIDEO: Part One – The Human Factor

I’m a huge believer in video on the Internet. I think we’ve barely begun to see the opportunities. A lot has been written about search optimisation, promotion, and paid services. I think these tools are great but I also think one shouldn’t slavishly follow a prescribed method. Guidelines for building audiences are useful but they are not a guarantee.

Beginning with this post, I will write a series of articles that go beyond tools and strategies to examine the people factor — audience psychology and behaviour. Content creators who understand people can make better use of the latest tools and strategies and can better understand why audience building strategies that work for one video or series don’t necessarily work for others.

What is an Audience? To begin, I think most people intuitively understand an audience is a defined group of people who collectively view, hear, or otherwise receive content with or without input and participation. Beyond that basic definition, there is a vast scholarly body of work on audience analysis. Let’s outline the two basic concepts.

1)      Passive Audience: This is also called the Hypodermic Model because it’s based on the concept of ‘injecting’ content into a passive homogenous mass of people. It assumes the creator or exhibitor is the powerful deliverer of content and that the masses have few choices but to receive what is delivered. This model views media as a powerful tool to shape the minds of the masses. Critics argue it limits content to a prescribed message and ignores how audiences use media beyond simply receiving it. It also ignores how each viewer’s individual experiences and beliefs cause him or her to have different perspectives on the same content. While the Hypodermic Model is rejected by most of today’s media thinkers, it has some proven applications. The most obvious example is propaganda  delivered within a controlled environment that excludes dissenting messages.

2)      Active Audience: The definitive example of an Active Audience Model is the Uses and Gratification Theory (Blumer and Katz 1974). This model portrays the audience as a diverse proactive group who choose and use media in different ways to fulfil their personal goals and needs. It acknowledges individual perspectives. Critics of the Uses and Gratification Theory point to flaws in data used to arrive at the theory and say it fails to explain why some people do appear to behave like passive consumers.  This theory continues to evolve as more media scholars analyse and build upon it.

If you think web video most closely fits the Uses and Gratification Model, you’re correct. Audience behaviour on the Internet is exemplified by people making choices and interacting with content. The next post, Audience Building for Web Video: Part Two – Audience Needs explains what motivates audiences to choose certain shows.

Why New Ideas Die

In the creative business, the tyranny of the status quo says, “Give me the same thing, only different.”

From the moment new ideas are conceived, they face tough odds. The more innovative the idea, the more likely it will be rejected or reduced to something familiar and safe. I’m not completely knocking the status quo. It keeps the wheels turning and the cash registers humming. That is, until “the-same-old, same-old” doesn’t work anymore. Then people demand something new and different. Unfortunately, by then it can be too late.

To promote creativity and avoid the tyranny of the status quo, beware these killers of new ideas:

Silence

Countless ideas are never spoken because the people who envision them fear criticism and rejection. To ensure people pitch and share new ideas, create a receptive environment. This doesn’t mean you should blindly embrace every new idea. Just give them a fair hearing so the team can decide if they’re worth pursuing.

Fear of the Unknown

When a new idea is first pitched, it’s difficult to know if it’s a stroke of genius or a dud. There’s always the nagging worry, “What if it doesn’t work?” The risk of investing time and resources in the unknown too often leads to new ideas being dismissed while familiar ideas gain traction. Familiar ideas are easier to embrace because they are predictable in terms of time, resources, and outcome. To give new ideas a chance, identify how they can fit into your known resources and workflow. Do some early inexpensive testing to get feedback from the community (clients, audiences).

Pressure to Conform

The need for accountability and control can prematurely derail new ideas when unknowns and misfires are seen as failure. Once labeled as a failure, new ideas surrender to pressure from the status quo and are either abandoned or reduced to being “the same old thing”. To help new ideas survive, determine stake holder tolerance for the unknown and decide in advance how much time and resources can be allocated to bring the new idea to fruition.

Fresh new ideas are the way forward. Knowing how to steward them through these perils will ensure more of your ideas gain traction and succeed.

DIGITAL BOOKS: MOTION PICTURES MEET PRINT

The divide between what is a video and what is a book is blurring as technology integrates text and video for entirely new content experiences. In the past, when I made a video that needed a print component (a common requirement for educational media), I had to create a separate element. Or, if the book was the main element, an accompanying video might be included as a DVD inserted into the cover jacket. One of the problems with these multi-component packages was the tendency of the print and video to become separated. I longed for a way to combine them in one seamless package. Finally, that day has arrived.

One fun project I’m working on now is a “digital book” that combines the text, video, and interactive elements in one tidy file. How cool is that? It might have been a good old fashioned book had I written it a few years ago. Now, the ability to embed videos makes this more useful and entertaining.

This project is finishing up research while the writing has begun. I’ve also completed a lot of the photography. As things move along I’ll share more on the production process and then it’s on to publication.