(Article, sidebar interview, sidebar information charts; Romance Writers Report, trade magazine to 10,500 readers)
Have you longed to have a video promo for your book, but thought you couldn’t afford one? Or have you paid for a video, but wish you could do it yourself next time? You can do it yourself, even if you’re not a computer expert. Follow these step-by-step guidelines and you’ll end up with a book video that will get your name out, sell books, and get you in on the ground floor of the new wave of must-have book promotion—video.
The Brand
Your video should reflect your author brand. Pick three words that describe you and your books, then make sure the typeface, the clipart, the tone, and the music all scream your brand. For a writer of contemporary romance, those three words might be, “funny, fun, and sexy.” For a writer of Scottish historicals, the words might be “intense, moody, and romantic.” If each and every element in your video doesn’t reflect all of these things, your trailer isn’t doing its job.
The Concept
Now that you have your brand firmly in mind, you need a concept. A concept is an idea that’s never been done before that you can build your trailer around. Ask yourself, what is unique about my book (or me)? What is the one selling point I want the viewer to remember?
The hook of your book can be a concept, but be careful not to mistake your synopsis for a hook. A hook is a one-sentence teaser. For example, for the book, Sexiest Man Alive, the hook is, A Gypsy psychic can tell you the name of your soul mate. A synopsis, on the other hand, is the plot, written out step-by-step. For example: “A Gypsy tells Jasmine the name of her soul mate. But she’s too shy to go after him. And all he wants is to be left alone. But they have to work together and then…”
Gary Yong of Fe Productions observes, “Most book videos lapse into overly-long plot summaries…This kind of treatment neither satisfies nor tantalizes one to know more.” Wanting to know more—by buying your book—is what book videos are all about.
There is so much more to your book than the plot. Ask yourself, who are the characters? What experience am I promising my readers? You want the video to bring something new to the party that only video can: emotion. If your video is too rational and plodding, it won’t be memorable.
When you’re thinking about concept, also remember your audience. Sheila English of Cos Productions stresses the need to not “just show your audience…grow your audience.” That is, think outside the box. One way to do this is by making different videos for different audiences. “Highlight the romantic elements with one video…the action/adventure with the next,” English advises.
There is another reason to remember your audience. “If you want to be considered by booksellers to be placed on their sites…be careful about the amount of skin you show,” warns English. This is also true of many video sharing sites. If your video gets an 18+ rating, you might get a lot of views, but they won’t be from folks who are into reading romance.
Steal These Concepts
Here are some examples of concepts that would make great book trailers:
- Titles (text on the screen) of every book title you and your editor rejected (make ‘em up!). Record a voice-over explaining what your book is about while you reject or finesse each title.
- Tell the story from your heroine’s point of view. Or the hero’s. Or the villain’s…
- Don’t sell your book; sell yourself. A great example of this is “A Day in the Life of a Romance Writer” (DeirdreMartin.com).
- Riff on your book cover. No one else has you book cover. See “Why the Sexiest Man Alive Has No Head.” (youtube.com/watch?v=qWbmwUwlawQ)
- Reviews interspersed with your cover set to music are fast, convincing, cheap, and easy. Sometimes, less is more.
Brainstorm. Have fun. For the “Conversations at Borders” series, Susan Jansson incorporated other peoples’ books into her videos—with permission, of course. Julianne Maclean made two trailers and asked people to vote for their favorite (juliannemaclean.com/video_trailers.php). If you don’t do something different, people will forget your trailer, or worse, be bored and click it closed.
Do and Don’t Guidelines
- Don’t be long-winded. Margaret Terwey, head romance buyer for Books-a-Million, says the number one thing she likes in a book trailer is “short.” The number of views you get on YouTube.com counts the number of people who quit after a few dull seconds. You need people (and not just your mother) to watch all the way through. Ninety seconds maximum, shoot for under sixty.
- Don’t steal. Copyright rules should be observed AT ALL TIMES. You cannot set your video to the latest Britney Spears tune. You cannot use clip art that you haven’t paid for. Play by the rules; you wouldn’t want anyone “just using” your book without paying. Read the small print.
- Don’t think that because you can do something, you should. Once you see how easy video software is, you’ll be tempted to spin your titles, set them on fire, peel your cuts, flash your name in rainbow strobe. Please don’t. It’s distracting and it screams amateur.
- Do proofread for clichés in the words and pictures. Did you include a picture of a sunset? A sunrise? Holding hands? A smoking gun? Watch a few book trailers and see how many times you see these images. C’mon, you can do better than that. Or, does your script say, “a heatbreaking story of love and loss”? You wouldn’t put clichés in your book; don’t put them in your video.
- Do proofread for overblown “advertising” claims. If it sounds like an ad, viewers will turn it off. For example, don’t say, “a passionate love story” unless you can prove it: “’A passionate love story,’ says Romantic Times BookClub Magazine.” See the difference?
- Proofread for repetition between pictures and images. If your picture is of a gorgeous man and your script says, “He was gorgeous,” you’re repeating yourself. If your picture is of a gorgeous man and your script says, “He was smart,” now something is happening.
Storyboard It
A storyboard is a frame-by-frame outline of all the audio and video elements of your movie. A storyboard will force you to think your idea through before you start messing around with software. If your storyboard is too confusing, too long, or too boring, you will know before you’ve wasted time and money finding the stock and building the video.
A storyboard has all the audio information on the left side: music, sound effects, and voices on-screen and off-screen. All the visual information is on the right. Down the middle is a sketch that represents the visual content for each frame. Draw stick figures if that’s the best you can do. You’re trying to see if your idea is visual enough for the video medium. This is an example of the first page of a four page storyboard: (picture here).
Once you have your storyboard, go back to the “do and don’t” section and check it. Carefully. Is there anything you can do to make it better? Did you follow the rules? Would you watch it? All the way? Would you remember it? Would it make you buy the book? Have you seen something like it before?
Resources
You need music and images. Before you search the web for images, don’t forget your best resource—your book cover. Lindsey Faber, who makes book videos for bestsellers like Eloisa James, says, “Your cover is your most important resource. Cover recognition can be one of the biggest benefits of book videos.”
Royalty-free Images
If your cover won’t be enough for your concept, you can use “royalty-free” images from any of the numerous stock image companies on the Internet. William Martin of Mushkin Productions, explains, “A royalty-free image is one that is usually advertised as such. You pay a one-time fee for the image and can use it whenever and where ever you want.” Sheila English, of Cos Productions adds, “It is important to remember that ‘royalty-free’ should still be paid for if you’re using it in an ad. And according to the way you intend to use it, the royalty-free license may change.” So be careful and read the small print.
The term “royalty-free” also applies to music. Be careful, and when in doubt, ask by e-mailing the company or the website where you obtained the image or music.
If you plan on leaving the royalty-free sites to gather free images or music off the Internet, please read the sidebar interview with law professor Jessica Litman.
Software
Two major software programs you can use to build your video are probably already on your hard drive as they come free, pre-loaded on most computers: iMovie (Mac) and Windows Movie Maker (PC). If you don’t have them, you can search for them on the Internet and download them free if your computer meets the system requirements.
If you want to go the next step up, Adobe Flash (for all computers) and Final Cut Express (for Macs) are good. But before you buy an expensive program, see what the free ones can do by watching their tutorials (see sidebar).
Samantha Graves, author of Sight Unseen, reports that learning Movie Maker took her “about a week.” Graves says, “It’s a long process, but worth it. I was able to make great, high quality videos for less than $20” (myspace.com/samanthagraves). Graves recommends people take advantage of the Microsoft online tutorial to learn the program.
There are also sites that let you build your movie right on their website, no software needed. Kelley St. John, author of To Catch a Cheat, used OneTrueMedia.com to build all her videos, one of which won a Cameo Award for Best Romantic Suspense Series Trailer (kelleystjohn.com/ShiverandSpice.cfm). These sites lead you step-by-step through the process. (See the sidebar for more build-it-without-software resources.)
If you want to build your own music, Macs come pre-loaded with GarageBand, which also has excellent sound effects. This is a great way to compose original music, even if you aren’t musically inclined. Play around with it or search out any of the excellent tutorials on the web. ACID XPress is a similar free program for a PC. Voice-overs can be recorded right on iMovie or Movie Maker.
Uploading Your Trailer
Upload your trailer to your website, your blogs, your Facebook page, and don’t forget to tell your publisher about your video, so they can link to it. The Wikipedia video sharing page has a comprehensive website list (see sidebar). Also, upload to video sites that cater just to book trailers (see sidebar). Some charge a fee, while others are free. Some video production services, like Cos Productions, will upload your videos and manage them for you for a small fee (cosproductions.com).
Booksellers are also catching on the trailer phenomenon, sometimes using them in-store and in electronic newsletters. Sue Grimshaw, romance buyer for Borders, indicates readers seem to prefer models used in trailers as they often have better viewing results. She advises looking at Cherry Adair’s White Heat or, Christine Feehan’s Dark Possession, as examples of what gets “great click-through.” You can contact buyers like Grimshaw through your publisher.
Amazon.com promises to include uploads of book trailers to book profile pages, but as of this writing, a publisher still has to pay co-op fees to get a video placed there.
You’ve Done It, Now What?
Promote your trailer. This might be the most important thing you do. Decide what key words would help people find your video and then include them in the title, the tags, and the body of the video description. For example, not so many people search for my name or for “romance book trailer.” But the trailer that stars my cat gets a lot of hits from the keywords and tags cat, comedy, and funny. Again, think outside the box. Remember that you’re a creative person, you can do this. After all, making a one-minute video sure is easier than writing a book!
Sidebar interview:
Gathering “free” images and music off the Internet for promotion: A discussion with Jessica Litman, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan
A: If an image or music doesn’t have a copyright statement attached to it or to the site it’s on, is it fair game to use?
- No. Copyright no longer requires notice. Writers should assume that all images they find on the Internet are protected by copyright.
Q: Could you offer a one-sentence guideline on when it’s okay to use an image for promotion and when it’s not?
A: It’s okay to use an image when you have permission from the copyright owner…It’s also okay to use an image if the use is a “fair use”…[but] there aren’t many of those that would apply to this sort of [promotional] use.
Q: Where can writers find a set of comprehensive guidelines on image/music use gathered from Internet sources?
A: Public Knowledge, <http://www.publicknowledge.org>, has put out a book, “So What…About Copyright?” that tries to summarize these issues for filmmakers, writers and artists. One can download a free copy from <http://www.publicknowledge.org/resources/artists/so-what-about-copyright>. I’d also recommend the creative commons site, <http://creativecommons.org/>, which helps writers find material that it is okay for them to use.
Jessica Litman is the author of Digital Copyright and an expert in digital copyright law.
SIDEBAR LISTS:
(Check all sites carefully for specific terms of use!)
Free and Royalty Free Stock Photo Sites
Istockphoto.com
Dreamstime.com
Stockvault.net
Veer.com
Fotolia.com
Free and Royalty Free Music Sites
Ibaudio.com
Digitaljuice.com
Studiocutz.com
Shockwave-sound.com
Royaltyfreemusic.com
Musopen.com (public domain recordings)
Upload Sites
(see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_sharing_websites for non-book-specific sharing sites)
Previewthebook.com
Watchthebook.com
Booktrailerpark.com
Readersentertainmenttv.com
Romancegalleria.com
book-trailers.net
Software Tutorial Sites
microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/create/default.mspx
apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#imovie
current.com/make/training?section
studio.metacafe.com/production_school
Video-building websites (no software needed)
Onetruemedia.com
Photobucket.com
Jumpcut.com
Diana Holquist 5-line Bio:
For fifteen years, Diana Holquist has worked in some of New York City’s top advertising agencies creating ads for clients like Pepsi, BMW, and The New York Knicks. Now she writes romantic comedy for Grand Central Books and makes funny, off-beat videos starring her cat, her husband, and her book covers. You can see Diana’s videos on YouTube by searching for her name and her latest release, Sexiest Man Alive.