Exploring Book Trailer Creation ~ Tips

The nice thing about book trailers is that they're short, or should be! The not-so-nice thing is, regardless of length, creating one is still time consuming. I've been pondering creating a few for embedding in my author website, which is the only practical purpose for having them. I do have a YouTube page under my pen name, but it's only populated with two trailers that I made years ago, and how anyone would find them remains a mystery. 

Back when I was creating music videos for our band, I used Windows Moviemaker, which, to me, is still the best free application for ease of use and intuitiveness. Microsoft now has something called ClipChamp and I checked it out yesterday. Immediately I was turned off by its web-based functionality. It's often taken me a few sessions to finish a video, and so I like having it stored on my hard drive as opposed to having to worry that my hard work might simply disappear. 

I was willing to experiment with it, though, and it does have some nice features. If one is looking to add narration to a video, ClipChamp has several AI voices from which to choose, and many of them are natural sounding (some aren't). It also has a good-sized media library with images, video clips, and music; but here's the rub. Almost all the selections are only available to premium members. I discovered that when I tried to add a very nice music clip to my test video and was told, "Not so fast. You've gotta pay extra for that." I pay to renew my Microsoft 365 subscription every year, and being expected to pay an additional monthly fee for a video editor is outrageous. I'm guessing ClipChamp won't last long under these requirements, when someone can flat out buy a better editing app they can store on their hard drive.

So, ClipChamp is out. And no, I'm not willing to shell out money for an application I'll only use sporadically, so my default is Windows Moviemaker. I'm fine with that, but more functionality would be a bonus. With WMM I'll have to find my own free music, but I've done it before and I know there are several sites that offer it, including Pixabay. And no, my book trailers won't have audio narration, but I don't think I'd want that anyway. A book trailer should set a mood, entice someone into wanting to read the book, and the best way to accomplish that is with a combination of nice images and video, along with the appropriate musical accompaniment. I'm also not averse to inserting a few quotes from the book, if they'd help to drive interest. Creating those are simple enough with an app such as Canva ~ one can even turn these into dynamic (or "kinetic") typography that'll zoom onto the screen however you want it to zoom. WMM also has this function, but if you want something fancier, create one with Canva and download it.

I had a true forehead-slapping moment yesterday when I was searching online for free video. I've used Pixabay many times for royalty-free images, and never once noticed that the site also offers royalty-free videos. (By the way, it also has a library of sound effects, as well as the afore-mentioned music.)

The truly time consuming aspect of creating a book trailer is finding appropriate images (again, Pixabay!). A creator will first need to at least mentally outline what aspects of the book he/she wants to emphasize. With some genres, that can be simple ~ the themes are obvious ~ but for my own particular genre, things change from book to book, so for example, if I wanted to make a trailer for Shadow Song, there are a few fundamentals I would want to feature; a dark woods definitely being one, since that's where the inciting incident occurs, but off the top of my head, I would emphasize the lake and its surroundings, since that's the setting for the story. I might include some amusement park video or images, but one sort of needs to know the story in order to "get" that reference. In short, I don't yet know what I would include, and I don't even know which book I'll choose to make a trailer for yet. Once I do settle on a specific book, I'll tend to let the images I find guide me. One might not always end up choosing the most obvious ones. Remember ~ mood.

I dislike a video that simply clicks from one image to the next, so I employ WMM's transition effects. It's more visually appealing to dissolve in or fade out each frame or use any number of the other effects available. Moviemaker also makes it really simple to shorten or elongate a frame, so if you preview your trailer and the scenes and music don't seem to mesh, or if you have a particular frame you want to really resonate with the viewer, just drag the status bar to make it as short or long as you want.

This probably goes without saying, but don't forget to include your book cover, either at the beginning or end, or both. If you want to steer viewers to your website, you could add the address at the end of your video. (WMM does let you create text clips.) I personally would include the book's "buy" link in your YouTube description. Flashing it on screen as part of the trailer simply isn't practical. I suppose that goes without saying. (Yes, also include your website link in the description.)

Plan to devote some time to the project. I'm very particular about my videos; even a frame that's just a smidge too short or too long will drive me nuts. Remember, your trailer is a reflection on you, the author.

My understanding is that with newer computers, Windows Moviemaker is no longer part of the package (I suppose especially now, when Microsoft is pushing its new and "improved" video editor), but it's still available to download (and it's still free). I've downloaded trial versions of several different editing programs, but all of them had a learning curve that I wasn't willing to spend hours mastering, so I deleted them all. If a program is going to drive me to the brink of insanity, forget it. When I go to start a project, I want to start the project.

I still haven't decided if I want to spend time doing a trailer, but I can at least browse images and download the ones I like, and I can still sample Pixabay's music and video. If I end up taking the leap, I'll be sure to post it here.