Cameron Chapman

Book trailers are a great, fun way to get the word out about your book. They’re just like movie trailers, just for—you guessed it—books. If you manage to get your book trailer video to go viral, the interest and sales you can generate can really make a difference to how well your book does.

Photo by YuvalH, via Flickr

Book trailers are done by self published and mainstream published authors alike. Some trailers use humor; others are very serious. Some are directly related to the plot of the book while others are only loosely related.

Here are some examples of book trailers from mainstream, well-known authors (I think each of these are either by the author or their publishing company, but I’m not positive):

Neil Gaiman’s Blueberry Girl, narrated by Gaimain himself:

Stephen King’s Duma Key:

Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes:

Notice how Stephen King’s trailer is very short (around 30 seconds), while the other two are around 2 minutes and 20 seconds long. There’s no “right” length for a book trailer.

And here are some examples of book trailers from authors who aren’t working with mainstream publishers (one book is indie published, the other isn’t available yet). These trailers use unique angles to draw interest, instead of the typical “this is what the book’s about” kind of trailer.

A Year in the Life of Some Guy by Oliver Ross. This is literally one of the funniest books I’ve ever read:

A series of trailers promoting The Legend of Jimmy Gollihue by George LaCas:

Creating your own book trailer isn’t that hard. You’ll need some video editing software and probably a video camera (though there are methods you can use that don’t require one).

Start out by creating a rough storyboard or outline for your video. What do you want to express? What kind of image are you trying to portray for your book? This is largely dependent on the kind of book you’ve written. If it’s nonfiction, you might want to go more along the lines of a commercial. For a novel you might treat it like a movie trailer and film parts of different scenes.

If your budget is limited, consider doing something a bit off the wall or unique. A unique video is much more likely to go viral than the same old stuff everyone else is doing.

Another option is to hire a professional production company. If you’ve got the money and don’t know your way around video editing software and a video camera, it can be a good idea. Just realize that a professional video could run you a few thousand dollars.

Since I’ve never actually created a book trailer, I’ll offer up these two resources for creating your own:

• Making a Book Trailer with Photo Story 3
• Book Trailers lens on Squidoo

And a couple of articles on the subject:

• Seeking Readers via “Book Trailer” from SFGate.com
• On a Screen Near You… from Guardian.co.uk

In the next month or two I’m hoping to produce a book trailer for the nonfiction book I’m working on. If I do end up making one, I’ll try to post a more in-depth tutorial about the process. If you’ve created a book trailer or know of a good one, please post in the comments. Feel free to post any other resources for building book trailers, too!