Book Trailers

I had a reader request to share about the process of making my book trailer for Enemies of Doves. I put it off for a while, because I didn’t actually make it, but the more I thought about it, I figured book trailers would make an excellent blog topic.

First things first, I know very little about video production, so I hired an amazing video editor named Tim who freelances on a site called Fiverr. His company name is movieintros and you can book him for your own video trailer by clicking here. He’s worked for HarperCollins, Amazon Prime, and Netflix. I’ll circle back to my experience with him after some general information about book trailers.

Like a movie trailer, book trailers are short promotional videos designed to pique interest in your book. They can be pricey. (Though for what Tim did, his price is a STEAL). However, in my opinion, it is an advertising expense worth investing in if you can. According to Business Insider, online video ads are getting three times more clicks on average than other digital ad formats. I have found this to be true in my advertising endeavors as well. People (even readers) are naturally drawn to video. Right now, video alone will account for 74% of all online traffic, and over 55% of people watch videos every day.

There are many types of trailers out there. One I see a lot is text or photos set to music. These are typically the least expensive to have made or relatively easy to create yourself. You can find pictures that represent your characters, plot, and setting then make a slide show with them set to music. I actually think this would be a really fun project… to hunt down pictures that I feel represent my story. However, you must be very careful about copyright. You can’t just do a Google Images search and use any images without seeking approval of the copyright owner. So, I suggest using a stock image site (there are free and paid) to find pictures that you can use. Same goes with music. You must use a royalty free music site.

Some will have a little more animation. These often include animating text (like a really fun read along!) This one for Chuck Wendig’s book Blackbirds, Mockingbird is a perfect example of a simple, well-made, animated trailer. It definitely piqued my interest. Talk about a hook!

Others include images as well such as this one Whisky and Gunpowder by Liliana Hart, which I think is just so fun and really gives you a feel for the tone of the book.

There are also cinematic style book trailers which more resemble a movie trailer. Some go all out and are filmed with actors, multiple sets and even special effects. Here is a fabulous example in the trailer for Katherine Howe’s book Conversion.

These are my favorite kind of trailers, but when I started getting quotes, I found they cost a lot. (Most were upwards of $5,000). I knew the price was not right for me, so I started looking at companies that do cinematic style trailers with stock videos that they piece together. There are many of these out there that are extremely well made, but I’m going to borrow this one from my fellow TouchPoint Press author Karen Neary Smithson for her book Death in Disguise. This is a very high-quality trailer made with stock video and a voiceover. In my research, cinematic trailers like this with voiceovers can cost in the $350-$1000 range depending on length.

To save a little money, I opted not to use a voiceover and rely on music and text to accompany the stock videos. Tim asked for basic information regarding what my book was about, what text I wanted included, and if I had any ideas for images that fit the plot and tone of my story.

Like so many oddities with Enemies of Doves, the tone has been a bit hard for me to nail down. It’s certainly not what I’d consider a feel-good book, but it’s not all doom and gloom either. I don’t think any reader who is accustomed to reading mysteries and suspense would find it dark, but I’ve had people close to me confess it was too dark and depressing for them. I can for sure see that if they are used to cozy mysteries or Christian fiction. But on any account, I told Tim that I really love the style of his trailer example on his Fiverr site. I wanted mine to be dark in tone, but not that dark. I wanted it to be mysterious.

I was clear that I didn’t want characters faces unless it was just a shot of the eyes. So, I gave him the hair and eye color of the main characters.

I also told him a few must haves (prison, doves, and blood), and wrote a few paragraphs about the story. He took what very little I gave him and made magic.

Does every shot fit exactly with my narrative? No, but it still works. Stay with me, I’ll explain.

Here are a few of my favorite aspects about the trailer.

1. I LOVE the music. I remember the hair rising on my arms the first time I watched the trailer. I think it’s perfect for a mystery.
2. The scenes early on of the prison are some of my favorites. To me it conveys loneliness and isolation. Can’t you just imagine Joel laying on his cot, staring up at the light as minutes, days, and years tick by?

3. The boy washing blood off of his hands. Not only is that an incredible hook, but if you’ve read the story, you know how important it is. Not just to the narrative, but the symbolism of trying to wash blood off your hands for something you’ve done. Still gives me chills.

4. The crashing you hear with the words, “Be careful which cages you rattle.” I like how jarring it is. You’re looking at a nice little bird cage, listening to a relatively soothing section of the music, and then BAM!
5. The mysterious door opening. Here’s a perfect example of something that is not necessarily a scene in my book, but works very well in that it’s symbolic of things hidden. One reader who bought the book after seeing the trailer wrote this, “Your trailer is amazing. I watched it and had to know what was behind that door. And I’m still reeling from all the secrets that were.” Yes! She got it. There were plenty of secrets hidden behind that door that Garrison and Molly would uncover throughout the course of the book.

6. The quicker flashes of scenes near the end. This is one thing I really liked about the horror trailer that I linked to above from Tim’s Fiverr page. Those blink and you miss it images. I was glad Tim worked some of those in for my trailer. Again, does every shot fit exactly within the frame of my book? No. Is there a scene with someone frantically burying something in the ground? No, but there is a lot of symbolic burying of secrets that Joel and Clancy do. Is there a man with an ax? No, but there is just something foreboding in the way this old man strolls. I think he could easily represent Tom Fitchett, one of the Lawson brothers, or even Ray. My favorite is the extremely quick shot of the green eye opening. As mentioned before, I gave Tim the eye/hair color stats for my five point of view characters, and since Lorraine is my favorite character, I’m so glad he chose hers to be the only facial features we see.

It took Tim about a week to get the trailer to me. I was at work and couldn’t watch it till the end of the day, then when I got home there was a glitch. I was downloading all sorts of apps to my phone and computer just trying to get it to play. Turns out it was an issue with Fiverr and we had to wait until the following day to get it fixed!

The wait was torture! Once I was finally able to view my trailer, I think I watched it on repeat for a good 30 minutes. Tim had offered to make any revisions necessary, but I was really happy with how it turned out on his first go.

I think we’ve all seem some not so great book trailers out there. Authors spend so much time on a book, it’s important that all media, trailers and otherwise, are produced with quality. Quality is possible with any budget, even if you are doing it yourself!

After the tip, my trailer cost about $250. So, was it worth the money? It’s hard to say just what makes a book sell, especially when you’re doing a lot of different things to promote your book at the same time.  So, of course, I can’t for sure say how many sales the trailer has garnered me, but it’s gotten a lot of shares and feedback. When I run it in ads, it gets more clicks than most only image ads do.

Sales numbers aside, the novelty of seeing elements of my book visually made it well worth the investment for me. And who knows, maybe the right person will see it and think, this could make an excellent movie. 🤔🤩🤞🎬