The making of a book trailer


It’s a very rainy day here on the central California coast, and I haven’t had a heart-to-heart with you in a while, so I thought I’d wrap up in the afghan and hope you have time for a chat as I’m putting the finishing touches on the Shadow Slayer (Shadow Series #2) book trailer. You can read all about The Shadow Series here. The book trailer will debut on The Shadow Slayer book tour that’s coming up next week Dec. 3-15, put on by the fabulous SupaGurl Books. (Every day of the tour be sure to check here on Laurasmagicday for an additional daily giveaway.) Anyway, back to the making of a book trailer. I’ve blogged about the nuts & bolts of trailer making before, and if you want to check out how you can make your own book trailer, you can click here for the article I wrote for Bubble Cow called How To Make Your Own Book Trailer. My process has stayed pretty much the same.

Today, though, I want to talk about the heart of my books’ trailers. I love making them. Maybe it’s because of my fabulous movie debut….LOL! (more like in spite of it 🙂 ) For me making trailers isn’t only a labor of love–even though it usually involves pulling my hair out a time or two–it’s also been an amazing way to see my story with fresh eyes, even as it’s already written and the reviews have started to come in. I enjoy the perspective of seeing a story in new ways.

Designing a trailer means that I really have to get to the heart of the story. And sometimes, I can be so close to my words, that I can’t answer the simple question that most readers/friends want to know––What’s the book about? It’s like my friend Edna Cabcabin Moran, a wonderful author/illustrator, likes to tell me when I’ve written a book and I’m trying to summarize its heart and soul, “Sometimes it takes years to know what a story is about. It needs to be interpreted by your readers in order for you to understand your story fully.” Of course as authors, we can’t wait that long to figure out what our books are about, but I enjoy hearing Edna’s words. Stories are living breathing things. I like finding new meaning in the words and themes of my books through video.

For me, the making of my books trailers always begins with the music. I don’t have a lot of money to invest in the making of my books. Other than the professional editing I pay for, I do everything else myself: writing, cover design, trailers, marketing, crying, cleaning up the office, jumping jacks when my butt’s been in my chair WAY too long…you know, typical Indie Author stuff. So when I spend, I usually spend money on book trailers––music specifically. I usually have a very good idea of what kind of music I’m looking for so this takes little time. Or, has so far taken very little time in the four book trailers I’ve made. Videos and still images, however, have taken me a bit longer to sort out. Usually I have images I can use from my quest for the perfect cover. Sometimes they end up in the trailer. It’s the video that takes time to find. It has to be perfect and must draw me into the trailer in a powerful way. I hope that the videos I use in the book trailers will also draw the viewer in. I need lots of help with getting this right. So I rely on my family and friends. My girls have lots of opinions about the music and my friend KZ is a marketing wizard and is always trying to get me to keep things clippy, short & sweet…to get to the heart of the book fast. I’m a bit of a romantic, so I want to spend time on nuance. All in all it’s a family/friend collaboration I can’t imagine sourcing out. I can’t imagine not haggling with those closest to me over what works and what doesn’t and why. It makes for very interesting dinner conversations. And sometimes makes me want to swing a bat at my computer screen.

So, it’s time to get back to it. I hope you enjoy the Shadow Slayer book trailer, which has it’s reveal on Breathe In Books, Dec. 6! I hope you have time to swing by and check it out, and let me know your thoughts.

Here are the book trailers I’ve created in order of their creation. You can see that I’ve learned as I’ve created. The book trailers have gotten shorter and more to the point, I hope 🙂 Thanks for stopping by today.

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