Book Trailers

I’ve followed the book trailer phenomenon for a couple years and wanted to do a post. In 2003, it was just beginning; in 2006, there was lots of experimenting; in 2009, it seems here to stay and writers should take it as a given that they need a book trailer for trade books. Here’s some of the best about book trailers from around the web.

UPDATE: Read the Guest Blog by Lisa Gottfried of Digital Weavers, 6 Criteria for a Great Book Trailer

How To

How Do You Make Your Book Stand Out in the Crowd?

1. Book Trailers Squidoo
2. How to Make A Book Trailer — Easy And Free
   EHow has step by step instructions for making a trailer with Powerpoint.
3. The Making of a Book Trailer. A four-day account of an author making her own book trailer.
4. Animoto.com. Animates still pictures.

Articles or Posts about Book Trailers

5. How Will Your Book Trailer Upend Readers’ Expectations?
6. In A World … Where Books Are Hyped Like Movies A 9/2008 National Public Radio article, with links to the audio.
7. Book Trailers that Matter
8. Every Book Needs a You Tube Video From CamCorderInfo.com. Of course, the Camcorder people would recommend book trailers; yet, the article is fairly balanced and has lots of links to new info.
9. What Can You Do with a Book Trailer? by Karen Dionne (billed as the “new Michael Crichton”) write a general article about trailers touching on where to share them and best practices.
10. Book Trailers Coming to Bus and Mall Billboards, buses (one company already busted!) and more links.
11. Book trailers might be overkill. 2009 post: How do you make your video stand out? It’s about finding interesting ways to tell a story.
12. Book Trailer Videos. A general article.
13. VIDEO BOOK TRAILERS: Coming to a Library near You!
    When kids make book trailers they are more engaged with the story.
14. Book Trailers, a great way to promote your children’s book The downside of trailers: less imagination needed.
15. In-Transit Viewing of Book Trailers – A Potent New Book Marketing Venue. Kids watching book trailers on the school bus.
16. Book Trailers: The Key to Successful Video Marketing. From Poets and Writers Magazine.
17. New York Statewide Summer Reading Program
    Featured book trailers for teens from their reading program.
18. A Survey of the Imperfect Art of the Book Trailer. The marriage between book jacket blurb and the video – review of 7 trailers.
19. Trailers for Sale or Rent . 2007 optimistic look at the impact of book trailers on children’s books from PW.
20. Watch Before Reading: Art-House Book Trailers. Book trailers are interpretive, rather than plot-focused.
21. Promoting your novel: How to make a book trailer. Author Brenda Coulter poss her experiences making a trailer for her book on Gather.com
22. What makes video trailers for books effective? (5 keys) Over 1 million views of a book trailer!

Ongoing Series about Book Trailers

23. Book Trailer Tuesday. Another regular posting on trailers.
24. Video Wednesday.Scholastic column which presents a book trailer each Wednesday.
25. Fuse #8 Productions does Video Sundays and sometimes features Book Trailers.

Where to Display Book Trailers (Besides YouTube and Facebook and Good Reads)

26. BookTrailers.net
27. Bookscreening.com
28. ComicBookTrailers.com
29. Blazing Trailers
30. The Red Room Where the Writers Are
31. Books Toolbox: 50+ Sites for Book Lovers
    From Mashable, this post lists many more social media sites about books.

Book Trailer Production

32. Circle of Seven Productions: Book Trailers
33. JKS Communications: A Literary Publicity Firm
34. Moving Stories Book Trailers and Book Videos
35. WritersDirect.net
36. Author Bytes
37. Living Jacket.com

Cameras for Book Trailers

For the Do-it-Yourselfer, the #1 Best-selling camera for filming video is the Flip Camera. It’s an HD-high quality video, in one of the most simple cameras you’ll ever see. I got a Flip in June and have filmed several live events with it. The only drawback is that you need to keep extra batteries handy and it’s definitely worth getting rechargeable batteries for this camera, as it really uses the power. My video on UTube about the Novel Revision Retreat was all taken with my Flip.

Book Trailer Contests

38. Book Trailer Competition for High School Students
39. Authors Promoting Authors
40. Fantasy Book Reviews
    This UK site has a yearly Book Video Award
41. Outsourcing the Book Trailer Production to Your Fans. Authors Megan McCafferty and Lynn Messina ran book trailer contests for teen girls – a great example of a trailer contest.

Are Book Trailers Effective?

42. Publishing Monday: Are Book Trailers Effective? This author is charmed by trailers.
43. Are Book Trailers Effective? This post quotes the Wall Street Journal: “”There is scant evidence . . . that the average book trailer actually has much impact on book sales.”
44. Book Trailers Work! From LatinoLA!

Lesson Plans

45. Lesson plan for Book Trailers. (pdf). References to NCTE/IRA, NETS and CTLanguage arts standards.

In the Comments, please add a link to your favorite book trailer!

UPDATE: Eric at Living Jacket sent me to look at some of his trailers. Nice and professional, so I’ve added them to the list above.

Related posts:

1. book trailer criteria
2. Book trailer tips, awards and scissors
3. Random Social
4. Retreat Trailer
5. UTube Video of Picture book

Revise with confidence.