Book Trailers?

[Ann_Mayburn]

Hi Ladies and Gents,

One of the things I do for playtime for my muse is farting around with different forms of graphic art. I've seen more and more book trailer videos and I really like the concept. I recently made my first book trailer video and I'm looking for honest feedback. Not mean, gild the lily a little for me, but honest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viJp...&feature=g-upl

[Silver-Midnight]

I thought it was good. The music was really nice and I did like it. The only advice I could maybe give, and this is emphasis on maybe, is when you do the question at the end( "Have they made her strong enough to walk away when she find out about their deception?" or so) is maybe picking another phrase. Not that I think that the one you used is a bad one, I think it's good, but I also think there might be another phrase out there that draws the reader(or potential reader) in more. If that makes any sense. But that could just be my personal opinion.

But all in all, it looked great.

[VoireyLinger]

Honest? That's the kind of trailer I don't like... a back cover blurb with music and pictures. Overall it's a solid, but with trailers, less is more and I'd suggest tweaking.

High points first... love the images you picked. Violet looks very sweet and innocent... my favorite kind of heroine to watch being corrupted. I like that the hero images had a matching look. That's hard to find in stock art. Music is good but not outstanding.

Downsides... Visual media needs to cater to short attention spans and keep moving. The blocks of text were too long in length and time. my attention wandered. Two minutes is too long for me. I think with the number of image slides you have, closer to a minute to a minute, fifteen would be better. Shorter would keep the music loop from feeling repetitive, too. Think taglines and hooks instead of blurb.

All of your images were very vertical... long and narrow. I'd suggest playing with them some, trimming them up and manipulating them a little to provide a bit more interest. Different trims and manipulations of the same images can provide additional fill and make it feel more visual.

EC covers are always too long for me so I trim top and bottom, then skew the proportions to make them just a bit fatter. I think they look better in trailers that way.

I'd also suggesting a slide stating the book is now available from EC and major online retailers.

[girlyswot]

It is VERY slow. I can't see it holding any potential reader's attention to the end. Also, the tone of the trailer is completely different from the book cover, so that it looked very out of place when you showed it. For me, the font doesn't work, either. It's not easy to read and it looks a bit dated. I couldn't read Violet's name on the first slide of her, either. My advice would be to focus on the visual images, minimise the amound of text, cut the whole thing by at least half.

As a side note, the point about the guys deciding to deceive Violet made me instantly not want to read the book. I'm sure it makes sense in the context of the whole plot but I don't think it works well in the trailer.

[Ann_Mayburn]

Thank you so much for the feedback, ladies. I agree it is a bit slow. My husband was my test subject and I forgot to take into account that he is a very, very slow reader while most of those watching book trailers in theory read for pleasure and a bit faster. I'll speed that up.

I wish I had the budget to make it more 'film' like but with my spending cap at 20 bucks for stock photos and 0 for film/music I had to comb through the free sites to find something that fit. I'll have to look around at some of the more popular trailers and see what works for them.

Thanks again! Having some educated eyes giving it a look over really helps.

[Filigree]

You're giving me ideas, Ann. I have to load up Poser again and look for some free music, but I could maybe do a fast trailer for the Loose Id book.

[SummerSpring]

It's a good first effort, but I agree with the others saying it is too long and there is too much text. A quick tease is best. The images you have so far are great, but you need more images.... less text. It's the old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words".

Additionally, even though the book trailer told me it was a BDSM story, the book cover at the end seemed far too extreme in comparison to the images selected. If you could show a natural progression somehow. Show innocent Violet, then the guys, then start mixing in BDSM type images.

IMO, Madeline Hunter has the best book trailer I have ever seen. And although it was professionally produced, I think there is much that can be learned and/or imitated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9kUvGsGLIc

[VoireyLinger]

Originally Posted by Ann_Mayburn

I wish I had the budget to make it more 'film' like but with my spending cap at 20 bucks for stock photos and 0 for film/music I had to comb through the free sites to find something that fit. I'll have to look around at some of the more popular trailers and see what works for them.

Look at animoto.com. Very easy to make a trailer there...however you are very limited to amount of text per frame... which isn't really a bad thing IMO. It keeps things brief and less likely to drag. Longer sentences can be broken up between frames to maintain the pacing.

The theme templates handle all the hard stuff, all you have to do is put in text and images. book covers are a bit of a problem because it doesn't like tall images but with a bit of proportion skewing and trimming, it works. It's a very affordable service and the results are polished and professional-looking. Licensed music options are included in the package or you can upload your own.

Also, 123rf.com has a selection of free images which you can mix with paid images to help fill out trailers while keeping the budget down.

This trailer was done with the service and three of the images were paid. The rest were free stock photos. I love Animoto. Can't recommend it enough.

[Filigree]

Wow, Voirey, this may make my daydream about a trailer for 'Moro' into reality. Thanks!