THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY - Rebecca Buckley's Blog

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

DO AUTHOR'S NEED BOOK TRAILERS?

I'm now caught up in the book trailer phoenomonen.   Yes, I've become one of the trailer techies, although I'm still an infant in creating them.  Above you'll see my first attempt.  A rather amateur production, there's so much more to learn, but it's my first one and I'm proud.  Did it myself, by myself.  And guess what, if I can do it, you can do it.  Some people use the Windows Movie Maker that's already loaded on your system, you'll find it listed in your programs file.  But a few years ago, when I was playing with creating travel logs, I purchased a Pinnacle program - Studio 8, used by the professionals.  Hey, now it might come in handy, me thinks. 

Anyway ... what do you think?  Do you need a book trailer?  Well, why not?  It's one more method to publicize your book. If you hired a publicist that would be one of the first things that would happen - creation of a book trailer.  So take advantage without the expense of a publicist.  And heaven knows  if you're going to build a fan base (which is an all important facet of becoming a best-seller), you have to make your book known to the public far and wide.  Just pushing it in your neighborhood isn't going to do it, although that's a terrific start.   You have to find ways to expand beyond those borders of friends and family to people you don't know, who, if they heard about your book, would want to read it.  

So how do you expand those borders?  Well, one method is through a book trailer.  It can be placed on YouTube, easy to set up, and linked to Facebook and Twitter from there.  You can also put it in your Facebook profile, occasionally sending it out to your friends on Twitter and Facebook.   You can put it on your website and your blog.  You can send it out in an email blitz, in your e-newsletter.  YouTube gives you a link to copy and paste into all your other venues making the trailer easily accessible to your readers.

By now you should have accounts already created in Facebook and Twitter, and a website and a blog, so you are now ready for a book trailer.   Yes!  Another marketing tool.   It's a must. 

Next step is to go to your Windows Movie Maker and play around with it.   Like I've done.  By studying the directions, you can learn how to upload photos, create titles, and add music.   It's that simple for a first book trailer.  You can get more technical and flamboyant as you learn. And it's fun, it really is.  Time-consuming, but fun. 

Okay ... I vote YES! for a book trailer!

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