A Successful Video Book Trailer Makes the Viewer WANT to Read Your Book!

Look at your book as a movie and your video book trailer as a movie trailer. This is the best analogy to video book trailers that most people know and understand fully. When we are sitting in a movie theater waiting to watch our movie of choice, we are introduced via movie trailers, to up-coming movies. We make our opinions about whether or not to see those upcoming movies based upon the movie trailer, don’t we? How many times have you thought or said out loud: “If that is the BEST they could come up with for the movie trailer, I can’t imagine how bad the movie is.” Or the reverse, which, of course, is the more desirable reaction from the movie/movie trailer producer?

Converting The Written Word Into Visually-Appealing Content

This is not as easy as it sounds – especially if one is creating their own video book trailer. With a movie trailer, there are already visuals to work with. For a video book trailer, the video producer has to convert words into visuals to convey a sense of what the book is about in an engaging, compelling, relevant, and interesting-enough manner to make the viewer WANT to read the book.

My Journey Through the Video Book Trailer Process

People hire me to create video book trailers for them! So when it came time for me to create a video book trailer for the book I am publishing of my late dad’s stories, I thought it would be a piece of cake. After all, others pay me to do the same for them. I was WRONG! I was too close to the book, as it has been an emotional roller-coaster for me, both joyful (bringing my dad’s wonderful stories to print as a loving tribute to him) and painful (missing him terribly), and not easy to be objective. However, with the help of others’ honest opinions, my journey through lousy book trailers to a successful one has been completed.

A Quick Journey Through Lousy Book Trailers

My first brilliant idea was to have “someone”, in this case a computerized voice, actually recite one of dad’s stories.

Bitching and Moaning All The Way to Florida

This story is actually really funny when read, but watching this video? BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!! As I am a tad stubborn, I thought that maybe it was my choice of stories and NOT the video style. So I tried again.

Restaurant Rows

OH MY GOSH! That story is really funny yet it is so boring in that video! YIKES! Time to accept defeat and realize this is just NOT the way to create this video book trailer. So I got an epiphany – or at least I thought I had. I use animated little while guys in many of the videos I create for myself and clients (IF it is what the client is looking for – if not I create videos “their” way) so why not do what I do best? Right? Uhhhhhh – sort of…

From Self-Proclaimed Nerd, to… Accomplished Executive, to Befuddled Snowbird and Other Men’s Tales

Ok- so that is not boring. It is cute. It is brief. It does give one an idea of what the book is about…sort of. However, I was not “there” yet. So I cleared my mind, and tried to objectively create a video book trailer that would REALLY make people want to read my dad’s book. One of my objective critics, watched the following book trailer and said “NOW I want to read the book”! BINGO!

WARNING: This Book Causes Smiles, Chuckles, and Outbursts of Laughter

Do You Want to Read the Book?