We are living in a visual age. Nearly every day, around 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube alone. 5 billion, with over 30 million visitors per day! The numbers are staggering. If you have not opened your YouTube account yet, now would be a good time 😉 As an author, a video may perhaps not always come to mind when you write and market your book, but you’re possibly losing out on many readers if you neglect to make a book video trailer.
I’m the one to talk, aren’t I? I have not even made a book trailer yet. So far I have ordered an animated book cover, which looks pretty cool, by the way 😉
The very reason for writing this blog post is precisely that; I am going to make book trailers. It’s about time I jumped on that train, and if you’re a writer, I recommend that you look into this too.
Why Make a Book Video Trailer?
It will grab someone’s attention, drive sales and interest. Not everyone is into reading ads – even readers, lol – and with videos you can easily connect with the viewer’s auditive, visual, and emotional senses. Book trailers give a book a certain glamour and make the setting and characters visually come to life.
Video book trailers can provide a little (or rather a huge) boost for books and reach an audience that regular, written ads may not always be able not reach.
What Does a Book Video Trailer Look Like?
I am going to add this one here by a fellow author. I read her book and loved it, so this is a novel I wholeheartedly recommend, and consequently a book video trailer I am happy to share 🙂
So, now you have an idea what a book video trailer looks like. The Future Bride is a romantic comedy. There are many different genres; so, for example, a trailer for a fantasy or horror genre will be very different.
How do You Make a Book Video Trailer?
You can hire a professional to do it for you. Prices for this service range between $330 to $500. The cost will increase if you are using actors, voice overs, animations, cameos by famous people, and more. I read that the cost could go up to $15000 … Oops … Now you know why I have not done it yet 😉
Not to worry, though, you can do it yourself. I would also be wary about spending so much money on a trailer if you have not figured out yet how to market it. Your trailer needs to go viral, reach as many viewers as possible to generate the book sales that you are aiming to have. A high quality trailer will probably look amazing, but it’s all about the marketing.
With the tools and platforms that are offered online, you can now create your own book trailers which will still look professional and well done.
Platforms Where you can Make Your own Book Video Trailers
Biteable is an online platform that offers free and paid memberships. With their ready made book trailer templates you can change shots with photos from their gallery. This is a user friendly platform, aimed to help authors with their video book promotion. You will save a ton of money, stay in control of production, and get the job done just as well.
You can remain a free member, or get the Plus Plan at $19 per month or the Team Plan at $49 per month.
Animoto is another site where you can create excellent videos, using templates and drag and drop features to edit your video. You can upload your own files and use their stock images. They offer a free and paid membership (pricing is low). When you sign up for free, your videos will have the Animoto brand, but with a paid membership that brand will no longer be featured.
Magisto received Best of 2019 Apple reward. It offers a list of templates and possibilities, including a YouTube ad maker, which allows you to make eye-catching videos for YouTube. In the end, eye-catching is what you need to get your promo noticed and make users not only view but also share it.
As with the previous two platforms, Magisto also has a free and paid membership. The rates are low, Premium, $4.99 per month, professional $9.99 per month, and business at $34.99 per month.
Final Thoughts
I have seen several video book trailers, made by writers I know, and they are all astounding. I think it is wonderful that services that were inaccessible for some due to financial reasons are now available online. The internet has changed many things for us. Blogging, vlogging, running an online business, being an influencer, and what have you, it’s all possible.
Making awesome pins, photos, and videos is no longer a unique trade but a tool that is available for all. It creates the possibility to make your business grow. For an author, to be able to make your own book trailer video instead of paying hundreds of dollars for it is an amazing opportunity.
And just in case your interest is piqued 😉
Hello Chrisrine, great post you have here, I had no Ideas how to do a book video trailer, I’ll try to do one for posting my website on social media
thank you for sharing this information with us.
Lyne
Hi Line,
It’s a great idea to use this for promoting your website. I hope that any of these mentioned platforms will help. 🙂
Thanks for your comment!
Thank you for your fabulous article Christine! I am an aspiring author so your website is just the thing I was looking for. I’ve been seeing a lot of book video trailers popping up on Facebook in recent years but I guess I never really thought about the impact that could possibly have on the overall sales of your book. I have a mutual friend who’s in the process of writing his own book, so I will refer this article to him.
Hi Rachel,
That’s great, I am happy that this was helpful to you and to your friend. Thanks for sharing my article!
Have a wonderful day!
Wow, I had never heard of a book video trailer. Silly me, it seems so logical! Thanks for all this information, Christine, and I wish you a lot of success with your book promotion!
If you want to practice being and talking on video yourself, I can recommend to go live on Facebook. Somehow it doesn’t feel too official and you can just randomly talk about anything. That makes you comfortable in no time with looking in the camera and telling a story 🙂
Thank you, Hannie,
I’ve done a few live videos on Facebook and felt comfortable with it; it is indeed good practice. 🙂
Thank you for your comment!
Hey Christine,
Lovely post as always. I think book trailers are great ways for promoting books. I always look for a book trailer on YouTube before reading a book (either professional or fan-made). I also want to get into making book trailers for books I’ve already read, to get a YouTube presence. And possibly in the future, when I’m published, making book trailers for my own books. Can’t wait to see what you come up with for your books! I’m looking forward to it.
Hi Erika,
It sounds like a great idea to create a YouTube channel with book trailers for books you have read. It will increase your online presence and it will also help the authors of those books. A win win situation 🙂
Thank you for your comment!
It is known that more and more people are interested in videos in general. I and many others find visual is a better and more convenient thing than reading an ad! I believe a book video trailer is a great idea to add as a type of advertisement for the book. The fantastic part about it, there are endless possibilities to create many ideas for such trailers. Also, I want to thank you for adding these platforms where writers can make these book video trailers because many of them don’t have money to hire experts to create these videos. It is gorgeous to create our own video trailers and “fun things to do.”
Thank you again for this fantastic post! I loved reading it.
Hi Mohammad,
Visual is indeed far more interesting and captivating than reading a written promotion. You can get really creative here and make a unique video, especially if you are doing it yourself; you can add your own personal touch 😉
Thank you for your comment!
A very interesting read indeed! A film trailer-that we are used to, but a book trailer? Although it makes perfect sense, with so many techniques and all the technology available today, why not put it to use. However I’ve never thought of, or have seen one so far. Well done, whoever thought of it first.
Your article can certainly be an excellent place to start for anyone wanting to make one.
I do not know anything about Animoto or Magisto, but I have worked a lot with Biteable, for the last four years. I ran into them accidentaly and stayed ever since. There was not one project I couldn’t make with their adjustable shots and footage and I could always upload my own also. They really are fab, constantly adding new material you can choose from. While waiting for your video to build up, you can laugh your head off by the notes that come up on the screen…
Good luck with your future trailers Christine, I hope to see them everywhere!
Hi Kerryanne,
Thank you! Soon, I’ll start working on my book trailers. I am happy to see that you are using Biteable. It is indeed so helpful for any kind of video project. I am looking forward to my first book trailer. 🙂
Thank you for your comment!
Hi Christine,
This is my first time knowing that authors make book video trailers nowadays, it’s good that I always learn something new from your articles which is fantastic. I think it’s lovely that you can reduce the cost from $330-$500 for each book to $19-$49 monthly subscriptions, this is a great deal I must say.
For the three options you recommend, I can see some of them provide templates that you can change the text and image. It is very convenient, but have you concerned that your output will be a bit duplicate to other authors’ video trailers? I think there is a risk for not ranking well on search engines…
Hi Matt,
That’s an excellent question. It can happen that you may end up using the same images, but no book video trailer is the same and additionally you can edit and also upload your own images. I don’t think that it should affect the ranking on search engines.
Christine,
I think this is great! My Aunt is an author and came out with a video on YouTube for her new book – JY Olmos – Chosen: Book One. I think it’s a great marketing tool for authors, making videos!
What a great article you wrote. Love this!
Katrina
Thank you, Katrina! I am going to have a look at your aunt’s book video trailer now 🙂
Hi Christine,
This is so strange that I came across your post as I have actually just self published an E-Book that I have been promoting on LinkedIn and my website.
I hope you don’t mind but here is the link to my LinkedIn post with my video on it: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tomlawrencementor_highlyeffectiveleader-leadership-personalgrowth-activity-6704701216359809024-e20N
I would love to know what you think of the video and where I can improve.
Thank you for sharing such a great post again and keep up the amazing work that you do.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom!
Congratulations on publishing your e-book! The video looks great! And you got lots of comments on it, so that is wonderful! Have you considered perhaps adding images of people in the video? I think it looks really good the way it is, but perhaps a few visuals may attract even more readers, it was just a thought 😉 All the best!
Christine