Do Trailers (book advertisements) help with sales?

Do book trailers help sell books?

Many have questioned this and so I thought I'd put my two cents in and see what kind of feed back I get. Trailers are just one more tool in the marketing strategy of an authors or writers career, it appeals to some but not to others but so do many other methods.

The trick is to have a good one!

Today I also thought I might give a few tips to help those who want to attempt making one.

Now, there are some who haven't heard what a trailer is, yes that's right, and that's okay because there are many things authors mention that I say 'what the...' to.

A book trailer is much like a movie trailer where you watch a short snippet of what the movie is about and by the end you hope to have captured the interest of watchers/readers. Even if it's to only find out more.

I think a book trailer should be kept short and sweet- maximum of a minute and a half to two minutes- for two reasons-

• Youtube sometimes takes a while to buffer and the larger your file/ trailer- the longer it will take to load and we lose interest.
• Short attention spans in general.

These trailers are like I said, merely one more tool to use in your marketing strategy and like all marketing it must be done with care. Choose your pictures carefully- there are many copyright free sights out there. istockphoto for example have both pictures and music available, some are free and some come at a cost but you can make an account and what credits you do not use can be used at a later date.

I took a long time to choose my music for both trailers because I wanted the watcher/reader to FEEL the mood as well as read what the book is about.

Your trailer does NOT need to be like a synopsis where you have to cram all the story in one page. Use one liners, or better, one word that captures the mood or scene. Plot what you want to come across first so it is easier to look for what pictures you want.

My pet hate is coming across a trailer that has a whole lot of text and not enough time to see the picture or god forbid even read all of what the author wants to get across.

Once you have all your pictures and your music you can then piece them together in either Microsoft movie maker, Microsoft powerpoint or apple movie maker. There are probably a whole lot of programs available but these are easily accessed and user friendly.

Once you have published your trailer, create an account and publish on youtube then publicize it on you blog, web, facebook, yahoo, google+, everywhere. Try to go into some competitions. These are all going to get your name and your books title out there which ultimately is marketing and marketing sales for your books!

Here are two of my trailers TAKING BACK HIS WIDOW &NUDGING CUPID

      

So after that, what do you think about trailers?

Don't be shy, leave a comment. I can see on my stats that you are here. lol

Kez

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