by Ben Zackheim | May 22, 2014 | Book Promotion, Sell your book, Writing |
Many of us think in words. Authors are like that. Our thoughts take on a distinct inner voice — dependent on mood, muse and cups of coffee.
So when we’re faced with the option of building a book trailer, with words and pictures and animations… well, it’s daunting.
With an NYU Film School education and several years of playing the Hollywood game, I’ve set out to craft a trailer for my upcoming series, The Camelot Kids. I’m delighted with it so far, so I thought I’d share some basic rules that have helped me focus.
Here are my impressions of what works, what doesn’t and how to avoid the common mistakes I spot in book trailers every day.
Here are some resources for you to dig into:
Tools for book trailer creation
Adobe Voice for iPad
A spectacular tool. I don’t use that word lightly. That’s the term I save in my quiver for special occasions.
The app on the iPad does everything and does it well. You can make a slick presentation within minutes. If you want to make a fast, elegant trailer that focuses on your writing style, character voices or humor then Adobe Voice can help you. Oh, and they have tens of thousands of stock images for free. The app adds the correct credit to the end of the video so you’re pretty safe.
I can’t recommend this app enough.
Prezi
Some quality book trailers have been done with Prezi tools. Like Adobe Voice, the service will help you look slick. But unlike Adobe Voice, you don’t have simple and searchable access to free, accredited images.
Graphicstock and BigStock are (as of this writing) offering a free one week trial to their library of images. You need to give a credit card to get access, but you can cancel if you don’t think the service gives you enough value.
If you decide that voice is a critical component of your trailer, then you really can’t go wrong with Blue’s Yeti mic. It looks great and sounds even better. While the sensitivity can be high it’s nothing that can’t be adjusted for with a little distance from the mic.
Book trailers that work
Fantastic book trailers and the reasons they’re so good
7 Brilliant Book Trailers
A funny piece in The New Yorker about book trailers
Have you made a book trailer? What do you think of book trailers? Let us know in the comments!
By Ben Zackheim
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by Ben Zackheim | Apr 8, 2014 | Book Promotion, Digital Identity, Sell your book, Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest, Writing |
You hear the one about the two authors who walk into a bar? One has a mailing list. The other one has zip. Nada.
Mailing List: “I saw that tweet about your book sale the other day.”
Zip Nada: “Yeah. I got two whole sales after a week of prep, a $50 ad spend on Goodreads and 28 tweets.”
Mailing List: “Wow. That sucks.”
Zip Nada: “Thanks. That’s really helpful. I got your newsletter about your book last month. Looked nice.”
Mailing List: “50 copies sold. Not too bad. Why don’t you use your email list to promote sales?”
Zip Nada: “I don’t have one.”
Mailing List: “Oh man! It took me seven years to build mine! You’d better get started, like yesterday!”
What’s the punchline of the joke? Zip Nada punches Mailing List in the face.
If a writer doesn’t have an email list, does he make a sound when he falls in the forest?
Many writers experience dismal sales from Twitter/Facebook/[enter social network name here]. A common complaint is, “My followers are family, friends or fellow writers who don’t buy other writer’s books.”
We’re told that we should have an email list. That way we can reach the highest quality, most targeted audience possible.
Uh. I’m afraid all the above is true.
But…
Here’s some great (and little-discussed) news. If you use Twitter then you can reach your target audience. No matter what the “quality” is of your followers!
How?
Twitter Analytics, is a spectacular tool for finding people to buy your book.
You could say, “but that assumes my social network followers care about my books and they demonstrably do not.” This is a big misconception,and probably one of the most damaging to authors who blog, tweet and share online. We’re told by a lot of smart people out there that people who follow us, Like our posts or share our tweets aren’t necessarily fans, or even readers.
That’s a glass half empty (and incomplete) perspective.
Here’s mine:
The Twitter connections we’ve made online with non-fans and even non-readers are valuable enough to sell books.
How can that be? Because Twitter has learned so much about them!
Here’s what I mean. This is a breakdown of my Twitter following.
Is that a marketer’s ten thousand dollar breakdown of potential audience?
No, it’s Twitter’s free report on my followers.
Yup. They actually tell me what interests my followers have, even broken down by favorite genres! So for all my Twitter struggles and misses and successes over the years, in the final analysis it was my mere presence that gave Twitter the data it needed to say, “Hey, good job reaching out. Here’s who you have. Now go have fun selling your book to them!”
How does this help you? If you look at your own follower breakdown you’ll spot interests and terms that you can tweet about. For instance, using the data above, I just brainstormed a new tweet that I’m going to try:
Tweet: How do teenagers learn #leadership skills? Shirley gets crash course in #mystery Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest http://ctt.ec/n4z2o+
In that book, my heroine (Shirley Link) gets a lesson in leadership when she tries to get her two best (and bickering) friends to work together. All while dragging her dad around so he can help with the case.
So I’ve used two terms that I know (from solid Twitter data) will resonate with a huge part of my Twitter following: “mystery” and “leadership”.
But it doesn’t end there. You could apply this data to find terms for your book description, your book metadata and even blog posts about your book. Then when your audience clicks on the tweet they’ll see their favorite subject brought up again and again as they decide if they want to buy or not.
Conclusion: Get signed up for Twitter Analytics to find your target audience
So the lesson here is, you might not have a big enough mailing list yet. But as you build that up, don’t fret. Use Twitter and some common sense and you’ll find your readers.
Sign up for Twitter analytics here.
by Ben Zackheim
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