Book Trailers: Harnessing their power for book promotion

Everyone is doing book trailers these days. So, why not jump on the bandwagon?

Well, for one, having someone do book trailers for you can cost money. Money you may not have on your limited book promotion budget. But you might be adventurous and love a challenge. So you may decide to patch one together yourself.

In the process, you may find yourself having fun, gnashing your teeth, rising to the challenge, pulling your hair, basking with satisfaction, knitting your brow in bewilderment, or simply giving up. If you haven’t done it before, creating a book video requires not only patience and doggedness. It demands hours of work which you may prefer to spend having fun or writing.

I have the time, always the itch to try something new, maybe some prerequisite art background, and the stinginess to balk at paying for a product I have not yet seen. So, I decided to do my own.

I have amassed tons of pictures across the years, a few of which can pass for the setting of the story. An idea for the book trailer also hit me while I was exercising and listening to some Latin music.

I started by using a Corel video production software. That was fun but frustrating. Then, I discovered Lumen 5 and it was smoother sailing from there. I took my music-less video and added music from my collection using my Corel software which gave me more control.

The trailer actually went through two versions. In the first version, I used music that was playing in one scene in the book. (I manage to always include music in my books.)

In Hello, My Love, the book I did the trailer for, the song, Besame Mucho, prefigures events in the story. It is a beautiful, poignant love song, in Spanish, of course.

When I was satisfied with my book trailer, I put it up on youTube.

But I ran into some problems right away. Google told me I was violating copyright with the music I chose.

I could have looked for some royalty-free music. But I wanted something unique. I read a book marketing ebook not too long ago which mentioned a website, fiverr.com, where you could get all kinds of services for—you guessed it—$5.

Well, why not? I could spare $5. So, I checked out the site and found Fernando Furrones, a talented musician from Spain. I told him what I needed and he composed just the kind of music I was looking for.

The music cost more than $5. But for me, you couldn’t put a price on this music because of its beginnings as a piece created uniquely for my book.
My nephew Josh, an aspiring actor with experience in local musical productions in Los Angeles, recorded the song.

It’s a rather sensuous love song with a danceable Latin beat that can grow on you the more you listen to it. Judge for yourself.