Five reasons this book trailer rocks
Filed Under: Graphic Design, SF Business, Top Post
I forget where I got this, but I think that it’s the level of quality I’d like to see in more book trailers online:
Having Tim Curry as a narrator is probably outside of the range of what we can afford as SF/F writers, but still. Let’s go over what makes this awesome:
- Tight pacing. 2 minutes long, and packed with information. If there’s a negative here, some of it is too fast. But that is preferable to too slow.
- Rapid-moving, well designed motion graphics. The movement is varied. It’s not a bunch of slow zooms or pans on a graphic like many book trailers I see. Stuff comes in and leaves the view at an angle. There’s perspective. It has a coherent visual style also.
- Illustrations! This is much easier when your book has illustrations already, but maybe an investment in an illustrator would increase the “stickiness” of a book trailer. It’s a visual medium, and you need some imagery to catch the eye. Simple stock photos probably aren’t good enough. And you can only use your cover so many times.
- Professional narration, with the highest quality sound. So many book trailers I have seen end up sounding like they were recorded in a bathtub. PC microphones are a travesty. Studio-quality audio is not cheap. Alas.
- Prominently displayed URL at the end. This isn’t a criticism of other book trailers as I usually don’t make it to the end in other ones I have watched. But I liked how it left you with a call to action (go to the website!) I don’t know how much promotion Lemony Snicket really needs for these books, but if I didn’t know about them already, this would have sent me running to the site.
My After Effects and Premiere skills are pretty rusty, but I think I’m going to try and add them back into my skillset. I have a voice actor studio I’ve done work with in Denver at the old day job, and so I think I could probably offer a decently affordable, high quality book trailer service. Youtube is the third most visited website on the web. It’s power to bring your book before a new audience is unparalleled. I’d really like to offer a service to tap into that power.
Comments
06-23-2008
The question is, how much do you think that cost to produce?
Sure, it would be great to see top quality book videos with great narrators, but you have to pay something like $3000 - $6000 per finished minute. Sometimes more.
If you have Adobe products I say go for it! Adobe is a great editing suite with so many wonderful tools!
The next step, though, is to figure out what to do with it once you have it. YouTube has a lot of visits, but it isn’t the best place for book video. Even MySpace and Bebo are better than YouTube if you’re looking for readers.
Good luck with your video!
06-23-2008
I agree 100%. That is an amazing trailer, and it absolutely fits in with the tone of the books.
I, ahem, happen to have a project that could use your services. Do please send me an email with further info, yeah?
06-23-2008
Sheila, that’s a good point about the cost, one that I meant to bring up. If anything, it cost a lot more than that for Curry’s voice. And I agree, YouTube in and of itself isn’t a marketing strategy for the video. That’s a good point as well.
I consider this kind of professional work a standard to hold up the somewhat less professional stuff that gets made. The closer we get to that standard, the more effective it will be. I think that some of the reasons that video succeeds can be copied by someone with little money, particularly points 1 and 5.
06-23-2008
Jeremiah, with the economy the way it is, I find that getting a celebrity has become more reasonable in price. I bet they paid Curry less than $2000 for that. You can get a minor celebrity to be in a video for $2000 - $5000 according to who the celebrity is.
I see an increase in book sellers and book clubs taking video. We have a list of over 300 booksellers and 5000 libraries who take our video. Right now we’re concentrating on more niche markets and video SEO.
I think, once the newness of the idea wears off about book videos, more people will be concerned with how to make them effective.
06-24-2008
Jeremy, this is a great post. Thanks for sharing your insights. I don’t know enough about point 2 to comment on it, but I totally agree with your other four points. I think number 1 is particularly salient. In my limited experience creating training animations for the web, shorter is definitely better. Common knowledge is that sound in videos can make the difference between professionals and amateurs. Excellent illustrations and a prominent URL seem intuitively obvious.
Also, I was not aware of the use of online videos to market books. Thanks for bringing this phenomenon to my attention.
06-24-2008
Thanks, Dan. Glad you got something out of it.
06-24-2008
[...] finally, via Enter the Octopus, the trailer for the last Lemony Snicket book that rules so insanely hard I… I don’t know, [...]
07-01-2008
Your page here, Jeremiah, inspired me to get a trailer made for my new scifi ebook, Exit, Pursued by a Bee (like the title?)
watch my trailer here and I’d be interested in your comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnr-135u84c
09-03-2008
The Lemony Snicket trailer is nearly impossible to top. It matches the tone and style of the books, has a hook, and is incredibly snappy and interesting.
I just recently started Way Out Sortie to do book and author videos, since it’s an excellent medium and a great way to interest an entirely new audience.
The catch-22 is generally that the audience that will benefit from this promotion the most is small published authors, who will barely make enough on their initial book sells to even support a moderate video production.
They can’t all be Lemony Snicket quality trailers, but the use of a strong hook, quality stock footage and music can accommodate a decent increase in promotion. Just as long as they’re not the bottom-level cheap, poorly written script, and incredibly slow trailers that are out there. It’s all about balance.
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