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.
