Thanks for returning! When it comes to success, 80% of your success relies on simply showing up. You clearly care about getting more clients!

In previous posts we covered a lot about what doesn’t work for a book trailer. Now let’s get down to the Nutter Butter cookies. (Wouldn’t you rather get down to the Nutter Butter than to the nitty gritty? Nitty gritty tastes like sand.)

The Three Things Your Book Trailer Must Have

Have you ever seen a commercial and said, “Wow! I don’t know what that was a commercial for, but it sure was awesome!” So, the first thing your book trailer absolutely, positively must have is clarity over what the book trailer is for.

The second thing is the promise of an experience. This part is the hardest of the three. If you manage to create a strong emotional response in the viewer, you’re suggesting they will have similar experiences when they read your book.

That’s big.

If you can get that emotional response, one that matches the emotional response your readers will get when they read your book, you’ve accomplished the hardest part to creating a good book trailer and deserve a Nutter Butter cookie.

The last thing is easy but will destroy the success of your book trailer if it’s not there: a call to action. Briefly flashing the words “Get your copy now at amazon.com” is all you need. The viewers had an amazing experience watching the video, now all they need is to know where to go to get more.

Creating an Emotional Experience

Several factors play a role in creating that emotional experience you want the viewer to have.

Images, especially conveying facial expressions or poses (be they of humans, cats, or other expressive creatures), can do wonders for triggering an emotional response.

Voices and the words they speak, the script, also contribute to the experience.

However, there’s only one thing that really does the most with generating an emotional response:

Music.

Even if your images don’t portray much or the script is bland, the music can be all the book trailer needs to grab the viewer by the gut and say, “You look sad. Have a Nutter Butter cookie.”

That said, as powerful as the music is, it’s wise to give the viewer a reason to feel the way they do. The reason comes through in the script/text.

Example of the Power of Music

Now take a look at how powerful music and sound can be.

In the last post, we saw a fan-made video that, in my mind, did a great job at creating an emotional experience. But to complete the video, I added images for clarity of what’s being offered, music for a heightened emotional experience, and a call to action at the end.

Here’s the “before” video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8X6MHtADZg

Now watch the “after” video and when you’re done, return to my site and write in the comments below: What change do you think had the biggest effect, and why?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhxerqW6A5M

Confession: As simple as it sounds to add the images and music, it took me 3 days before I felt like the trailer was good enough.

Click here for Part 5 of 5

What Makes a Good Book Trailer? Part 3

This entry was posted on September 1, 2010 at 4:15 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Book Trailers by Ezra Barany 2 Comments