How to Make a Book Trailer - Part One: Inspiration

Read Part Two >>

Out 5 September 2013. Yes, really!

By Candy Gourlay

Note: I added more stuff after I posted this and added the actual video I made it was officially launched.

Hello, stranger ... long time no see!

I know, I know, for a group blog, we are highly irregular bloggers - but our policy on Notes from the Slushpile is: Books Come First. Blogging and the rest of it? We'll get there eventually.

So this is eventually.

I've just finished making a book trailer for my forthcoming teen novel Shine (gratuitous cover image on the right).

Like many authors I'm not expecting my publisher to shell out for a blockbuster book trailer directed by Sam Mendes and scripted by Richard Curtis. Yup, it's the DIY route for me - terrifying for some but very exciting if like me, you're a lo-fi YouTuber!

Before I got to work on my video though, I had a trawl through YouTube scoping book trailers for inspiration.

The thing about book trailers is ... they just can't compete with movie trailers. And yet so many DIY book trailer makers try to copy the format of actors doing dialogue and proper scenes. Unless you've got a proper budget and real actors and a real director and cinematographer, there's a danger that this full-on approach will make for inadvertent comedy.

But with a budget and a  half, the movie approach does work. Here's the cinematic trailer for Jacqueline Wilson's Lily Alone. Never mind the book, when can I watch the film?



Cinematic trailers are effective in making potential readers want to get to know the characters better. But beware, DIYers: if you cast wooden amateurs you might alienate them.

Added the next video after super talented illustrator Heather Kilgour posted this stunning animation for Going West by Maurice Gee in the comments - definitely not a DIY job. But we DIYERs can learn from the way it blends sound and image in a way that raises the tension to a climax. Author reality check: Unfortunately, author-made trailers tend to be wordy because yeah, Words R Us. We authors love words. But a video is a medium where sound and image count just as much as the words. Write out the script, then see how you can use evocative images and sound effects to throw your punches.



My all time favourite has to be the trailer for The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. To achieve something like this, you'll need an illustrator, an animator and of course, Neil Gaiman to do the voice over. Note that the whole thing is constructed as a set up for the brilliant final line.



One can try recruiting thrusting young film students, of course. I was very impressed by this trailer for Chasing the Dark by Sam Osman aka Sam Hepburn.



Sam says: "When my publisher sent me the design for my new book Chasing the Dark I was amazed to see that the boy on the cover photo looked exactly like my son from behind. Quite a coincidence but it prompted him and his friends to make a trailer for the book."

The director is fifteen year old George O'Regan who is studying film at the Brits school in Croydon. George is available to make more book trailers, contact him via Sam, quick before he's deep into his GCSEs!

YouTube is the thing of the moment - we've all become used to the crackly, handheld, blurry look. Yes. You can get away with DIY if you pretend it's intentional.

In fact, YouTube has plenty of inspiration for the prospective book trailer maker - check out this great trailer for Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver, using the YouTube idiom of timelapse to come to its shocking payoff:



Wise thought that occurred to me after posting: Endings are so important to any kind of work. When you finish a reading book or watching a movie or even listening to a talk, it's the ending that you come away with - that amazing twist, that surprise, that inspiring message. In the compressed format of a book trailer, that final message is even more important. The final message should not be 'Buy this book' ... the message is 'Love this story/character/idea so much you want to know MORE'.

It could be of course that you have an Amazing Friend with the skills to make you a mind-blowing trailer.

I recently spotted this book trailer for Phoenix the new book of SF Said (of Varjak Paw fame) made by none other than Amazing Friend Dave McKean (of Coraline and The Graveyard Book fame!). Out of this world!!! (Trying to restraint the exclamation points ... oops ... too late!!!!!!!!!!!!!)



The Phoenix book trailer highlights the importance of a good voice over talent - even if your visuals look like you scanned random magazines, the voice will resonate and grab the viewer by the ears. There is nothing that alienates an audience more quickly than a mediocre vocal performance. Added tidbit: For my first book Tall Story, I auditioned neighbours far and wide (well, I auditioned my  husband and one neighbour) for a good VO. Luckily my neighbour, a barrister, had a brilliant VO voice. And my hubby wasn't at all upset when I rejected him.

(Nepotistic note: My own book trailer for Tall Story was created by my Amazing Baby Brother Armand Quimpo. Top tip: Encourage one's kin to learn skills that will someday be useful to you)

I have this thing about interviewing young children just to hear the unexpected things they say about stuff. I love talking to young people, they just say it like it is. Here are two inadvertent book trailers I made a while back that came out of chats with the children of author friends:



I filmed Rachel (lying on the carpet) talking about her award-winning dad Mark Hudson's new book Titian: The Last Days. At the end she says, 'Well, I think it's BORING but my mum read it and she thought it was interesting.' The video got a mention in the book's Guardian review.

While visiting my friend Juliet Clare Bell, I found myself alone with young Otto, who decided to tell me the story of Clare's debut picture book Don't Panic Annika! The result is adorable.



And the medium can also be the message - sometimes the DIYness is what makes the video. Here's Nicola Morgan's memorable video made on the website Xtranormal ('If you can type, you can make movies') which craftily manages to promote both her thriller Deathwatch and her non-fiction book Blame My Brain.



Spotted any good book trailers recently?

Coming up next: Part Two - the HOW in How to Make a Book Trailer

Guest Blogger Nicola Morgan on Teenage Non-fiction – What? Where? Who? HOW?

Nicola Morgan’s book on the teenage brain, Blame My Brain – The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed, has been popular and praised ever since first publication in 2005. It’s been translated into several languages and reprinted many times. Now there’s a revised edition, updated with new research and with a new cover.  Nicola is an award-winning teenage novelist as well as a non-fiction writer for all ages and here she is to talk about that elusive category that is YA non-fiction.

The challenge of writing non-fiction for teenagers isn’t writing it but selling it. After all, when did you see a section in a bookshop called “YA non-fiction”? So, when the first edition of Blame My Brain was published in 2005, one of two things happened.

Either, booksellers put it amongst the children’s non-fiction. The trouble with this is that children’s non-fiction books are usually HUUUGE – sometimes thick, but almost always TALL and WIDE and BRIGHT and often SPARKLY. So my sensible paperback was invisible – despite the unsubtle first cover.

Or, booksellers put it somewhere else. Parenting, for example. Or Psychology. Or Science. Or Self-help. Or – trust me, this happened – Sport.

I learnt to play “Where’s My Book?” each time I went into a shop. And booksellers’ eyes would light up and they’d say, “Ooh, Blame My Brain, yes - we’ve definitely got it somewhere…

Write A Great Synopsis with Nicola Morgan

It's a bargain!

The 'Crabbit Bat', Nicola Morgan, is on a 'Write a Great Synopsis' blog tour and we welcome her to Notes From the Slushpile along with her Twitter Buddy and SCBWI member Rebecca Brown. Over to you Rebecca!

With apologies for their shameless advertising of twitter friends products! Maureen 

*tiptoes onto stage, peers nervously into darkness and taps on microphone* Is this thing on? Ooh, yes it is…Hello Slushpilers! I’d like to thank the Academy, my parents…hold on, wrong speech. Ah, here we go.
I’m very chuffed to be doing a post on Notes From the Slushpile, and I’m even more chuffed to be interviewing the fabulous Nicola Morgan about her new ebook, Write A Great Synopsis: An Expert Guide. I intend to write a couple of synopses myself this year and the thought was enough to make me curl up into a corner. Until I read Nicola’s book. Anyway, enough preamble. It’s not really me you want to hear from, is it? 

 *deep breath, cheerful voice, TV smile* Hi Nicola! Thank you for being my guinea pig on Notes from the Slushpile.

Hello and thank you for inviting me! *cracks open Botham’s of Whitby Tops’ cake*

So, think back to those dim and dusty days when you were on the slushpile yourself. Many of us approach the task of writing a synopsis with horror, fear, and the kind of sickly dread that comes of trying to putting yourself and your work into a concise work of staggering genius (pause to pour drink with shaking hand at the very thought). How did you cope with it before becoming published?

I am afraid I have no memory of horror, fear, or dread! Not because I’ve blocked it out but because I honestly never knew there was a problem. I was on the slush-pile for 21 years and I must have spent most of that in a state of ignorance. (Possibly why I stayed there so long – who knows?) I just did the best I could, and I’ve no idea whether my synopses were crap or not, only that they never bothered me. (Probably best I didn’t know, tbh.) It was only in very recent years, since starting my blog and interacting with writers on Twitter that I realized that almost all writers hate or fear them.

And why have you decided to help out us poor Slushpilers now by publishing Write A Great Synopsis: An Expert Guide? Wouldn’t it be more fun to let us fumble our way through?

No, it’s no fun at all watching people fumble! I was born in a school to teaching parents, lived in a school 24/7 (including holidays) until I went to university, and teaching is in my every cell, I suppose. So, I am quite unable to stop myself trying to teach people who look as though they want to be taught, and quite often those who don’t J. So, I’m publishing Write a Great Synopsis because it’s not there.

If you were in a lift with a Delusional Wannabe who was too awestruck to deliver their elevator pitch, what would be your 30 second piece of advice to them (in synopsis writing, I mean. You’re not allowed to recommend alcohol or shoe-shopping)?

If I were in a lift with a Delusional Wannabe, I would pretend to have a highly infectious disease. They don’t listen, you see, so I’d only stress myself talking. But, if you mean that I am in a lift with an aspiring writer, I’d say, “Forget how much you love your book and step into the shoes of someone who has to sell it. Now, get a piece of paper and brainstorm words/elements/episodes; choose the fifteen most compelling-sounding, of which at least 5 must relate to the main character; create a 25 word pitch which only contains what sounds fabulous and which the agent will remember tomorrow because the book sounds special. No alcohol necessary.

Finally, imagine you have written your latest book and are about to start tackling your own synopsis with a light and carefree heart and an inner calm to rival the Dalai Lama. What three things would you have to hand to keep you going? Charms? Lucky boots? Expensive chocolate?

Bearing in mind that I need none of these things, of course, but am never averse to a spot of indulgence: chocolate from Coco of Bruntsfield (in Edinburgh); sparkling wine of reasonable quality and extreme dryness; and new boots, because I always get new boots when I sign a contract and the synopsis will help secure that. (Though, as I emphasise often, it is most unlikely to be the deal-breaker.)

I know you’re on a blog tour at the moment and there’s a competition to enter with a brilliant prize. What do we have to do to be in with a chance of winning and what will we win?

All commenters below (by Feb 15^th) will be entered into the Big WAGS Competition, with chances to win a critique of your synopsis by the Crabbit Old Bat herself! One comment per person on each blog – though you can add to your chances by commenting on the other posts on the tour. Details of all stops on the tour will appear on my blog (Help! I Need a Publisher!) as they go out.

Thank you for asking fun questions. I hope all the writers reading this will soon stop fretting about the synopsis – it’s not nearly as stressful as you think J

*wipes brow* Hey, that wasn’t so bad after all! Thanks, you’ve been a marvellous audience! Rebecca. 

Nicola Morgan, a mega blogger and tweeter of advice on how to get published, is a prolific children's author and runs regular competitions for aspiring authors.

You can follow her here

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/

and here

http://www.nicolamorgan.com/author/

and here

https://www.facebook.com/NicolaMorganAuthor

and here!

https://twitter.com/#!/nicolamorgan

and there's probably lots of other places too.

Rebecca Brown is an aspiring author and you can listen to her podcast interviews with debut novelists and industry professionals here

http://inthewishingchair.tumblr.com/

and you can follow her on twitter here

https://twitter.com/#!/rebeccaebrown