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

TALL STORY, the book trailer : how Random House unwittingly commissioned my family to do my video

Here it is!

One of the big themes of Tall Story (www.tallstory.net) is the importance of family, that geography and culture should be no barrier to family and extended family continuing to be a part of each other's lives.

Some folk say - and not in a nice way - that there are authors who write the same novel over and over again. Well judging by Tall Story (and the three yet to be published novels I've already written) I'm afraid I am one of those authors. And my recurring theme is family ... specifically: the yearning for.

In Tall Story, Bernardo and his sister Andi are separated by immigration paperwork. In Volcano Child, Mouse digs, thinking he can tunnel all the way to the other side of the world where his mum works as a maid in London. In Ugly City, there's a dystopian city state where parents must leave and children must stay.

I guess, though I am a very happy Filipina living in London, and though I adore my adopted country, the books reflect a homesickness that I have come to accept as part of my daily life. And who could help feeling homesick being so far away from a lovely family like this?

2007. The last time the Quimpo clan were all under one roof. We are six brothers and sisters plus spouses and children!

So I was lucky that the making of my book trailer involved a lot of toing and froing between me and members of my clan. My baby brother Armand Quimpo happens to be a superduper motion graphics animator. Here he is at the beginning of his career:

I started by writing up a script which only featured the voice of one character, Andi. My sister in law, Candice Lopez Quimpo, who (conveniently) is a marketing and communications consultant and edits Baby Centre Philippines, reworked the script to feature the voices of both lead characters, Andi and Bernardo (the book itself alternates between the two voices). Candice and Armand are pictured right.

I asked Candice to explain how she came up with the script development:

Tall Story, for me, is a story in counterpoint. Its setting straddles the culture clash between modern London and provincial Montalban. 

Its narrative is told by two distinct personalities from very unique perspectives (literally and figuratively), who want different things in their young lives.

And yet everything is tied together: by family, by basketball, by hope. I thought the trailer needed to show both conflict and symmetry because I felt, very much, the need to validate both sides of the story and to celebrate the differences. Writing the script, I had to work with restraint. I had to be very sure to say enough without saying too much. To excite without revealing spoilers!

Once we got the script sorted out, Armand created a storyboard - he had to carefully plan each scene, each movement because he was drawing the pictures and animating them - not easy to change your mind once it's done!

Here are some frames from Armand's treatment:

Do you suppose this is what it feels like to work for Pixar?

When I visited the Philippines early this year, my brother Randy Quimpo (who makes corporate videos) filmed my basketball player niece, Camille Ramos, one night on the roof basketball court of his flat. Armand used the film to create the basketball movements - which fly by in seconds!

In London, I recorded my daughter, Mia, doing Andi's voice.

Mia clowning around in front of the microphone and stand I got for my birthday

In Manila, Armand tried to record himself doing Bernardo's voice, and though I liked the result, he decided he had to get a real teenager. My niece Mahalya auditioned her male classmates and found Kevin So who performed Bernardo's voice very well indeed.

Meanwhile, we needed another voice for the end tagline. We decided we needed a British accent and I auditioned a couple of neighbours under the pretext of inviting them to dinner. Lucky for me, Andrew Lewis, who lives across the road, has a warm, gravelly voice like Neil Gaiman and being a barrister, had the ability to deliver the right touch of quizzical humour to the line "What you want is not always what you get ... even when your wishes come true".

And so the book trailer was born. Nepotistic? Well, yeah. But it does everything that Tall Story is about - it brought family and friends closer together from opposite ends of the Earth in the most delightful way. Which does alleviate the homesickness somewhat!

Thank you, crew! Thank you, Random House for unwittingly commissioning my friends and family to make my book trailer.

WORLD PREMIERE: so this was my big idea for the launch of the book trailer - to anyone who hasn't heard me banging on about it - I invited people to post the video on their Facebook profiles and blogs today. In gratitude, I am putting everyone's names into a prize draw - the prize being ... a freshly minted hardback of Tall Story! If you've posted the video without realizing there was a prize, email me on mumatwork AT blueyonder.co.uk with 'World Premiere' on the subject BEFORE NOON TODAY and your name will be included in the draw.

Charlie Higson's Zombie Trailer for The Enemy

Just saw this terrific new zombie trailer flagged on the Tall Tales and Short Stories blog.

Mind you, some author trailers manage to achieve Charlie Higson's look without having written a zombie book.

Titian: the Last Days by Mark Hudson -- a book trailer made by his daughter (hee hee)

Should we get our kids to help promote our books?

You can also view the video here

Love the part where she says: "I think it's boring but my mum read it and she thought it was really ... interesting."

Late add: This video is testament to the hoops authors have to jump through to sell their books. I just read Nathan Bransford's recent blog post in which he asks:

Can you be "just an author" these days, pecking away at a typewriter in a basement somewhere but otherwise completely eschewing publicity and remaining out of the public eye, Salinger- and Pynchon-style, writing in a bubble-like Platonic ideal of authordom?

His conclusion is that an established author could probably pull off a hermit-profile. But really, what with the economy in dire straits, publishers want bang for their buck ...

And one of the best ways to get bang for the buck is to start with an author who is doing everything they can to help out with publicity, thus multiplying the publisher's efforts

We have to live with the realities of our time and sometimes that means making the most of YouTube.

... And now here's Neil Gaiman

These are the best of times and the worst of times.

Continuing on the bitter theme of how authors have to become stand up comics, film makers, actors, performers, self publicists etc etc.

And yet if times were not like these, would we have wonderful videos like this one just released by Neil Gaiman?

If you can't see the video, watch it here

Think what a writer could do with the help of a friendly artist ... and an animator.
 
 

Do websites and book trailers sell books?

Yesterday on Facebook, I launched my new wheeze - web mentoring workshops.

I've been trying out all the different website-creating tools that have emerged online since the advent of Web 2.0 ... and have come to the conclusion that like the dinosaurs, I as a web designer, have finally become extinct.

It's not that people don't need websites anymore, it's just that if you are a small business, a self employed individual or small organisation like most of my clientele it doesn't make sense to shell out a thousand quid for:

• A website that you don't have the skills to maintain and update.
  

• A website that will become obsolete from Day One. Read about it in the Trouble with Websites
  


• A website that you can't afford to constantly be contacting your web designer for support and advice (unless of course, you marry one, which is what my husband did).


• Something you have no idea what to do with. A website is only a tool. Once it's up there you've got to use it. That's something a lot of people who already have websites really ought to understand.
  

Anyway, I am hoping that a lot of authors will agree with my reasoning and sign up for my workshops. I like authors. I really believe that authors can do a lot more for themselves online.

Interestingly, the New York Times yesterday came up with an essay on whether websites sold books:

A survey released last June by the Codex Group, a research firm that monitors trends in book buying, found that 8 percent of book shoppers had visited author Web sites in a given week. It didn’t, however, say how many clicked on the “buy the book” link. Read it all

With publishers continuing to set new lows for book marketing budgets, the beleaguered author really has no choice but to face up his/her e-fears and engage with the internet. This has prompted the rise of a mini industry ...

Still, a sizable industry has sprung up around persuading them to do so. AuthorBytes, a multimedia company started in 2003, has built sites for more than 200 clients, including Paul Krugman, Chris Bohjalian and Khaled Hosseini. They cost from $3,500 to $35,000 — with writers paying about 85 percent of the time. The staff of 20 even includes three employees whose entire job is updating.

I love the Authorbytes websites. If and when my famous writer friends are ever granted lots of marketing spend, I will urge them to go get an Authorbyte site!

If and when.

Otherwise, I suppose they will just have to settle for cheap old me.

My first workshop is on 3 March 2009 in North London.

How We All Used to Think Getting Published Was Like

Lucy Coats (Coll the Storyteller's Tales of Enchantment) posted this on Facebook:

How sweet it is to remember those days when getting published seemed such a happy, easy thing to do.

Btw you might be thinking, she's just posting videos. She's not really blogging. But hey, I'm writing! I'm writing! That's what we're supposed to be doing. Oh, and I've got some website work too. Boo. ZZZ.

"I wish ... " video by my baby brother

My baby brother, Armand, who lives in the Philippines, just sent me this video he made using his own art and my daughter's voice:

Suddenly I can see a future full of animated book trailers.

An Action Movie to Make Your Day and Thinking about Book Trailers

So over on my friend Addy's wonderful fiction blog about Wilf there's an action movie to watch in case there aren't any James Bond replays on at Christmas.

Screenshot from Addy Farmer's Action Movie. Watch it here

Addy's action movie comes as my other writing pal Sarwat Chadda discovers that his publishers have released a book trailer for his forthcoming novel, The Devil's Kiss. Here it is:

Agent Kristin Nelson over at the Pub Rants Blog posted this book trailer for one of her authors which takes the form of a West Side Story themed MTV rap - very interesting, but probably out of the league and budget of DIY book trailer makers like me and some of my friends.

All this adventuring in film-making is interesting and important if you're an author or author to be, as book trailers are now a must-have marketing tool and if your publisher doesn't give you a budget to make one, you might find yourself making one for yourself!

Rather fortuitously, social media consultant Angela Wilson at the AskAngela: Market My Novel blog, posted on the whys and wherefores of book trailers the other day. Her interviewee Sheila Clover English gave these five top tips for producing an effective book trailer:

1. Determine what you want people to know about your book and include that in the trailer.
2. Know what your goal is for the trailer.
3. Create a measurable goal to check how effective the trailer was.
4. Make the first 10 seconds of the video the most gripping or interesting
5. Know your audience and get the trailer to places where you will find that audience Read the whole article
   

As a YouTube dabbler myself may I add my own unprofessional advice:

1. Keep it short and to the point.
2. What IS your point?
   
3. Make it funny (unless of course it's horror - then make it scary)
4. Nobody wants to see ads on YouTube - try to have an angle (I've mentioned this before but Meg Cabot's video for her book Queen of Babble Gets Hitched has hook, arc and punchline and a bubbly, hilarious feel very attractive to her readers.
   
   
   
   
5. And finally: make the book trailer something people will want to forward to all their friends.