It’s time for Rachael Harrie’s 3rd Writer’s Platform Building Campaign! I participated in this event last year and met so many awesome writers/bloggers. You may remember the Choose Your Own Adventure bloghop Group 9 put together last year. What a blast!
The purpose of the Campaign is to provide a way to link those of us in the writing community together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms.
Click over to Rachael’s blog for details and to sign up.
Book trailers are becoming a popular way for authors to pique interest in their work. At first, I thought book trailers were only a useful tool for published authors. What’s the point of promoting a not yet published work? One word: platform.
In today’s highly competitive writing and publishing world, writers have to take charge of promoting their career and show potential publishers/agents/editors that they are willing to work hard. In an interview with Christina Katz on Writers Unboxed she states, “A platform is a promise, which says you will not only create something to sell (a book), but also promote it to the specific readers who will want to purchase it.”
I found a guest post on Nathan Bransford’s blog titled “How to Make A Book Trailer.” Myrlin Hermes gives a step by step process of how to put together a book trailer for next to nothing. Hermes used Window’s Movie Maker. Though I don’t use Movie Maker often, the challenge intrigued me.
I started with script. If nothing else, this process will force authors to refine their pitch/query/synopsis. It’s so tempting to pack in everything you love about your story, but that will only result in a never-ending trailer. Try to focus only on the main storyline.
Once I finished the script – keeping the sentences as short as possible – I searched for images on Wikimedia Commons. Let me just say I love this site. It’s full of freely usable media files (note: some have some rights reserved). I wasn’t able to find every image I wanted and ended up tweaking my script, but I think that only made it better.
Last, background music. It’s very important for the music you use to be royalty-free to avoid rights issues. Hermes used Incompetech for a donation of $5 per clip. I decided to use Partners In Rhyme.
Quick tips for piecing together your trailer:
I had so much fun with this project I ended up making two book trailers. Since my Novel Clique critique partners were divided about which one I should post, I plan to put them both up for vote.
I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to watch my book trailers and cast your vote on which one will have a permanent home on the Edge of Truth page.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vote For Your Favorite Trailer
Writes By Moonlight 