Book Trailers

Similar to a cinematic trailer for a movie, a book trailer is a video preview of a written work, highlighting the narrative, the key characters, and the primary challenge faced by the protagonist and/or the antagonist. As with movie trailers, book trailers should contain attention-grabbing voice-over, a compelling soundtrack, and a well-written explanation of what the book has in store for the reader.

By serving as a teaser to a book, book trailers can be a very valuable component of a book’s overall marketing campaign. In addition to a host of other marketing tactics, a book trailer, if done correctly, can generate awareness, interest, and buzz for an author’s work. Leveraging social media often enables book trailers to go viral, providing greater awareness than simple word-of-mouth might.

When well-thought-out book trailers are done rather quickly and inexpensively, they can provide an excellent return on investment for the author and the publishing company overseeing production and distribution.

A book trailer should contain a number of elements to ensure it gains the attention of its intended audience. The necessary elements include:

• A synopsis of the written work that highlights points of interest while not giving away the plot. This explanation should tease the storyline enough to whet the appetite but not enough to convey the entire story.
• Several reviews or endorsements from trusted reviewers, fellow authors, or readers that position the book as a must-read.
• A compelling soundtrack and visuals that work well with the book’s genre, appealing to those readers and driving them to want to purchase the book.

Effective book trailers should be anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds in length. In a similar fashion to cinematic trailers, book trailers need to be only long enough to include effective use of the elements described above: overview of synopsis, reviews and endorsements, and a compelling soundtrack with video. These things can be compiled to create an impactful book trailer that achieves the goal of generating awareness and interest in 60 seconds or less.

Your book trailer can be shared across a number of platforms. Posting your book trailer on your author website is an ideal way of promoting your book at no additional cost. If you have a distribution list of those who have purchased your previous work, you can send email updates promoting your new book’s trailer.

Promoting your book trailer across social media, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, allows you to organically and via paid advertising share your book trailer to drive sales. Other methods, such as advertising across streaming services, such as Hulu and Amazon, can provide even greater exposure of your book.