Book Trailer Learning Curve

So one of the things that an indy book really needs is a book trailer.  Some of my friends have awesome ones, for example, this one from Susan Kaye Quinn is like a movie:


It's amazing, and really draws you into a great trilogy.  She has several great series and books out, mostly in the YA genre, so go check her out.

My skill level of book trailer creation is not nearly on that level.  However, I think it's a skill set that I am pretty well matched at learning because of my years of webpage development, and my eye for cool.  Yes.  I said I have an eye for cool.  It's true!

Yesterday, I played around with a Pro version of Animoto and found it very easy to use, very beginner user-friendly.  There aren't as many options as I would like, personally, and I am probably going to look towards a different program, eventually.  But I highly recommend the site for people who are just getting started making a book trailer, who have a really awesome cover that they can use in their video.

Another thing that you'll need if you're going to do a book trailer is a great blurb.  At first, my book blurb wasn't quite right.  A friend and fellow indy writer, Samuel Peralta, who has short stories in two current collections, tweaked my writing a little bit and made it PERFECT.
This is what I have now:

Murdered, then trapped between worlds as a ghost, Meg is surrounded by other lost souls, some seeking to make peace with their past, while others… others fear a killer in the netherworld, who feeds on what ghosts most treasure: memories. As the killer grows stronger, he begins to threaten both the dead and the living, including Meg’s grieving step daughter.  Now a dead woman must fight the battle of her life, for the sake of her friends and family, and find out for herself if love can indeed be stronger than death.

Those short story book collections, which both Peralta & Quinn have stories in, by the way, are below:

and

So once I had the blurb, and my book cover (which you will get to see in due time, gentle readers) I had to supplement a couple of graphics that needed to go in there.  The graphics website Dreamstime.com has professional grade photography and illustrations that you can pay as low as a dollar for using, copyright fairly, in your video.  There are other commercial sites out there, and I'm not going to link to them all right now.  This is just the one I used yesterday.  And I don't get anything from the link, but I found the quality to be very good.

Anyway.  Now I'm all excited by doing this and offered some of my other indy friends that I would make them a video.  I made one for my friend Laura Alford for her novel Chimera today.  It's not ready for the public yet, but I have to say, I even impressed myself.  I'll share the video once Laura & I finish tweaking the details.



Sometimes I realize that my ability to find "other things" to do than writing can be a drawback.  I should be working on my second novel but I really like playing with pretty explosions and music and cool graphics, too.  So, still, indy writing is all about networking, and helping each other out.  Maybe I am not a big fish in even a small pond yet (I'm more a beginner guppy level) but I will grow, and eventually, you'll be looking at links to MY novels on Amazon.