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Guest Expert: Joel Friedlander

My roots in publishing are firmly planted in the print world. Paper made from trees, books bound in boards covered with cloth, signatures sewn together with thread.

Books have always been–until recently–very solid physical objects. You can use them as weights, as doorstops, you can throw one (I don’t recommend it) at a noisy cat. Generations of people have used books as safes, or to press dried flowers between their pages.

So the transition to digital books has taken quite a leap for those of us tied to the idea that a book has pages, that it’s typeset in a specific typeface and all the other attributes of printed books.

But we’ve done it.

Now, authors who blog–and that should be most authors, don’t you think?–are faced with another leap, from words to pictures.

This is no small transition for most wordsmiths. Here is some information about getting started with video blogging that might help make the transition a little smoother.

Video Explodes Across the Web

More and more websites, including blogs, are using video to communicate, and it makes sense. Video is the preferred way for many people to take in information and training. Sites like Lynda.com and Khanacademy.org that provide video instruction are incredibly popular.

Many authors have already dipped a toe in the video waters by producing video trailers for their books to help in marketing and promotion. And people love video.

• It makes the author a more immediate presence, they become a real person when you see them on video.
• It allows authors to offer a much higher level of engagement with their readers and fans. People who will take time out of their day to watch a video are engaged.
• It makes it much easier to communicate visual information or instruction.

But “I” can’t do that!

Video production has been the province of corporations and media companies for a long time. Like book publishing, the tools of production and the skill needed to use them were clearly beyond the reach of individuals.

And just like book publishing, that picture has changed radically in the last couple of years and continues to change today, for two good reasons:

1. Widespread availability of broadband internet access
2. Cheaper, easier and more user-friendly hardware and software to produce good-looking videos

It may take another leap for an author to start to think of herself as a video personality, so it’s fine to go slowly with video.

And if you are horrified by the idea of appearing on camera, realize that you can create videos for your blog or website without having to show your face at all.

Kinds of Videos You can Make for your Blog
There are three basic types of videos you can make, and each has strengths that you can use depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

• Full-motion video—A recor
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A Quick Announcement:
The BookBuzzr Grand Contest starts today with over $2,000 in Prizes. There are daily prizes from today until the grand prize is given away on the 30th of June. Entering is easy. Simply go to The BookBuzzr Grand Contest page and tweet a simple message.

We have some great prizes lined up and they are perfect for authors who are looking for an edge in marketing. So, don’t wait, put in your daily entries now! All the best!

Now onto Laurel’s article on The Book Trailer Lament:

Can Authors Achieve High Production Values on the Cheap?
Guest Expert: Laurel Marshfield

Does Dan (The Da Vinci Code) Brown need a book trailer? Well, no. Dan Brown does not. He’s got two ever-so-suspenseful and special-effects-filled Hollywood movies based on his most popular novels. Novels that sold millions of copies, worldwide, before they were ever adapted for the big screen.

But few authors are Dan Brown.

The Book Trailer Dilemma
Book trailers are for authors whose books have yet to be made into blockbuster Hollywood movies. Also for authors whose novels have been made into movies (Jodi Picoult, for instance, several of whose novels were adapted — including My Sister’s Keeper, which was made into a feature film starring Cameron Diaz). But even for these very fortunate (and hard-working) authors, a book trailer is one of the most arresting ways to attract readers who might not know their latest book exists. Or might otherwise pass it by.

Here’s the thing, though. As an author (who’s not yet as famous as Dan Brown or Jodi Picoult) you most likely can’t afford to spend zillions on a book trailer with production values that rival a Hollywood movie. And yet, as someone with an eye for art — not to mention, craft — you know a schlocky book trailer will persuade no one. And may even be worse than no trailer at all.

So How Can You Create a Breakout Book Trailer?
You want a book trailer that is as visually compelling as it is conceptually evocative. You want a trailer that will give potential readers the overwhelming sensation that your book is definitely due a serious glance-through (and preferably after purchase). But is a book trailer like that do-able on a non-Hollywood budget?

Well, yes, it is — but only if you focus on a simple but artful concept. Only if you put aside any thought of doing a complex, special effects-ridden, multi-sensory-overload, Hollywood-ized treatment that is designed to blast viewers out of their seats.

Just so you can visualize this impossible-to-reproduce type of promotional film (impossible, if your budget isn’t in the millions), here’s one movie trailer for The Da Vinci Code:

Exciting? Without a doubt.

But remember, readers enjoy the solitary pleasure of imagining the world that a good book creates. While movie watchers (the same person, in a different cultural-consumption mode) ex

Guest: Thomas Doane

1. The ‘Viral’ Element: Style/Content

The style of the trailer reflects the content of the book. Shteyngart’s book is a satire; therefore, his trailer is satirical. Obviously, this particular trailer is hilarious, which helped it to become a viral sensation. At 150,000 views, this is not exactly Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday,’ but it’s pretty damn good for a book trailer. I’m not going to go super in-depth into the math since these things are always highly variable, but if the conversion rate on views-to-sales was 5% then that would make this book a bestseller.

Which, in fact, it was. The book charted at Number 11 on the New York Times bestseller list the month it came out.

Obviously, not all of us write satires. The important thing is to match the style of your trailer with the content of your book. If you do this it will engage the audience you’re targeting.

But how do you disseminate your trailer to your target audience? That brings us to the next step in our dissection of Shteyngart’s trailer.

2. Use all media outlets.

This trailer went viral because it was disseminated across all available platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, blogs, PPC, email marketing, etc. It was on the publisher’s site. It was mentioned on Fresh Air. Not all of us get interviewed by Terry Gross but YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are available to everyone – for free! In some cases, you (or your agent) might want to hire someone to amplify and accelerate this process of dissemination across these mediums. Or you could invest some time into learning how to optimize this part of the process yourself.

There are plenty of materials teaching you how to most effectively use social media to promote yourself out here on the blogosphere. You get to choose your own level of engagement obviously, but the whole point of making a trailer is to leverage your impact across these platforms, so don’t neglect this step. More or less, you’re guaranteed to get out of it what you put into it, but you could get a whole lot more out of this step than you put into it.

You want your trailer to go ‘viral’ on some level—whether that means hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of views – and you will be scaled according to a few factors. One of those factors is your level of prior exposure/popularity. That may not be something you can control. But another factor is: How effectively are you using social media? That’s something you can control.

3. Interviews/Budget

Notice the trailer is packed with interviews. Interviews are cheap to shoot, easy to edit, effective, informative and engaging. That’s why. The convention grows out of common sense and is dictated by the generally small budgets we have available to shoot our book trailers.

It would be nice if we all had the budget to ‘engage’ our audience with exploding cars and supermodels. If we had that kind of money, maybe we wouldn’t be so concerned about pumping up our sales. Since we don’t have that kind of budget—and since exploding cars and supermodels are often completely superfluous to the books we’re promoting—interviews will have to do.

Choose great subjects, edit lovingly, and this part should go just fine.

4. Timing

Note that Shteyngart posted his trailer on YouTube July 7th when his book

Guest: Bethany Ramos

First of all, what is a book trailer and how does it play a role in marketing your novel? Just like it sounds, a book trailer is similar to a movie trailer. It is intended to pique the interest of your reader to increase the sales of your novel.

Here are several keys that you can use to make a compelling book trailer to market your novel:

• Get your creative juices flowing. If you’ve already written a novel, then you’re probably quite creative. Make sure to use that same creativity to write the script for your book trailer. Some book trailers may have a narrator voiceover, while others may have words that appear on the screen to describe the plot of the book. The point is that this trailer needs to be interesting, imaginative, and unique to stand out from your competition.

• Start out with a storyboard. A storyboard can be used to piece together the scenes of your book trailer picture by picture. If you’re making a video book trailer, this will help to save you serious time in organizing your content. After that, gather the images or video shots that you would like to use in the trailer. It is important to either purchase stock images or use public domain photos that are not copyrighted.

• Add text and music to your images or video. Once you have your still images or video organized, now you need to spice it up with text and music. Remember, this book trailer is supposed to be similar to a movie trailer. You want it to grab and maintain the attention of your audience so that they will be interested in buying your book. Once again, don’t use music that is copyrighted since you could be sued for copyright infringement.

• Now it’s time to go public. After you have edited your book trailer with your images, text, and video, it’s time to market your trailer on video sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo, and your own blog or website. And don’t forget to share a link to your book trailer with all of your followers in social media to help spread the word!

Creating a solid book trailer is a powerful marketing tool for your novel. Try to make your book trailer as brief as possible, anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. If you create a trailer longer than 5 minutes, then you’re likely to lose the attention of your audience and turn off potential buyers.

Oh, wow.  Just . . . wow.  Some of you may already be aware of the Boogie Woogie blog, run by author/illustrator Aaron Zenz and his three kids.  The fact that it may be the best blog out there in which kids participate in the discussion of children’s literature is evidenced by nothing so much as today’s video.  I hope you stayed for the credits.  This is their contribution to the James Kennedy 9o-Second Newbery Film Festival (to be held in my library in November) and if it doesn’t rock your socks off, nothing will.  Failing that, James received some more submissions on his blog the other day, including this magnificent take on The Witch of Blackbird Pond from Mrs. Mrs. Powell’s 5th grade class at Laurelhurst School in Portland Oregon.

Remember, folks, to get you kids’ classes involved!  Have them make a video of their own and submit!  I admit that the bar is high, but there’s a lot of great stuff going down.  We’d love more submissions.  Keep ‘em coming!!!

Speaking of contests, I was tipped off about this fantastic video contest the Ottawa Public Library held for its teens.  The Teen Tech Video Contest may sound like it’s YA fare, but many of the videos submitted were definitely of children’s books.  And of the children’s books they covered, my favorite (hands down) was this take on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

It came it second to The Outsiders which, this being Ottawa, says that they are on the “outside” of society in a delightfully Canadian way.  Be sure to check out some of the other videos going on there.  These Ottawa teens have some mad talent.  Big time thanks to Jane Venus for bringing these to my attention.

Picture book trailer time.  I think the genius behind this take on the Katie Davis book Kindergarten Rocks is the first child featured here.  Methinks the the child doth protest too much.  In any case, if your cute kid quotient is low for the day, here is the perfect cure: