Tuesday Tutorial: Building Your Video Empire

Mr. Pish with Jessica Biles of Busy Bee Videography
Mr. Pish with Jessica Biles of Busy Bee Videography

Now, now, Indies Unlimited is “Safe for Work.” Goodness no, I’m not talking about secret sex tapes or video from the hidden camera in the ladies’ locker room. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

I do want to talk about book trailer videos. Those are for your book. Let’s stay on topic here, shall we?

Why have a video trailer? Really, now – a video trailer is like a commercial for your book. It’s a multimedia bubble-gum for the eyes attempt at getting someone interested enough to purchase your book. Some potential customers like static magazine ads, some like flash, color and motion. Magazine ads cost money. Making your own video trailer costs you only time. We’ve had posts here on IU explaining how to make a trailer on xtranormal.com and Animoto. Take the time to read those. Animoto is an amazing tool and has a much shorter learning curve than xtranormal. I’ve made trailers using both and in my humble opinion, Animoto’s where it’s at. Read the tutorial. Trust me.

So, now you’ve made your video trailer. Congratulations! I’m sorry, what? What do you do with it now? That all depends on how ambitious you are. Here are my recommendations.

MINIMUM TRAILER USAGE

Post your video to:

  • Your YouTube Channel  (set up a channel if you don’t have one)
  • Your book’s web page (example here)
  • Your Amazon.com Author Central page (example here) If you haven’t made your Author Central page yet, hop to it! Here’s a tutorial for that.
  • Your Author or Book Facebook Page
  • Your Blog
  • And don’t forget to tweet it.

ENTHUSIASTIC TRAILER USAGE

Here’s a list of sites which specifically feature book trailer videos:

WHOLE HOG TRAILER USAGE

These sites are for photos and videos, or host videos, and it’s one more place people can access your stuff, if they’re browsing.

  • metacafe.com
  • dailymotion.com
  • webshots.com
  • flickr
  • Pinterest

These sites offer video trailer “contests” which will bring you some exposure.

  • The New Covey Trailer Awards
  • Indies Unlimited
  • Sassy Brit/Alternative Reads (not easy to find – uncertain if they still do this. But they do have a “trailer swap” page)

So there you have it. Each time you release a new book trailer video, those are your options for spreading the word. Do you know of others? Please post them in the comments below. And no, I didn’t include MySpace, but if you’re still on it, go for it. Now go forth and conquer the book trailer video world. Because tomorrow we’re having a trailer YouTube like-fest. What could be better, right?

Author: K.S. Brooks

K.S. Brooks is an award-winning novelist, photographer, and photo-journalist, author of over 30 titles, and executive director and administrator of Indies Unlimited. Brooks is currently a photo-journalist and chief copy editor for two NE Washington newspapers.  She teaches self-publishing and writing topics for the Community Colleges of Spokane, and served on the Indie Author Day advisory board. For more about K.S. Brooks, visit her website and her Amazon author page.

22 thoughts on “Tuesday Tutorial: Building Your Video Empire”

  1. Great info! I need to keep this bookmarked for my next book. I did the free 30 sec. Animoto trailer for my first book, but am going to purchase the membership to do more with the next. This will really help me get my next one out there!

  4. This is such a great resource for anyone thinking about a video trailer. Thanks so much Kat and everyone else. This issue is on my to-do list for my current novel, but obviously it needs to be in the tool kit that one is preparing for any new release. God, being an indie is soooo time consuming…

  8. Thanks for that information. I will definitely use it when I have a trailer. It could be awhile so II better bookmark the post.

  9. I’m glad you posted this article. I’ve created two diametrically different videos…for the same book. I was trying to do a Kickstarter campaign and did a funny tongue-in-cheek trailer. When the campaign failed, I revamped and created a serious, more-to-the-point video trailer and have put my campaign on Indiegogo. I haven’t figured out how to put my second video on my website yet, though. I can’t wait for my book to be ready for publishing so I can post it out on the sites you listed. I’ve definitely bookmarked your article for the near-future! Thanks!

    1. Thanks, Marlene! I’m glad you stopped by. Good luck with the release of your book – don’t forget to contact us here to run an announcement post for you. 🙂

  11. Am in the thick of getting my first trailer up and out there. This is such a useful post Kat. I know I already said that, but damn! It is! That said, “Book Screening” which is so well-designed, has a note posted in their FAQs, “Due to time constraints, Bookscreening is not currently accepting new trailers.

    Thank you,
    The Bookscreening Team”

  12. My trailer is up and running all over the place. Thanks for everything Kat. That said, just went to WebShots. They’ve been purchased and merged with Smile. Upgrades galore are coming, they say, but not for a while. (Them guys is gonna lose business bigtime). Here’s what they say:

    “We are transferring our members’ photos and videos to Smile by Webshots, but you will no longer be able to upload photos into your old account or download photos from Webshots. All new activity will be on smile.webshots.com, and the Webshots site will be coming down on December 1.

    For detailed information on the transition, read our welcome page or visit Help.”

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