Making a book Trailer - yes you can!

Many years ago I studied with a psychologist, Michael Hall. He was inventing new theories and methods for helping people make personal changes. Rather than exhaustively test his ideas he would test them until they were' good enough' and then put them out into the world. When criticised, he said it was more important that people got to try them (while he improved them in the background) than not at-all.

How does this relate to making a book trailer? Well, I make my own book trailers. I use free fonts, free video editing software, free music (from sites that legally allow me to do this!), and free audio editing software. I ask friends and family to help me speak the words that I want the characters to speak.

Do I know how to professionally edit? No, just the basics really. What gives me the confidence to do this?

Well, I used to work for a national women's magazine and one of the editors told me: You can sell a good idea with bad writing but you can't sell a bad idea with good writing. Regardless of whether you think that is true, it applies to book trailers.

If your book trailer even suggests a really great and interesting reading experience to its target audience, you will still get people interested. You apply the same dramatic moves as you do in your plot: you promise that an interesting character will have an even more interesting problem to solve...

The book trailer below - Jesus and Me: One Child's Friendship with the Son of God got an audiobook company interested, and an American tv network who have asked me to keep them informed as a write a script. I also had TWO producers who worked in LA offer to personally help me with the script. Someone offered money to help make a better trailer. A piano teacher who used to write music for adverts offered to do the music for free...

Is it brilliant? Well, you decide. But for the target audience, it's intriguing enough for them to want to see and read more.

Yes, I had to put in the time to learn basic editing etc but I didn't have the money to hire people, and perhaps I ended up being the best person for the job.

You can too.